The Gift of the Holy Spirit
Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit all His life. The Holy Spirit led Him to the perfect will of His Father. The Holy Spirit led Him to sacrifice Himself in love to the Father on the cross for us.
Jesus said in John 4:23-24, “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus told us in John 6:38, “For I have come down from Heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” Jesus is the Word of God, the expression of the Will of God. In John 6:63 Jesus said, “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
The words of Jesus are Spirit and Life. They give life to our soul. The Spirit of Jesus grows and lives in our souls as His words are implanted. Thus the will of God grows more and more in our souls through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in us.
Jesus told us, “My living presence and living in My Divine Will merge in perfect union.” The more of His words, which are Spirit and Life, that live in our soul, the more of His presence, His will, that lives in us.
Jesus said in John 4:32, “I have food to eat of which you do not know,” and in John 4:34 Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”
Jesus told us, “Please partake of My Body and Blood in the state of grace and in total abandonment of your will to My Will. Separate not your state of grace and your surrender. Come before Me in this way.”
So when we come before Jesus, we feed our soul on the Bread of Life. His body, blood, soul and divinity which includes His will, His spirit, His self giving and self sacrificing love.
He is asking us to commune with Him in this way. He said, “A soul cannot come to God unless the soul has surrendered its will to God’s will. God takes you deeper into Him. You abide with God and God abides with you.”
As the Father’s will was food for Jesus, the Will of God, the Word of God become our food. They become Spirit and Life for us. The fruit that we will bear is that we are led by the Holy Spirit to walk the same way as Jesus walked and to love as He loved. The self giving, self sacrificing love of the cross. Jesus said, “I am the Cross.”
Jesus told Nancy, “You love Me only as much as you are willing to suffer for Me, no more and no less.”
Jesus said, “I can summarize love. It is giving, giving for My sake. Think about it, think about all the ways you can give for My sake. The more you give, the more you love.” This giving for His sake [Love] becomes our food. Thus we grow in love.
John 15:12-13 explains how we are asked to give for His sake, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
At the last supper He said, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [Luke 22:19].
When we “Do this in remembrance of me.”, we sacrifice ourselves for love of our neighbor and out of love for Jesus living in our neighbor. We thus “Love one another as I have loved you.”, the self sacrificing love of the cross. The more love of the cross – the more we are in union with Jesus.
Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Nancy saw a vision of a cross all in light. Jesus was alive on the cross all in light and branches were coming out of the cross.
To abide in Jesus then, to be in union with Jesus, we have to be joined in union on the cross – our hearts joined in self sacrificing love.
Jesus said, “I am the Cross,” and “I showed the world myself completely in the cross.”
He bore everything as a sacrifice in love patiently. Think of how He was silent and patient as He was accused wrongly and condemned to death. Jesus said, “Be gentle, kind, loving to everyone. No matter what anyone does to you, says to you, remember first how I treat you and how I treat everyone. You are being invited to walk in My footsteps. Was not My life a life of sacrifice of love for you?”
When we are in union with Jesus, He abides in us. He lives and loves in us and our lives become a living sacrifice of love for Him and our neighbor who He lives in. We think, speak and act as He would. St. Therese of the Little Flower wrote in her autobiography, “Story of a Soul” [see bibliography], “Love is nourished only on sacrifices…” This is the nourishment from the food of self sacrificing love, the bread of life, the fruit of the vine, the fruit of the cross.