Asking for help is often a hard thing to do. Our pride, fear, or control-freakiness keep us from seeking assistance when we need it. In this edition of By Your Life, we explore the benefits of asking for and accepting the supreme help that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Mass Readings Audio
http://usccb.org/bible/readings/060919-day.cfm
Pentecost Sunday – June 9, 2019
Happy Birthday, Mother Church! Welcome to the sixty-third episode of By Your Life. I’m Lisa Huetteman and I know that you have a hundred different things you could be doing right now, so I thank you for choosing By Your Life. If you haven’t already, please sign up for notifications on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Himalaya, or wherever you listen, or on the right side of this page so I can let you know when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend, if you think they would benefit from By Your Life.
My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.
In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for Pentecost Sunday Mass during the day. The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, tells of the strong driving wind (Acts 2:2), the tongues of fire (Acts 2:3), and “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.” (Acts 2:4) Then we hear about how the people of Jerusalem were confused, yet astounded and amazed because they each heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:6) This was not something the apostles could do on their own, rather, it was the Holy Spirit speaking through them.
A couple of years ago, we had a guest speaker who presented at a ministry meeting. She teaches in the seminary and is a sought-after speaker for parish missions and staff development. She told a story about a time when she was invited to the Dominican Republic to facilitate a program. She arrived the day before and the organizer asked if she could speak Spanish or whether she would need a simultaneous translation. Because “hola, adios,” and “gracias” was the extent the vocabulary she remembered from high school Spanish, they decided a translator would be a good idea.
The next morning, she gave her presentation and when it was over, she asked her translator if she had spoken slowly enough for him to keep up. He said to her, “I didn’t have to translate one word. Your Spanish was perfect!” You might imagine her surprise. Actually, she was not surprised. She totally understood what had happened and was grateful to the Holy Spirit for answering her prayer for an impactful program. She had invited him into her work, and He showed up by enabling her to speak in their language!
Stories like this remind us that the strong driving wind is still covering the earth seeking souls that are open to receive him. We just need to invite him in.
If you are listening to this, you probably have received the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation. These Sacraments leave an indelible mark on us and therefore can never be repeated. However, receiving the Holy Spirit isn’t a “one and done” proposition. Every day, every hour, every minute, we need to open ourselves to him so that He can enlighten our intellect, direct our will, and move our souls so we may love completely. And this means, inviting him into our work.
Let’s think about it. If we invite him in, we receive his gifts—the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. What workplace would not benefit from these gifts? What business would not be better off if all its employees were wiser, more understanding, better able to judge promptly and rightly, especially in difficult situations, willing to stand up for what is right even if it means rejection, more knowledgeable, humble, and grateful to God for his blessings?
Although wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord are great qualities in human terms, when the Holy Spirit bestows these gifts, they are fortified with graces that enable us to accomplish things we could never do on our own.
Let’s take wisdom, for example. According to an article on Psychology Today:
“Psychologists tend to agree that wisdom involves an integration of knowledge, experience, and deep understanding that incorporates tolerance for the uncertainties of life as well as its ups and downs. Although wisdom can be acquired only through experience, by itself experience does not automatically confer wisdom. Only now are researchers beginning to investigate the social, emotional, and cognitive processes that transmute experience into wisdom. They note that wise people generally share an optimism that life’s problems can be solved and experience a certain amount of calm in facing difficult decisions.”
Wise people share an optimism that life’s problems can be solved. #catholic #catholicleaders #leadership #wisdomThese psychologists are trying to use science to explain what people of faith already understand. Want to know why wise people are optimistic that life’s problems can be solved and are calm when facing difficult decisions? Ask Pope Francis. (From his General Audience in April 2014) He’ll tell you that wisdom is what the Holy Spirit works in us to enable us to see things—to see the world, to see situations, circumstances, problems, everything through God’s eyes. When we allow the Creator of the Universe to help us see, of course, we can be optimistic that problems can be solved.
Or, let’s consider understanding, which is defined as the power of comprehending and to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories. Again, Pope Francis explains, “The gift of the Holy Spirit is much more than human understanding or the intellectual prowess with which we may be endowed. Rather, it is a grace which only the Holy Spirit can infuse, and which awakens in a Christian the ability to go beyond the outward appearance of reality and to probe the depths of the thoughts of God and his plan of salvation.” (From his General Audience in April 2014)
The Holy Spirit takes each of these gifts and puts them on steroids to strengthen and deepen them in us for the glory of God. But in order to benefit from these gifts, we must let him in and to make God the center of our lives, including our work lives.
I was talking about this with a friend of mine and we both agreed that throughout our faith journeys, we learned to trust God and turned over our concerns about our families, our health, our relationships, but when it came to our work, we struggled with letting go and trusting God. For some reason, we either don’t think he’s interested in our business success or don’t think he can do as good a job as we can, or we just don’t know how to let him take control.
Why is this so hard to do? We tend to think that God is for Sundays, or God is for the time we spend volunteering, or God is for our prayer time in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, He wants to be a part of those times, but he wants more. The problem is our tendency to think that work is what we must do to earn money to live and when we’re not doing that, we can spend time with God, or family or friends. We behave like giving ourselves to our work and giving ourselves to God are mutually exclusive propositions.
Giving ourselves to our work and giving ourselves to God are not mutually exclusive propositions. #catholic #catholicleaders #leadershipThis was what Chris Patton thought. Chris was the President and a third-generation owner of his family’s automobile business in Georgia. About five years ago, I wrote an article about Chris for Two Ten Magazine. He shared that he realized he was working in the dealership six days a week worrying about profitability and business decisions. Then, he spent a little bit of time with family and that left Sunday mornings, and occasional Wednesday evenings for his spiritual life. He knew that God wanted his entire life, so he had to change.
Chris didn’t know what it would look like to give God 100% of his time, but he knew he couldn’t do it in the car business. So, he approached his father and told him he wanted to leave. But God knocked him on the side of the head and said, “I’ve got you in a leadership position in this business with 75-100 employees. It is a business that financially can produce huge resources and have a huge influence. You are exactly where I want you, so do everything you have in mind to do ministry-wise, just do it through the business!”
This was a new paradigm for Chris. He grew up thinking that you separate business from politics, religion and SEC football. It never crossed his mind that you could do business as a ministry. With his father and brothers’ blessing and support, Chris decided to stay and recommitted their company as a Christian business—a business with an eternal purpose. Referencing the Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14), Chris said, “God gave us the business as one of the talents. We needed to invest it and use it for eternal impact and not just financial reward or a quality of life for our families and ourselves.”
This is likely a new paradigm for many of you too. Not all of you were given all five talents and you don’t own your own business and don’t have the ability to commit the companies you work for to God’s work. That’s okay. You were given two talents or one talent, and you can do whatever you can with whatever you have and commit that to an eternal purpose. But, start by asking for help and inviting the Holy Spirit to come in.
Pope Francis said, “When we welcome the Holy Spirit into our heart, He immediately begins to make us sensitive to his voice and to guide our thoughts, our feelings and our intentions according to the heart of God.” (From his General Audience May 2014) When we do this, truly do this, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit. That is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22)
Welcome the Holy Spirit into your heart and he will guide your thoughts, feelings, and intentions according to the heart of God. ~ Pope Francis @Pontifex #catholic #catholicleaders #leadershipThis is what the psychologists who were researching wisdom observed, joy and peace. The optimism and calm that wise people exhibit are simply fruits of the Spirit. Bishop Barron said, “The flag of the Holy Spirit is joy, not giddiness, but joy combined with peace. It is the connection at the depth of your soul to the Spirit of God that gives you harmony and serenity that can endure any changes in your life. If you are connected to the Spirit, you have joy and peace.”
I guarantee that you’ll make better decisions this week if you invite the Holy Spirit into your workplace. So, let’s pray and do just that.
Almighty God, Adorable Spirit, Truth, Love, and Light, fill my soul with grace. Enlighten my intellect, so that I may know truth. Direct my will, so that I may choose good. Move my soul, so that I may completely love You, the Father, and the Son. Amen.
May God bless you abundantly this week and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen.
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