Blessed Holy Spirit, I am insignificant, weak and powerless the tasks facing me are enormous . Around me storms are raging that are affecting nations . The evil spirit even though has no hand, tongue and yet it is still wreaking havoc. There is always someone who is willing to serve it, to give it his hand, tongue, heart, mind so it can harm, injure and laughing at all of us can destroy us. It can incite people, nations , people coming from different culture against each other. Taking advantage of our faltering faith, weakened in Your Omnipotent Caring Goodness it is encouraging us to mistrust , be afraid of our brothers and to take away from others even that, what is theirs . Rousing the passions in a world of consumerism , that it is no longer where we live but with our overstimulated lives, we serve, enrich such people’s unimaginable wealth, whom we may not even let into our own abodes. We buy on credit, we get into debts for all sort of junk without even noticing it that we are building the culture of death around us . Man is no longer important, but the factories, the banks , the roads. Man is nothing but an instrument that carries out, executes , hands over , serves , every four years votes, goes to war , kills , pillages .
Aware of my weakness I call out to You , life-giving Spirit :help , guide, give me strength so that I can tell, show the two thousand year old road, way that is open to us. Grant us the understanding that our Heavenly Father together with the saints who trust Him created such a beautiful world for us over the billions of years , abundantly filled our “satchels” , giving us everything necessary for our existence, for our earthly prosperity. Grant us the knowledge that all our writhing is not hopeless, the atrophy, the collapse of our Hungarian nation, our Christian world in the Carpathian- Basin is not unavoidable because there is a future in the light of Your eternal truths.
Help me to cry out two very important truths to the world , hearing those surely our people , our nation could be reborn . Immense prospects would open up before this beautiful world that is home for us all.
I. The poverty of the gospel , the Franciscan simplicity:
Every big reform , regeneration of our history is linked to the sorting out of our relation with the financial world. It was no mere accident that our Lord Jesus Christ came among us in the poverty of the stable and took on manual labour to ensure an existence for Himself. The soul trusting in God knows that there is someone to take care of him , pays attention to him , like a father with his child, and that is why that living a modest, unpretentious life , is happy in this world
Help us our Lord to put an end to this pursuit of trampling everything down for the financial gains . This plea is not hopeless , as mankind discovered in time , that by consuming two dinners , that will ruin them. An overweight body is not only unsightly but can also be the cause of death. We understood that it is no good to buy a pair of shoes two sizes bigger than needed and going after our companions wearing them as they will cause sores on our feet and we won’t be making any faster progress . Help us to understand if our place is too big, the acquisition of the many-many superfluous material objects , their possession, guarding, using them will take away all our energy from life , and we are not really living anymore but we are running around in circles just to keep up the false illusion of wealth . Of course everything we have is a gift from You our God, but we should not want to possess it but we should admire it . Some people’s houses are bigger, nicer , like a museum , many people live in greater comfort than royalty and for them even this is not enough . They build such luxurious holiday places and won’t even set foot in them .
This unstoppable desire of possession is like a destructive drug of addiction , that makes you dependent, burns you out, isolates you from everyone and and buries you under damnation.For the political power our party-s , our governments want to serve this immeasurable hunger, greed and putting everything else aside they are measuring life in economical indexes . Of course their wealth depends on our devouring consumption.
Help us blessed Holy Spirit to understand how sweet is the freedom of the Franciscan simplicity, the life based on the gospel . You do not want us to lead a wretched existence but that we live and enjoy life .You do not want us to chase castles in the air , on the verge of collapse in the pursuit of material things, to live in fear of loosing our false treasures but that free from the desire of possessions , admiring everything , smiling at everybody, giving thanks for the daily gifts , travelling through our lives at length, with that assured faith that Your wonderful Kingdom awaits the ones cleansed from their sinful desires .
II.The second value that I would like to cry out to the world that could solve all our problems in life are the commandments of solidarity and love :
It is so delightful and and wonderful to take in a child or more in trouble . Here and there we are given money , properties , donations and without giving it a second thought I’ll pass it on , because it is good to be good , to travel on the path of love . I do not give away even what I get gritting my teeth but gladly because solidarity , goodness give rise to good sisters and brothers and for the false mammon I get such assets that are worth immeasurably more , making me happier .
How tense , difficult it must have been for Saul to set out on the way of anger, hatred to Damascus to capture the Christians . Our Lord Jesus Christ reached out to him , started a dialogue with him, and Saul searching for happiness finished up by becoming converted . He gave up everything he owned and as a simple tentmaker he earned his living by the work of his two hands, he travelled the world as known then to love and to do good. At the end of his spiritual life he wrote The hymn of love . I often try to imagine this bearded old man , the apostle, who travelled a very long way to take the good news of Jesus Christ to the pagans , who was really put to test by love , and now sitting by the flickering candle writes to his Corinthian followers perhaps the world literature’s most beautiful poem the “Hymn of Love “.
Blessed Holy Spirit help me to be a true advocate of the solidarity that would save our world . How different would our world be if the 150.000 American soldiers who went to Iraq instead of being armed to the teeth , but rather with empty hands , but with good intentions to help build schools , waterworks, hospitals.
We also had few visitors from the west , their kind-hearted , wise presence, solidarity made us richer , and brought peace into our hearts . There is no other way than the way of love and solidarity that even if only for a short period of time , but every now and then mankind followed that road and during those times the world was always renewed.
I believe that mankind has not reached its own boundaries yet. There is no ceiling above us to stop our soaring . There are incredible perspectives ahead of us. We still have not fulfilled God’s first commandment yet :" “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. “ Moses 1,28. I believe that life created by God can never finish in a dead-end street, there always is a solution and every new solution arises from the millennial answers. My Lord help me so that I can encourage my brethren that with living faith , hope , love we open a new chapter in the life of our people, our nation and mankind.
I get started bravely , and I speak loudly because I know that You do not want to sell us junk from a market place, You do not want to force such laws on us that break, cripple us but You want to show us the road leading to happiness . My Lord, I believe in You , and I desire that freed from the possessiveness of the material world freely I can walk on the road of love . I beseech You to give me companions that we also, like the apostles or like their follower Saint Francis, we set out and we spread the good news , that there is a solution , revival for all of us.
I beseech You humbly to help , and start a Missionary Community that not only with words, but with love and goodness travel around our villages , towns, knock on every family’s door, take hold of the hands of every weary men , to help to do good , to think, pray, search for an answer together, to console, to bring hope to our brothers and sisters suffering in body and soul.
Blessed Holy Spirit ! On Pentecost Sunday 2007 , I ask You humbly to come down on us , fill , help ,lead us, increase in us , console us , guide and transform us so that we can be blessed.
Father Csaba
Böjte Csaba OFM
Déva 27 May 2007
translated by dr Kalotay Eszter 4 June 2017.
Blessed Holy Spirit, I am insignificant, weak and powerless the tasks facing me are enormous . Around me storms are raging that are affecting nations . The evil spirit even though has no hand, tongue and yet it is still wreaking havoc. There is always someone who is willing to serve it, to give it his hand, tongue, heart, mind so it can harm, injure and laughing at all of us can destroy us. It can incite people, nations , people coming from different culture against each other. Taking advantage of our faltering faith, weakened in Your Omnipotent Caring Goodness it is encouraging us to mistrust , be afraid of our brothers and to take away from others even that, what is theirs . Rousing the passions in a world of consumerism , that it is no longer where we live but with our overstimulated lives, we serve, enrich such people’s unimaginable wealth, whom we may not even let into our own abodes. We buy on credit, we get into debts for all sort of junk without even noticing it that we are building the culture of death around us . Man is no longer important, but the factories, the banks , the roads. Man is nothing but an instrument that carries out, executes , hands over , serves , every four years votes, goes to war , kills , pillages .