July 9
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeTuesday in Whitsun Week
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? S. Luke 11:13.
HE not only gave, He poured forth, poured out the Holy Spirit, that His love might through Him be poured out, in an overflowing stream, into our hearts. We should of ourselves have beheld, cold and unmoved, our Saviour's love. But that this might not be He giveth us His Spirit. "Christ," saith one who loved much, "dieth and deserveth to be loved. The Spirit touches the heart and causeth Him to be loved. Christ doth that for which He should be loved; the Spirit that whereby He should be loved. Christ commendeth His exceeding love in us; the Spirit giveth it also. In Christ we see what we should love; from the Spirit we receive whence we should love. From Christ, then, is the occasion of love; from the Spirit the affection. Now, since 'the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost Which is given us,' being loved, we love; loving, are fitted to be yet more loved."
Light of Light, O shine, we pray, In our inmost hearts to-day.
Like the rose's perfume In some woodland grot, Thou art present, Jesu, Yet we see Thee not. Rose of Sharon ever blest, Be our Joy, our Hope, our Rest.
Whom the ear perceives not, Eye may not behold, How the hearts of children Lovingly enfold; We believe with holy fear, Seeing not, we feel Thee here.
191.