"Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ's sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God." - St. Seraphim
Like the traveler pitching his tent in the desert, the Holy Spirit takes possession of souls as their most sweet guest. But unlike the traveler, who folds his tent as morning breaks, the eternal guest stays on. The tent he pitches in the soil of our barrenness is something divine – a sketch, a reflection, of our heavenly home. In it dwells grace that divinizes the soul, divine charity, the supernatural image of the Spirit who pours Himself into our hearts, and all the virtues and gifts. These are the conditions of His indwelling, so that He may begin His work of sanctification, and direct us with the strong, gentle influence of love.
His ideal is to reproduce Jesus in us, and through Jesus and with Jesus, to take us to the bosom of the Trinity and glorify the Father with the supreme glorification of Jesus. Through the shadows of faith, we … try to get a glimpse of this divine work, to see how, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, souls are purified, illuminated, and enkindled until they are transformed into Jesus, who is the ultimate ideal of God’s love and of the aspirations of the soul, the glorious summit of the mystical ascent where we find peace and happiness – where we find God. - True Devotion to the Holy Spirit, Archbishop Luis M. Martinez
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