231 part i: sunday meditations for the entire year As for you, rejoice because you possess the true Spirit together with the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; and give great thanks to the good God, because He makes you walk in the truth. Then, from now on attend to any and all of His inspirations, and try to carry them out in your deeds, lest they may seem like pearls cast before swine (cf. Mt 7:6). 3. “the Spirit of truth” (Jn 15:26). If you want to recognize whether someone has, or whether you have, the Spirit of the Lord, [f.55r] consider whether he is a lover of truth and also whether you attend to truth. Concealing the truth is characteristic of a diabolical mind, and not admitting the truth is proper to the evil one. He who neither tells the truth to others nor allows it to be said to them is not of God; nor is the one who neither hears the words of God, which are the truth, nor proclaims them to another. On the other hand, if you welcome as precious the rebukes made to you, you have the Spirit of God. If you acknowledge the faults of your past life, and your present defects, if you atone for them and correct them, you have the Spirit of God. If you also bring others to recognize their evil deeds, repent for them, feel disgust for them, and correct and atone for them, you have the Spirit of God. Every desire for virtue, and every disapproval of vice is proper to the Spirit of God, because these are the best things. In truth every good gift comes from the Father of lights (cf. Jas 1:17). But when you acknowledge and see that you have degenerated wholly into the old man, Adam, pray to the Lord, together with the penitent king, during Holy Communion: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps 51:10). Call upon the same Lord, the Spirit, for help, saying ardently: “Come, Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home Shed a ray of light divine! Come, Father of the poor!
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