258th Meditation
“Come, my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord” (Ps 34:11) – the psalmist tells us, and the Book of Proverbs stresses, “The first principle of wisdom is the fear of the Lord” (Prov 9:10).
We know the fear of God as one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It teaches us a great gentleness in our relationship with God, which will later also have an effect on our relationship with our neighbour.
It was the Father Himself who sent us the Holy Spirit, so that He might complete the work of salvation. When He dwells in our hearts and cries out to us: “Abba, beloved Father” (Rom 8:15), He gives us a profound understanding of God’s being and relationship to us: He is our beloved Father. No one can convey this truth to us better than the Holy Spirit, who is the love between the Father and the Son.
By indwelling us, the Holy Spirit ensures that our dealings with the Father are in accordance with what He deserves. Perhaps we can say that the Holy Spirit is gentleness personified in our heart. Attentive as an “eagle of love”, He is always ready to stop at once any offence to God. If we live in the watchfulness of the Spirit, we perceive such an offence already in its first manifestations. Indeed, it can begin in a lack of gentleness, in a lack of respect, in over-familiarity and other similar attitudes.
Thus, in the voice of the psalmist we hear the Holy Spirit himself, who wants to teach us humans the right way to deal with God, so that our relationship with the Heavenly Father is marked by both love and holy reverence: “Come, children, listen to me: I will instruct you in the fear of the Lord.”
The Spirit will also teach us to correspond to the desire that the Father expresses over and over again in the Message to Mother Eugenia: that we know Him, honour Him and love Him.