"On the Sunday after Easter, as the Gospel was read, which says that our Lord breathed on His Apostles and gave them the Holy Spirit, St. Gertrude besought Him very earnestly that He would give her this grace also. "If you desire to receive the Holy Ghost," He replied, "you must touch My hands and My side, as my disciples did." By this she understood that he who desires to receive the Holy Ghost must first touch the side of our Lord, that is, he must acknowledge how much the divine Heart has loved us in having predestinated us from eternity to be His children and heirs to His kingdom, and in pouring forth such benefits daily, notwithstanding our ingratitude; that he must also touch the hands of our Lord, that is, reflect with gratitude on all His labors for us during the three-and-thirty years of His mortal life, and in His passion and death. . . . He who acts thus cannot fail to receive the Holy Spirit, even as the disciples on whom the Son of God breathed. Our Lord then breathed on St. Gertrude, and said to her: "Receive the Holy Ghost." Life of St. Gertrude."
CALL TO ACTION: Act as St. Gertrude did.
Source: "The Fountain of Living Water" by Rev. A. A. Lambing, LL.D., pages 2-3; Fr. Pastel & Co. (copyright 1907); Nihil Obstat: Remigius Lafort, S.T.L., Censor; Imprimatur: John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Photo by Tahiro Achoub