Do This in Memory of Me: Holy Spirit Sanctify Me

By: Laura Worhacz

“The Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit sanctified Mary in order to make her a worthy tabernacle for the Divine Word: for this, it was necessary to create another heaven; Mary had to be Immaculate in order to receive the Word into her being.” - St. Peter Julian Eymard

Dearest Eucharistic Family,

I wondered what God would have me do this summer in my spiritual life. Our Lord recently reminded me through prayer of Our Lady’s espousal to the Holy Spirit. Our Mother and the Holy Spirit, one in and through the Body of Christ, wed together, made one... We are the offspring of the spirit of God’s eternal love. Born into our baptized life, into the family of God. We hear our Mother and the fruits and gifts of her spouse if we keep our souls in communion with Jesus. God longs for us to be sanctified, to hear His voice; we are blessed to hear the Word of God, keeping God’s Word close to our hearts, allowing It to create us, like Mary, into “being”.

My family continues to live in the grace of the moment, through the intercession of your prayers, with my husband Raymond’s end-stage liver disease. Last week he was on the verge of another hepatic encephalitic episode (when the brain is affected by the toxins in the body). Submission to God’s will is what we must do to keep our hope alive. We are renewed in the abiding presence through the reminder of Our Lady’s espousal to the Holy Spirit of life, which refreshes the security our souls. The words of the Magnificat can be proclaimed in the midst of sufferings, in the midst of tears and the unknown, “My soul doth magnify the Lord!”

St. Paul in Romans 8:37-39 magnifies the reality of the Eucharistic life we live in with no fear. “No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We have the promise of Our Father in His Gifts of the Holy Spirit. A forceful breath has been gifted to us. Like Mary, we make a worthy Tabernacle for God’s life in our souls, the breadth of God will reign through us.

The Merriam Dictionary defines Breadth: 1. Distance from side to side: width the height, breadth, and depth of each piece. 2. Something of full width begins with a breadth.

Convinced of the love of Christ Jesus by the breadth of the Holy Spirit sanctify our lives. Amen