Spiritual Fruit: Perseverance
Gift of the Holy Spirit:  Piety

Jubilee Year of the Holy Spirit—Gift of the Month, Piety

This month we ask the Holy Spirit to activate and strengthen within us his gift of Piety. Although piety, especially in today’s contemporary age, is often seen by many as merely a set of exterior postures and gestures, such as blessing ourselves in public or genuflecting in church before the tabernacle, rooted in superstitious behavior which we should long ago have outgrown. This is a shallow view. Others simply do not understand the reasons for these gestures or think they are outdated in our sophisticated age. The external actions of piety, when they are rightly understood, flow from the reverence and awe that is realized within us when we encounter the overwhelming reality of Divine Love. The classic hymn, “How Can I Keep from Singing”, perfectly demonstrates this idea. Pious actions are not a show of our superiority as Catholics, but a witness to Christ’s love. Let no one discourage you in your love for Christ, interiorly or exteriorly, and if “you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling”, ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle it within you.

Jubilee Year of the Holy Spirit: Focus on Bearing the Fruit of Perseverance

This month we also ask the Holy Spirit to increase within us the fruit of perseverance. Perseverance is as necessary as air if we expect to pick up our crosses daily and follow Jesus. Life throws difficulties, annoyances, sufferings and sorrows at us daily. They are the consequence of Original Sin, and there is no escaping them until the great return of Christ or the joy of Heaven if we have so lived our lives well. God does not remove these sufferings from us because they are the “narrow and difficult path” (Mt 7:13-14) that leads us to our particular salvation. Rather, Jesus came to help us carry them. He lifts the gate and shines the light which lights the way. Perseverance is the gift that enables us to overcome all obstacles. The Morning Offering is an excellent prayer we should pray each morning that “unites all our joys, sufferings and sorrows” to Our Lord. In these, we share in the work of Jesus in enabling not only our own salvation, but the salvation of others (cf. Colossians 1:24).

Heavenly Father, in this month of February, we ask you to send your Holy Spirit in its cleansing power and evangelical purpose upon Our Nation and especially upon the people of the Diocese of Kalamazoo. We pray for our Bishop Paul that he may be ever more effective in his ministry and mission to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to the people of our diocese, and we also pray that, when the time comes, the Holy Spirit will appoint a worthy successor who will protect the flock, proclaim the Truth, and be an efficacious proclaimant of the gospel. We ask the Holy Spirit in this month to increase within us your fruit, especially perseverance, in order to better model Our Savior as we unite our joys, difficulties, and sufferings to him for the salvation of others and ourselves, and activate in us the gift of piety that enables us to reflect Christ's love in all the good he does for us each day to those we encounter who deep down thirst for meaning and the love of God and his goodness in their lives. We ask this through the same Jesus Christ Our Lord who lives and reigns, God forever and ever, amen.

Exemplifying the Fruit of Perseverance:  
St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin  - Feast Day February 8  (You may print out and read it for the cenacle as a meditation.  Feel free to edit as appropriate)
St. Jerome Emiliani - Feast Day February 8  (You may print out and read it for the cenacle as a meditation.  Feel free to edit as appropriate)
Exemplifying the Fruit of Piety:  
Saint Scholastica, Virgin - Feast February 10 

(said in addition to the other opening prayers to the Holy Spirit)
“Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.”

Week 1: Luke 2:22-40
Week 2: James 1:2-27
Week 3: Gen 6:1-22, 7:1-5
Week 4: Philippians 4:4-23
Week 5 (if needed or may be used as a substitute reading): Matthew 6:1-21 
 

Also, the following reflections may be read after the reading is read. There is one for piety, one for perseverance, as a follow-up to the appropriate readings. I would read one per week.
On Piety:
This month we ask the Holy Spirit to activate and strengthen within us his gift of Piety. Although piety, especially in today’s times, is often seen by many as merely a set of exterior postures and gestures, such as blessing ourselves in public or genuflecting in church before the tabernacle, rooted in superstitious behavior which we should long ago have outgrown. This is a shallow view. Others simply indifferent to them viewing them as relics of yester-church, and really are no longer relevant or necessary for how do they really add to what God already has in his own infinite divine joy? Reinforcing this view, we hear the words of Jesus himself who reminds us in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, verses 1-21, that we are not to make a show of our pious actions in such a way that we are seeking to show ourselves as superior to others in our holiness for such is not the gift of piety at all.
     Rather, our external actions of genuine piety, should flow from the reverence and awe that is realized within us when we encounter the overwhelming reality of Divine Love. The classic hymn, “How Can I Keep from Singing”, perfectly demonstrates this truth.  Our external actions should be practiced as our little expressions of love flowing from our interior love for the Divine Love from whom all love flows. As Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta which she takes from the spirituality of “The Little Flower”, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, “The littlest things given to God are made infinite by Him”.
     In the same way, Our Lady at Fatima encouraged us through the three children to whom she appeared and instructed to make acts of love as acts of sacrifice in reparation for the sins of others which wound the Sacred Heart of Jesus. How much more so in this day and age, and yet how we rarely, if ever, are we reminded of her request, which was really at the heart of the reason she came in the first place? There is a prayer which Our Lady asked to be attached to all such acts we make that was taught to the children by the angel who appeared to them in the months before Our Lady came that goes, “O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” In such actions are genuine piety demonstrated. Let no one discourage us in our love for Christ, interiorly or exteriorly.

On Perseverance: 
This month we ask the Holy Spirit to increase within us the fruit of perseverance. Perseverance is as necessary as air if we expect to pick up our crosses daily and follow Jesus. Life throws difficulties, annoyances, sufferings and sorrows at us daily. They are the consequence of Original Sin, and there is no escaping them until the great return of Christ or the joy of Heaven if we have so lived our lives well. God does not always remove these sufferings from us because they are the “narrow and difficult path” (Mt 7:13-14) that leads us to our particular salvation. Rather, Jesus came to help us carry them. He lifts the gate and shines the light which lights the way. Perseverance is the gift that enables us to overcome all obstacles. The Morning Offering is an excellent prayer we should pray each morning that “unites all our joys, sufferings and sorrows” to Our Lord. In these, we share in the work of Jesus in enabling not only our own salvation, but the salvation of others. As St. Paul reminds us, “I make up in my flesh, the sufferings lacking in Christ (cf. Colossians 1:24).