Truth of the Spirit with Patti Brunner gives solutions and understanding for overcoming personal barriers to the fullness of graces of the Holy Spirit. Preparing the Heart for the Holy Spirit involves trust and forgiveness. This is part 4 of Discovering Life in the Spirit. For discussion questions, video & audio links or the blog please continue below.
The reason for Truth of the Spirit to include this next topic of Preparing the Heart for the Holy Spirit in our Discovering Life in the Spirit series is that people form barriers in their hearts that reject the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has redeemed us and offers us the Sacrament of Baptism and pours forth His Grace of Conversion into our hearts. How else can we prepare our hearts for the fullness of the Holy Spirit? What barriers in our hearts limit us from Discovering Life in the Spirit?
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. I’m your host Patti Brunner. The fourth talk for you in our series is: Preparing the Heart for the Holy Spirit – Discovering Life in the Spirit.
Is your heart already full of something else? What choices do you make each day? Do you live your life to build the kingdom of God? Do your choices honor God? Each day matters. You matter. Your decisions matter—even very small ones. Do you pray each day? Those who say, “I don’t have time to pray” are robbing themselves of the benefit of the grace that pours forth.
Is your heart full of worry? Most worry is based on fear. All fear causes worry and anxiety. The answer to ending worry and anxiety is to end fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Why is that? Because Perfect Love instills trust! God who is Perfect Love instills trust. Trust overcomes the fear of every outcome. When we allow fear of the outcome to overshadow the good, we live in fear rather than trust. We need to remember that God is quite aware of our abilities and disabilities. He has a plan of joy for us—in this life and the next. When we are sick and our bodies are overcome by disease our soul can still be in ‘perfect health’. Since our body will not enter the kingdom in a state of deterioration but in a glorified perfected state— why should we worry?
When we rely on our own understanding and power, who do we turn to for help? There is no one and we sink into panic mode. Our loving God the Father reaches out to help us when we run to him in time of trouble and chaos. That’s very good. But is there a better way? Instead of rescue in trauma, could not relationship with God and trust in God be a simpler way? Relationship and trust are part of Life in the Spirit. Awareness of the magnificent benevolence of God allows us to turn to God in large and small things and avoid the panic. Life in the Spirit makes that available! Does life have problems? Yes. Are solutions found in the world? Sometimes! Are solutions found in the supernatural Kingdom of God? Always! Do not use God as a last resort. It is never wrong to seek God first for our answers and help. He is the Giver of gifts. He loves us perfectly. He shows us the Way. He is the Way, the Truth, the Light of Life.” [John 14:6]
Trust is key; a key unlocks that which is hidden from sight. A key does not create a treasure but merely reveals it. In every Catholic church Jesus is present behind the ‘veil’ of a closed tabernacle. What about a closed heart? In the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist God is given your heart to dwell within. He remains with you until the end of time as long as you don’t kick Him out through final hatred. If you turn Him away, even if you reject God through serious sin, He returns to the repentant heart quickly. What is the key that allows His return? Trust—trust that forgiveness is possible; trusting God that He will not hold this against you for eternity.
As you trust God you will have joyful anticipation above worry. “Joyful anticipation” is about HOPE! All prayer can fall into the category of joyful anticipation even in sad situations. When a loved one is sick and you worry about treatment and recovery, the peace that surpasses all understanding can enter the heart by communicating with God and surrendering with hope and trust. Is everyone healed in this world? Is every one rescued? Reading the lives of the martyrs would seem to be a big ‘No”. Yet, in joyful anticipation of eternal peace and joy, the martyrs bravely accepted their deaths and offered their pain and separation from loved ones to embrace eternity with God. When you read the Sacred Scriptures and the witnesses of the saints and holy men and women and see what the Lord has done, you can then hope that what the Lord has done for others He will also do for you—whether it is a need in your family or a need for healing or for mercy or for eternal life. Scripture shares that God does not ‘play favorites’. What He does for one He does for all. The Salvation of the Cross was for all mankind for all generations. Hope reigns supreme because of this truth.
When someone worries because of mistakes made, the hope of redemption of that sin—the truth is known—the hope of reconciliation leads the repentant heart toward the grace of reconciliation and the truth becomes fact for the repentant heart. God offers forgiveness when we repent our sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To confess your sin to Jesus through His ordained priest causes a momentary worry of embarrassment but the joyful anticipation of peace through forgiveness urges the sinner to set aside the worry. When you are willing to lay down your will—for winning at all costs—and are willing to submit to a greater power, the turmoil and battle gives way to peace. Often the sin of pride keeps the battle going too long and casualties and injuries occur that affect what should be an exhilaration of peace. Why do we struggle with surrendering to God? He is not an enemy who seeks to destroy us. No, He is a loving Father who knows what is best for us. Yet we hold on to control. Desire to always be in control is a barrier to Life in the Spirit. Control is a part of our free-will choices.
All children make mistakes. It is a part of a learning process. Learning by failures from time to time also brings more appreciation when things are done correctly and for proper motive. Success at large and small things brings satisfaction of a job well done or an accomplishment achieved. The problem lies with having regret for mistakes made. When a mistake is sinful, repentance allows sorrow in doing some action or failure to take action, and then it allows a desire to shift your choices to avoid similar mistakes. Regret without repentance only poisons the mind through memory of the failure. For example, if you regret your choice of a car, each time you take it on a trip you will find fault with it. Regret is a strong emotion. Jesus sacrificed his life on the cross to bring peace to those tormented by regret. Surrender of the regret allows the healing to take place, then grace overcomes the regret and peace takes its place in your heart. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is called the Sacrament of Healing for a reason—and it is all about forgiveness.
When you build up a hardened heart to avoid emotional pain it can keep you from Life in the Spirit. Inner healing is a way to approach the healing of memories that are painful for a number of reasons. Grief, also, can cause a hardened heart. Usually when a person cannot seem to heal after a large amount of time the person has regret or attachment. Where do you place your trust? In God? Or in your beloved? By grace, transfer your dependence to God and you will have the strength to be comforted by God. Someone who is supposed to be the encourager, such as a parent, a teacher or a coach,can inflict the most damage in children in abusive situations. Inner Healing is taking out yesterday’s garbage. Although God created man to love one another, when sin entered the world through freewill so did the lack of loving the way God loves. Since there are flaws in people—sometimes causing a cycle of flaws through many generations—people inflict harm on one another. This harm then festers and if not healed quickly can form a sort of scar tissue that shuts off the pain centers around the hurt. This can deaden the soul. This can block the heart from loving and from being loved. Pain, unforgiveness, and regrets can accumulate as garbage. When you stir it up to expose certain elements to the Light, you can stir up a ‘stink’ but exposure helps the resolution. Rather than decay it begins to be seen as rich nutrient and life giving as it takes on the character of rebirth in the metanoia process. Scripture reminds us God takes all things and make them new. God’s grace can penetrate even the ‘rock hard heart’ through prayer and surrender. Like a surgeon who cuts out a tumor God can remove the accumulated garbage by revealing Truth. What truth? That this person with the blocked heart is His Child! That His Love is real. That God loves them and His love does not rely on them acting loveable. What blocks His grace? Free will refusal! The block does not mean that God has stopped loving them!
Another key point in preparing our heart for the Holy Spirit is forgiveness. When you repent you allow God to forgive you. What about your forgiveness of others? Forgiving others is an act of your freewill. You forgive because you were forgiven. This is the basis of salvation. Let that sink in. When you go against this base of salvation it can cause various issues in your life. It steals your peace, it can destroy your faith, it can affect your body, it can cost you your very life—your eternal life. This is serious stuff.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraph #2843 says “It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.” “Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end,142 become a living reality.”
When we pray the Our Father, we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
In explaining this phrase of the prayer that the Lord taught us, our Catechism says, in Paragraph #2840, these strong words: “Now – and this is daunting – this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. 1 John 4:20 In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious [totally resistant] to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.”
Now it comes to this—how do we learn to forgive? The simple answer is to look to the cross. Nothing that has been done to you is greater than that which Jesus took to the cross and yet Jesus forgave them. In fact, that which harmed you was at the cross also. The Lord invites you to participate in his forgiveness.
Let’s look at the consequences of unforgiveness. It compounds the original offense. It takes a hairline fracture that could heal with time and turns it into a compound fracture where the bone is shattered beyond the surface. If it remains that way healing is impossible and infection and decay can set in and the loss of life and limb is possible. It steals your peace. How does unforgiveness steal your peace? The peace that surpasses all understanding comes from God; when you reject forgiveness you reject God and thus you reject not only his presence but his peace. Turmoil, aggravation, anxiety—each enters your thoughts and cause sleeplessness and loss of immunity. From these comes openness to infirmity. Unforgiveness is like a poison you take, thinking you are giving revenge to the person who harmed you. Instead you compound the fracture.
When un-forgiveness takes hold of a person’s life it causes many problems. The door opened through sin is widened. Even those who try to live by the commandments are found “guilty” when there is no forgiveness. Unforgiveness is actually a form of hate against another person. If a person hates somebody, it is a sign that the person is lacking love in their heart. Why? They are not firmly rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, and Christ’s love is not flowing through them. As simple as that sounds, that’s how it works.” Do you hate the person who harmed you?”
John says in his letter: 1 John chapter 3, 15b “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. 16The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” NAB Jesus tells us in Matthew Chapter 5 that if forgiveness is not given or received, our offering is not pleasing to God (cf Matthew 5, 23-24).
How does unforgiveness destroy your faith? When you refuse to forgive, you turn your back on God for allowing the injury against you. You label God as unloving—He who is love! You decide to believe this lie and turn your back on Truth. God is Truth!
The pain of your injury—whatever it may be—destroys your hope and you reject God. For some this rejection is in little ways at first but rejection leads to rebellion and rebellion leads to loss of eternal life. Forgiveness does not minimalize the harm done to you. It does not accept the wrong as right. Forgiveness asks God into the pain and suffering caused by others. Forgiveness takes the sin done against you and lifts it to the cross where the Blood of Jesus redeems it. A simple way to penetrate these wounded hearts that are full of garbage that was dumped by others is through forgiveness. Forgiveness does not require agreement with the garbage. It does not require acceptance of the garbage. It only believes that Jesus took the garbage to the Cross. Jesus offers forgiveness to the one who spread the garbage in your heart in the first place and Jesus asks you to cooperate with Him in forgiveness toward them. How wonderfully freeing it is to dump garbage out of your heart and allow God’s peace to refresh and renew. Then the repair can take place.
God loves you. God also loves the people who fail to love others and sin. There is always hope for sinners to repent. Whether or not sinners repent, they are loved by God. Failure to repent is equal to failure to forgive. The Lord Jesus has taken these sins to the cross. Let go of unforgiveness and enjoy the peace and life that the Lord offers to you. When you make the effort, the Lord will help you–even if, at first, you may need to pray and ask God to help you to want to forgive.
Life in the Spirit identifies the charisms and gifts of the Holy Spirit that offer opportunities for inner healing as we continue to prepare our hearts in our Christian journey towards the fullness of the Spirit. The Truth of the Spirit podcasts have offered many episodes on inner healing, forgiveness, and the Gifts of the Spirit that can help you to overcome the barriers in your own heart as they have helped countless others.
Please subscribe to continue to hear great topics of Truth including this Discovering Life in the Spirit series and check out other videos on our website, PatriarchMinistries.com, or our free YouTube channel. I am Patti Brunner and you’ve been listening to Truth of the Spirit. Come back as we continue to share the Truth of the Spirit. Keep listening—because there is more. So much more! With the Holy Spirit there’s always more!
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.
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Discussion questions for group:
- When you thing of past hurts are they from long ago or recent?
- Have you ever taken a past hurt to the Sacrament of Reconciliation?
- During a moment of bringing Jesus to a situation that needs healing—what happened? (optional sharing) How do you feel now about the incident?
- What sort of worry keeps you from peace? Can you decide to surrender it to Jesus?
- What did you hear in the talk that touched you?
- Discuss your homework from Session #2 session, [Reading Acts10:34-49]
Homework assignment:
Gospel of Mark 11:25, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Corinthians 2:4, Acts 2:4, Acts 4:31, Romans 5:5
Prior Sessions Homework Note:
S1 Acts of the Apostles Ch. 2 and 1st Corinthians Chapters 12-14
S2 Acts 19:1-7 and Romans 8:3-17
S3 Acts10:34-49
S4 Gospel of Mark 11:25, 1 Thessalonians 1:5, 1 Corinthians 2:4, Acts 2:4, Acts 4:31, Romans 5:5
