my self-confidence waned. I had been part of a “couple” for so long. Everywhere I looked there were couples … my parents, my sibling, my friends. I was single now. How would I fit in? I forgot just how much I had shared with my ex-spouse — from the material goods in our home, the parish we belonged to, and the list goes on. I had to start over, but where and how?
I prayed like never before, or at least I thought so. Oh, how I talked to God. “Help me, Lord, to get through this day.” My mind was so cluttered.
Since I chose to move out of “our” house, my parents were wonderful, letting me move back in with them until I got my feet back under me. I had never lived alone. I had moved from my parents’ home to “our” home once I was married. But now I needed a place to call “my” home.
One day after the divorce was final, I got up the courage to make an appointment with a real estate agent. I was scared to death. A voice in my head kept telling me, “You can’t do this. You’re much too cowardly. There are budgets, bills, maintenance, and upkeep. How do you plan to do this on your own? What if some noise scares you in the night? Who will come to your rescue?”
As all this was going on, I stopped by my parish to drop some materials off, and I met Sister Marilyn, our director of religious education. When I confessed my troubles to her and told her I was praying, she said, “You are praying. But are you listening? Let God speak, and the Holy Spirit will guide you.”
That was THE turning point in my prayer life. All my life, I had been so busy trying to solve my own problems by telling God what I needed. I honestly don’t remember ever asking the Holy Spirit to guide me. I went into the cathedral and stared at the crucifix to catch my breath. I felt a calm come over me, maybe for the first time ever.
I don’t think a day has gone by since that encounter with Sister Marilyn in the parish parking lot that I haven’t asked the Holy Spirit for guidance. “Guide me in helping someone … Assist me in making this decision … Help me to see what you want for me … Let my words be your words.…”
I remind myself to listen, too.
As for my house … I prayed to the Holy Spirit to guide me to a place I could feel safe, secure, and happy — a place I could call home to start my new life. It took a few weeks, but I walked into this house, looked around, and I knew that the Holy Spirit led me here.
— Jill Adamson
Learning to Listen
Listening to the Holy Spirit is not something that comes naturally, but it is something that can be learned. Start by jotting down, after Mass, any spiritual insights that came to you in the readings, homily, music, or in your Communion meditation. Before long, you will begin to see how the Holy Spirit is guiding you.
It’s also a good idea to set aside a specific time every day for listening. Start with ten minutes in the morning and another ten minutes before you go to bed. In the morning, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you through the day. Then empty your mind and spend some quiet time, slowly praying the name “Jesus” until a calm sense of God’s presence comes over you.
In the evening, think back on the day. Reflect on how the Holy Spirit may have been speaking to you through people and things that happened. Listening will open you to an exciting new awareness of the Holy Spirit, who leads us down paths that we never would have chosen for ourselves!
The Day We Couldn’t Pray
There can be times when a person cannot pray, not even the Holy Name, simply because terror can strike unannounced in a split second.
My daughter and I had spent a great summer day up in the Adirondack Mountains and were motoring toward home in the early evening. We were traveling a flat stretch of highway flanked by high brush on both sides of the road. We were keeping to the speed limit, meeting no traffic, except one car a good distance behind us.
And then, in a flash, a huge, dense, perfect circle of pure fire rolled out from our right, across the front of my pickup truck, and kept on rolling into the brush on the opposite side of the road. It was as high as the engine hood and equally as wide.
My daughter let out a prolonged, horrific, blood-curdling scream, while I was so frozen in fear, all I could do was strangle the steering wheel. Neither of us spoke or even looked at each other until we stopped at the next village to calm down.
Why didn’t the truck explode or burn to pieces? Why could I find not even a hint of charred metal on the truck’s hood? This huge fire had been right there, flush against us. We thanked God that we were okay.
Some months later, during a radio call-in show, a man related a similar happening in a Midwest field of grass. He wanted to know what it was. The answer was that this was a rare occurrence known as ball lightning, when ground-level, high-energy electrical forces come together. But the talk show host never explained why nothing burned in the man’s experience or in our experience.
My daughter and I speculated that maybe our guardian angels swept a hand down between an inch or so of the fire ball and the hood of my pickup. Or maybe the Holy Spirit was praying for us from deep within when we couldn’t.
— Elizabeth Fenn
The Prayer of the Holy Spirit
In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul explains that in our weakest moments, when we are unable to pray, the Holy Spirit takes over and prays on our behalf. “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
My Prayer Was for a Husband
I was attending a Life in the Spirit seminar, where I was encouraged to regularly pray, read, and write. I was twenty-eight years old, lonely, and wanting to find love. Needless to say, my prayer was for a husband, and my requirements went something like this: “A Catholic man, who loves and respects his family as he will love and respect me, a man who values hard work and working together, a man who wants a family of children to raise with faith, kindness, and compassion.”
Six years later after finding the fulfillment of God’s love, I married my husband who was the completion of my prayer. My prayer was answered, and I now have a husband, selected for me by the Holy Spirit, and a family that I prayed for.
— Patricia Morgetano
What is a Life in the Spirit Seminar?
The purpose of a Life in the Spirit seminar is to introduce participants to the Holy Spirit. The sessions include prayer, music, talks, testimonies, and small-group sharing on a variety of topics such as God’s love, developing a relationship with Jesus Christ, recognizing the power of the Holy Spirit, using the gifts of the Spirit, rejecting sin, growing in faith, and carrying the Good News of Jesus into the world.
“You Will Be Accepted”
Whenever my husband, Jack, and I did volunteer work, it was always social work — beginning with migrant ministry. Jack reached a point where he no longer wanted to work in the family business. He wanted to do people work. So he applied to the School of Social Work at the University of Buffalo … but something went wrong. The person in charge of the admissions committee would not even talk to Jack!
That August, we went on a family retreat vacation. We prayed our hearts out for Jack to be accepted. On our last day, one of the other mothers had a medical emergency, and our friend Mary suggested that we go into the chapel and say a pray for her. So four of us — Mary, her husband, Jack, and I — knelt to pray. We had our arms around each other. Just before Mary started to pray in tongues, I said, “Let’s pray for Jack, too.” So we prayed, and I had tears running from my eyes like faucets.
Later that afternoon, I said to Jack, “I’m not sure how this will work — whether it is this September or next September — but you will be accepted at the University of Buffalo. I know it is going to happen!” A few days later, we got a call from the university. The man who refused to speak to Jack took a job in California, and