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Fr Pat Collins CM, a lecturer in spirituality at All Hallows College in Dublin, explains how the Holy Spirit can speak to us and guide us in practical ways in our life.
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Guided
by the Spirit|
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I must admit that, like many men, I am fascinated by mechanical gadgets such as radio controlled watches, hand held computers, MP3 players and the like. My current favourite is a satellite navigation system, known as a GPS (i.e. a global positioning system). This computerized gadget is used by people who travel by road. They enter their departure point and destination into the GPS. It works out the best way of getting there with the aid of satellites orbiting above the earth. It has a twofold ability to offer guidance. Firstly, an arrow offers precise visual directions on a coloured map which is displayed on a screen. Secondly, a woman's voice gives specific instructions. If perchance the driver makes a mistake, the mellifluous voice graciously suggests an alternative way of getting to the destination, without a hint of criticism. Since purchasing a GPS, I have neither consulted a map for directions or got lost. It has struck me on a number of occasions that the Holy Spirit is a bit like a spiritual GPS. It can give those who are tuned into its inspirations the guidance needed for the journey to God. If perchance we make a mistake or ignore its promptings, the Spirit doesn't condemn us. Rather it suggests an alternative way of reaching our destination. In my youth I was very much attracted by the following prayer for divine guidance, which was written by Cardinal Mercier. "O Holy Spirit, I had no peace A few years ago, I was sitting at my desk thinking of nothing in particular. Suddenly the thought came spontaneously into my mind, why not write a new prayer, which would be a modern alternative for Mercier's prayer for guidance. My immediate reaction was to say yes. I felt it would be a relatively easy thing to do and wouldn't take long. So I set to work, thinking I'd complete the task in a day or two. In the event it proved much more difficult than I had ever anticipated. I wrote one draft after another. But none of them satisfied me. Pages were repeatedly scrunched into a ball and thrown into the wastepaper basket. Many was the time I thought to myself, "why am I putting myself through all this hassle. After all no one asked me to do this!!" Then I'd abandon the project for a while. But I would have no peace. So I'd have to go back to it again. This went on for months. I lost count of all the versions of the prayer I wrote. None of them really satisfied me. At one point I published a provisional version, in the now defunct New Creation magazine, and asked the readers for their feedback. Having taken their replies into consideration I wrote yet another version. I still was not entirely satisfied with it. Stepping out in faith But believing that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly, I brought it to a local printer intending to get 500 copies. I was shocked when he told me how much each one would cost. But he added. "if you got 5,000, the price for each one would be proportionately cheaper." Although I thought it would take years to sell them, I decided to think big, and ordered the larger number. A few days later I collected the box of new prayer cards and returned to All Hallows College where I was living at the time. As soon as I came through the front door I was greeted by a priest and a lay woman, who were standing in the foyer. They asked, "Are you Fr. Collins?" I said that I was. "We heard you were writing a daily prayer to the Holy Spirit," they explained, "and we have come to see if we could buy some." I said that, by a remarkable coincidence, I was returning from the printers and that the box in my arms was full of the prayer cards. "How many copies would you like?" I asked. "Well, to start with we would like 1,000 copies" replied the priest. I nearly dropped the box with surprise. He wanted exactly twice the number of cards I had originally intended getting printed. That was many years ago. Since then I have sold well over a quarter of a million copies. Thank God, they're still in demand. Recently I got another 10,000 printed. Signs of the Spirit I learned a number of important lessons from that experience. Firstly, if one responds to a God given prompting, it will be associated with inner consolation as long as one follows it. Secondly, when an impulse is prompted by God, it will invariably bear fruit. Thirdly, whereas, a GPS offers mechanical guidance, the Holy Spirit gives spiritual guidance in many ordinary ways such as a holy desire, a twinge of conscience, an inner prompting, or a revelatory word of scripture. He can also guide us in charismatic ways such as a religious dream, vision, prophecy, or word of knowledge. One way or the other, we are enabled, like Jesus, to be "led by the Spirit" Lk 4:1, and to "be guided by the Spirit" Gal 5:18.. So why not say the following daily prayer to the Holy Spirit which, I believe was prompted by the same Holy Spirit: "Father in heaven, your Spirit, is a Spirit
of truth and love.
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