Manning Count Down

This is the penultimate post on Manning’s works for now.

I am sorry to leave the work of this great man. I feel a connection to him from my stay at St. Mary of the Angels for three months in 2012. Daily, I worshipped in the Church where Manning himself sometimes came, and in the buildings where the Oblates of St. Charles lived, I lived for a short, but happy time.

The Holy Spirit moves us and others to form our lives. The Holy Ghost is, as Manning teaches us, “the efficient cause of all grace.”

The Holy Ghost raised Christ from the dead. The Holy Ghost came into the Church and into us at Pentecost. And, we need His help now more than ever.

“And as the Holy Ghost is the Creator and Sanctifier of the Church,” writes the Cardinal, “He is also its Guide and its Light.”

Manning quotes many references from St. Paul in this last chapter. I highly suggest a study of St. Paul through Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans. Manning decries the loss of the realization among most Catholics that we have the Indwelling of the same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead and who recreated the world through grace and gifts.

How do we become unconscious of this grand heritage of the life of the Spirit within us?

“…ay, even from your Baptism…the Holy Ghost has been within you; all through your growth, in your childhood, in every age, in all your spiritual life, the Holy Ghost has been with you, springing up as a fountain of grace. You have been encompassed and enveloped by the love of God.”

…

“We have been wasting the grace of God all our life long, and there has been a hand unseen pouring in oil, lest the light of the lamp should die out.”

…

“The Giver of all the sweetness of God is within you, waiting only for you to ask it of Him. He has shed it abroad in your hearts even when you have not asked it…”

Cardinal Manning stares we must do three things. First, we must adore the Holy Spirit as we do the Father and the Son. Second, we must “…have a more lively conception of His presence within us.” Third, “…we must realize and have a perception that He is at all times bearing ‘testimony in our hearts that we are sons of God.’ We must in turn speak with Him, and love Him, and praise Him, and glorify Him, both by inward acts of adoration in our soul and by outward acts of obedience in our lives.”

We must also make reparation to the Holy Spirit for our many sins. I shall continue in one more posting.