You Always Resist the Holy Spirit (Acts7:51)
Cenacle 4/22/21
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.” Acts 7:51.
St. Stephen, like Moses (Ex Ch 33-34), calls the Israelites “stiff-necked people.” They think they are God’s people because they are circumcised in the flesh, but Stephen points out that they have uncircumcised hearts. That is why they resist the Holy Spirit. The same is true for us. To be able to receive the Holy Spirit, our hearts must first be circumcised.
God has given His mustard seed The Simple Path as the path for the circumcision of our hearts. This is the only way to become and grow as God’s people. A circumcised heart is open, exposed, and docile to the guidance of the Holy Spirit that can then take us into the Kingdom of God (JN 3:5), into the Holy of Holies, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to be consumed in the Trinity.
It is the heart within us, not the exterior flesh, that needs to be circumcised. That is why God has not formed us with many exterior practices, such as endless novenas, consecrations, 40-day fasts, etc. It does not mean that we do not benefit from those practices. In fact, to begin The Simple Path, we prepare for 33 days for our consecration to Mary. Many in our community are consecrating themselves to St. Joseph. All these are indeed beneficial but are not enough.
The Pharisees had many exterior practices, many prayers, cleansing rituals, fasts ... yet, Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, calls them “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in the heart that resist the Holy Spirit.” In our broken humanity, we can perform many exterior pious practices and live opposing the Holy Spirit because, interiorly, our hearts remain hardened and in darkness. All of us, to some extent, resist the Holy Spirit because of our self-willfulness, even though we are not conscious of it.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” Mt 23:25
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.” Mt 23:27
“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” Mt 15:8-9
To live totally docile to the Holy Spirit with no resistance is to accept all, the good and the bad that comes to us, with complete abandonment and trust. This is to live in the will of God. We can only do this when we believe in God’s love for us, expressed in His passion and Cross.
“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Jn 3:8
JN 6:35 “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst.”
It is beautiful and significant that the Church united these two scripture passages, Acts 7:51 and Jn 6:35, in the liturgy of the Mass. What do they have in common? In order for us to believe that Christ IS the Bread of Life, we each must ALLOW the Holy Spirit to circumcise our hearts.
The Holy Spirit desires to prepare our hearts so that the “Bread of Life” can enter our hearts.
The Holy Spirit desires to empty our hearts so that the “Bread of Life” can fill our hearts.
The Holy Spirit, according to our docility, consumes us in Himself so that we can love and desire Jesus Eucharist with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity that performs the circumcision of our hearts, thus preparing our hearts to be transformed through Jesus Eucharist into His living hosts.
“He who believes” (Jn 6:35)
What is required? To BELIEVE with all our heart and mind in Christ fully present Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. A belief consumed in the fire of the Spirit so that we NEVER move out of God’s peace. Everything, the good and the perceived bad, the storms and trials of life, are lived in perfect peace and joy, for we possess the LIVING BREAD!
Belief opens the way to trust beyond our expectations. The Spirit takes us beyond the sphere of what we had considered God’s will and reveals the truth in a deeper way. The truth does not change, but the Spirit takes us deeper into it. If our hearts are not circumcised, they cannot grow. We reject any new understanding.
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
116. What it Means to Believe —Diary of a MOC. P.311
What does it mean to believe in the One sent by God to the world? In order to believe in the Word of God, your heart must be pure. It is only through the Spirit that you can believe My Word, not with your mind but with your heart. My Word is My life that must touch the depth of your heart. A hardened heart cannot feel the touch of My living Word. The intellect can receive My Word and manipulate it, but the Spirit penetrates a heart with My Word and transforms it.
To believe is to abandon yourself to Me so that I can make you a new creation through My Spirit. What is required to believe? Humility and simplicity. That is why I say you must be like a child to truly come to believe and follow Me. You believe with the heart as you encounter the living God before you, as you hear His voice and gaze into His eyes. That is why it is only the pure of heart who can see, hear and truly know God.
Therefore, My daughter, tell My sons to be humble as I am humble, to rely on My Spirit teaching them and not on their own understanding, for their understanding is very limited, but My understanding will bring them to encounter the living God and possess the life of the Most Holy Trinity. (4/25/11)
The condition of our hearts is directly related to our capacity to believe. The purer our hearts become, the greater our faith.
Jesus teaches us that to believe with our intellect is not enough. We need to believe with our hearts. Believing with our hearts draws us to ENCOUNTER the living God. It is in the heart that we can feel the touch of Christ and hear His voice.
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by reason but by the heart.” - Blaise Pascal.
It is the Holy Spirit that PENETRATES our hearts if we allow Him to transform us in Christ.
Holy Spirit consumes all, transforms all, into Love
Message of 2/16/12
I Am the Light of God. The Fire in the burning bush that Moses saw was the Fire of the Spirit of God, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. It is My Fire of Love that consumes all and draws all into union with the Father through the Son. The gaze of Jesus is My Light penetrating your heart and being. The Word of Jesus is My Fire consuming you in Love and blessing you with wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and fear of the Lord. I Am the breadth of the Son, that is why He breathed on His apostles My life. I Am the Fire of Love in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I Am the Love of the Father and the Son. I, the Holy Spirit, consumes all, transforms all, into Love... It is I Who sets on fire every particle of your being in the Love of the Father and Son...
It is I, consumed in the Son as ONE with the Father and Son, Who moves the Son to lay down His life for Love. It is I Who moves you to lay down your life as ONE with the Son. Remain in Me as I desire to remain in you. Allow Me, like Mary, to consume you. Do not give Me any resistance.
