A priest once shared a story with me. One Sunday, after Mass, a young child approached him and asked him a question. “Father, what’s the word?” He did not know what the child meant, so he said, “What word?” The child then said, “The one that will heal my soul.” And the priest remembered the words we say before Communion, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”

​The Word became flesh and dwelt among us… When God speaks, reality is changed. “Let there be light!“ “This is my Body.” “This is my Blood.” How often do we ask God to speak His Word to us? How often do we, like that little child, have the understanding that truly, just one Word from God will heal our souls?

Beloved… this is the word God has been speaking recently to my heart. And, as I listen and try to receive it, I realize that there are parts of my heart that are having a hard time with that. So, He repeats it again, and again, and again… in a different circumstance, in a different place. There are places in my heart where God’s Word echoes and fills the space, and receiving a soothing balm, my soul assents. Yet, other places feel blocked with something I can’t yet name. I ask Jesus to help me listen to Him, to help me believe the Truth about myself, “Lord, say the word and my soul shall be healed.” He listens, and He adds a word… my beloved.

I remember when my kids were little that if they wanted to give us a gift, they needed to get the money first from us. Yet, even if technically I had purchased my own gift, I was delighted to receive what they had purchased with love. It is the same with God. We can only love Him with the love He has given us.

​This is how Jesus goes forth in His mission… grounded in the Father’s love. All He is and all He does, is Him returning love for love. We are the Body of Christ. We are the beloved of God. When parts of our hearts are not able to receive this love, we are not able to fully love. When we don’t act from our identity as a beloved son or daughter of God, we are rejecting the love of God. But God is always the same. The One Who loved us into being loves us now with the same love. Nothing can separate us from His love. 

​Lord, say the word… and help us believe. 
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​A priest friend once told me: “Our eyes are how we see the world, but the eyes only produce images, impressions of the light on the world. Interpreting the images is what 'seeing' is. Both our intellect and our soul give meaning to the images we see to gain insight from them, but too often, we just see with the eyes of our intellect, as most of the world sees. We have to learn how to see better with the eyes of the soul, for that is how we gain wisdom”.
 
In the first letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul tells us to pray to God for a “spirit of wisdom,” that is, for the Holy Spirit’s wisdom to come forth to us. From our relationship with the Holy Spirit, active in our lives, we gain both the exercise of the theological and moral virtues and the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Among the gifts that we receive are wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and awe. These gifts are directly related to each other, for they pertain to “seeing.”
 
Paraphrasing St. Thomas Aquinas, the gift of wisdom is to be able to see the work of the hand of God in all things, in our lives, and in the world. If we use St. Paul’s words from Ephesians 1, wisdom is to “have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.” We are enlightened. 
 
The gift of knowledge is recognizing our purpose as children of God and how He relates to us. This is that we “may know what is the hope that belongs to His call”.  We are able to focus.
 
The gift of understanding is the ability to comprehend how we are to live as followers of Christ. The moral issues become apparent. We are able to discern.
 
Along with this wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, we can also receive the gift of awe, which is to see and comprehend “the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might.” We are able to stand in awe of the greatness of God.
 
I have always been more intellectual than anything else. I have always strived for “understanding” as a means to better myself and to help others. I often, mistakenly, thought that knowledge and understanding would inevitably lead to “wisdom.” That is not the case, though it helps. For the true gift of wisdom to be active in our lives, we must cozy up to the Holy Spirit. We must strive to see the world a little differently, through the eyes of our soul and through the eyes of Christ. The eyes of the soul are opened by the virtues, and living the virtues invariably leads to a life of Grace. Grace is a gift, just like the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If we live a life of Grace, then our life itself becomes a gift, an offering to our Lord.
 
More than anything, we must strive to live in this world with virtue. That is what makes ordinary people into saints. Extraordinary, heroic virtue comes after common, ordinary virtue has become a regular part of our lives. Many Saints recognized the role of the mundane and ordinary in this world. When seen through the “eyes of the soul,” the mundane becomes the foundation of our heavenly work on this Earth. 
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Let us pray: Lord, you are the creator of all that is seen and unseen. You have left us your Holy Spirit to guide us toward the path to Heaven. Help us then to be open to the promptings of your Spirit, that through His guidance we may achieve a virtuous life. Help us see the world as you see it, so that our love may be like yours. May your precious gifts to us also be a gift for our brothers and sisters, and that our eyes be opened by your Grace. Amen.
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By: Laura Catherine Worhacz

for 
“Prayer is the sacrifice of every person, as that of the priest, including the four ends of sacrifice. Priests have two goals, while the ordinary person has only one. He has only one sacrifice – himself. What is his prayer? What is the prayer of an ordinary person? […] The sacrifice, the offering is such a small thing. What has the Church done so that the layperson, like the priest, can have the same victim? This is the work of the Holy Spirit, coming into us and forming the same prayer by his grace and love. This prayer becomes divine by the Holy Spirit working in us. Not only does he pray in us, as St. Paul says, with inexpressible groanings – [postulat pro nobis gemitibus inenarrabilibus] [Rm 8:26], he groans in us with the groanings of love and repentance. He identifies himself with us, so that we may pray with him. He forms in us a spirit of prayer so that we might offer worship to God.”  (Saint Peter Julian Eymard, Personal notes)
 
Dearest Eucharistic Family, to live in a spirit of prayer with “groanings of love and repentance” is a deep invitation from our beloved Saint Paul. It is truly there, in our prayer of this expression, that our hearts are most clearly affixed to God. The Holy Spirit generates through our life journey, by our consent, an exchange of love with Our Father in Heaven. 
 
“The Holy Spirit gives to certain of the faithful the gifts of wisdom, faith, and discernment for the sake of this common good which is prayer (spiritual direction). Men and women so endowed are true servants of the living tradition of prayer.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2690)
 
The gift to us is grace; we exchange our groanings for grace and the blessing to see through the eyes of heaven the sufferings of the present day. How we react to the afflictions of life is the witness of love the world will see from hearts down through the ages who have trusted in being formed in a spirit of prayer.
 
The mystery of our lives unfolds a little more as our hearts are expanded in our relationship with Jesus. Saint Peter Julian allowed revelations to come to him until the end of his days on earth. This revelation is the last book of the bible and to our lives. To live in all that is being revealed at every moment in the embrace of God’s love is a pure gift. To endure suffering knowing they are for a Divine purpose, makes them holy, makes them sacred. 
 
The above excerpt states the prayer of our groaning becomes divine, the Holy Spirit setting fire to the love that unfolds as it is shared. 
 
Summer is around the corner, and it is always a good time for me to be on retreat. Sometimes I make a retreat from my very own home or have the blessing of being away with the Lord. The important thing is to set time aside to pray, listen, and perhaps journal for the special graces God will give to us in conversation with Him.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes the importance for every baptized person to develop a living relationship with God. A spiritual retreat is a great way to do this, through the supportive setting of prayer or teachings. 
 
To prepare our hearts, we may want to take time to evaluate our time with God, our neighbor, and the work we offer on mission with Christ’s Church. 

​To set priorities and stick to them as best we can is helpful. To be docile to the Holy Spirit may be achieved by praying to the Holy Spirit and asking for the power that comes forth from the Gift of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Fortitude, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. 
 
God has given us everything we need to live in His love. He showed us a life lived in the Miracles of Christ, His Son, and blessed us to know Jesus would die for our salvation. To pray and live in an eternal conversation with God by the Gift of the Holy Spirit keeps us alive.  
 
“Pray always and never lose heart.” (Luke 18:1)