Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima
“He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” Declare? This means “to make clear, reveal, disclose, announce.” What is it, then, that the Holy Spirit will make clear, reveal, disclose, and announce to us from what belongs to Jesus? In Baptism He will declare that, as with Jesus, God is our Father, Mary is our Mother, and that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), that we have a share in Christ’s royal and prophetic priesthood. The Spirit will declare that just as He came upon Jesus after His baptism and a voice from Heaven said, “This is my beloved Son,” so will the same Spirit come upon us, bestowing on us Seven Gifts that Jesus likewise possessed, and the same Father will say to us, “This is my beloved.” The Holy Spirit will overshadow bread and wine and declare the very Flesh and Blood of Jesus to you: His own Self will be yours. And so it goes with all the sacraments, and with everything that belonged to Jesus: He has kept nothing for Himself, and it is by the very Spirit of God that all that is His becomes ours. Scripture tells us that “though he was in the form of God . . . he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:6-7). When He emptied Himself of all that He had, how could we have ever imagined He would pour it all right into our hearts?