The totally rad video for this post is down at the bottom because I want you to read this first. There is one very, very important thing you need to know about the Holy Spirit. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM. (2 Corinthians 3:17) 

This post is about praying with the Holy Spirit, for as St. Paul tells the Romans, "The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26)

I can't write a whole series of posts on gifts of the Holy Spirit without mentioning what we call charismatic gifts of the Spirit. If you read 1 Corinthians chapters 12‐14, you will hear St. Paul mention several of them ‐ gift of tongues, gift of prophecy, gift of interpretation, etc. These are distinctly different from what are referred to as the sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are the seven that we have been talking about until now (Isaiah 11:2‐3)

The ocean is one of my favorite things in the world. I even have a list of things that I love specifically about the ocean. Among those is standing on the beach at night, just looking out and listening to the waves. I feel joy, relaxation, and always a little bit of fear. In fact, I've found the more I stare at the ocean at night, the more terrifying it becomes.

 I think piety has gotten a bad rap these days. Society has a certain averse reaction to people who devoutly choose to act differently than the rest of the world. It makes it difficult for others to be courageous and imitate piety themselves, even if they are attracted to it internally.

I've come to believe that to know someone is to love them. Some may say that there are definitely people whom they no longer love after getting to know them, and I can understand and respect that. Deceitful people do exist in this world, and I've had my fair share of similar experiences

Several years ago, I finally became fed up with an unhealthy habit of mine. I felt so weak and powerless against it, but I had finally had enough. In an act of desperation and low self‐esteem, I silently cried out to God, "PLEASE God help me! I can't do this. I'm so helpless on my own." 

I find dictionaries amusing. They're useful of course, but our language often seems contradictory. If you look up "counsel" as I did online here, all the main definitions are true to what I understood the word to mean. However, you'll notice that, apparently, it is "obsolete" to associate counsel with wisdom and prudence.

Do you want to know one of the things that I find most frustrating in life?  Not understanding why. (I'm sure you can probably relate.) As humans we have an insatiable desire to know the reason behind everything, and this frustration has probably caused more people to leave the Church than anything else.

The gift of wisdom is the first gift of the Holy Spirit listed in Isaiah 11. I'm sure we each have our own idea of what constitutes wisdom, but when I think of a wise person, I often picture someone who is advanced in years and experience

The Holy Spirit is one of my favorite topics. Despite his huge significance, I think the Holy Spirit is often overlooked (reminder: you can't have a "Trinity" with only two persons) or misunderstood. By default, this also makes Pentecost one of my favorite liturgical seasons.