Cornelius Deep
Happy Advent! One of the themes of Advent is peace. Peace is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit that we hear about in Galatians 5.
What we mean by fruits is effects, that is, when a person has a close relationship with the Lord and is guided by the Holy Spirit, one of the effects we would see in that person is peace. In the book, “Spiritual Theology” by the Dominican Fr. Jordan Aumann, he highlights that being “guided by the Spirit” is key for the fruits to come about. What does that mean?
One of the practices I have been working on, and I invite you to do as well, is being attentive, interiorly, to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, or put in the language of St. Paul and Fr. Jordan Aumman, to be “guided by the Spirit.” However, we cannot be attentive to the Holy Spirit’s promptings if we are not in tune with what is going on inside of us throughout the day. A crazy thought is that we have more thoughts and feelings interiorly throughout the day than we do exteriorly via our actions and speech. Most of the time, if we are not actively trying to practice being attentive to what is happening interiorly, we won’t even realize it!
For example, I am stuck in traffic trying to go Christmas shopping. Being attentive to what I am feeling interiorly: maybe some impatience, some restlessness, some frustration (acknowledge these interior feelings) but then perhaps even go a little deeper and be attentive to the Holy Spirit and see how He is prompting me in this situation. Maybe He wants me to use this as an opportunity to grow in the virtue of patience or to use this delay in what I have to do as an opportunity to acknowledge that I am in His presence.
The Lord is constantly prompting us throughout the day, but we need to be interiorly aware to recognize these promptings. And when we are doing this, one of the effects that will come is peace, which is something we all yearn for!
Editor’s note: Cornelius is in his third year of Theology study at Mount Saint Mary Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He is a member of Mary, Mother of Our Savior Parish in Utica.
