The Holy Spirit

When tongues of fire appeared over the Apostles it was their Confirmation ceremony.   They were given the gift of spreading the Gospel through the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Council, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety and Fear of the Lord.  It was not just a speech by Peter that made the crowds convert it was the Apostles going among them and answering their questions, meeting their objections, and with the Holy Ghost in fire in them bringing people to the Kingdom.
They were just ordinary fishermen with no degrees or great learning and many of them probably could not read or write, but the graces they had from God were sufficient.
I remember once being in Newcastle as a lay person working in a parish.  A lady had asked myself and a partner to visit them in the evening since she felt her husband might want to talk about the Catholic Faith and she was eager for his conversion.   I was just in my early twenties and my colleague was a girl of eighteen.  Nevertheless we offered prayers in front of the Blessed Sacrament, invoked the help of the Holy Spirit and Mother Mary and went about our task.  It was that particular evening I leaned about the Holy Spirit.  I had not fear of telling the gentleman why we were here, and went on to talk about the love of his wife, the beauty of marriage, and even my colleague was in tears.  Everything I said was the right thing to say, which was quite a change for me, and afterwards I was amazed at my wisdom, understanding, council, fortitude, knowledge, piety and how awesome God was to allow this.    The man did become  Catholic. to the joy of his wife and family.   Did I do it - like hell I did.  It was the Holy Ghost working in me as He had done with the Apostles that first Pentecost.    Without the Holy Spirit there is very little we frail humans can accomplish. 
I became a Catechist for Confirmation for a short period after Vatican II and was thoroughly disgusted to find nobody really knew what Confirmation was about.   The gifts were trotted out as though this would help the children pass their O-Levels.    There was no understanding of the mystery involved and since most the children had already stopped going to Church the whole thing was just nonsense.    It was after Jesus had taught for three years the values and principles of His Kingdom that the Holy Spirit was sent to give them that fire of Truth that would read the ends of the earth.  Children who have not been taught the knowledge of the Catholic Faith and few are in our Ecumenical Age are not ready for Confirmation especially when they have already rejected the little they have already been told.    How I long for a Church run by Faithful Catholics for Faithful Catholics and the children to be inspired again by the triumphalism of the Truth.          

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