Hajja Salesjana April-June 2022

about our awakening. As St Francis notes: “I cannot awaken, nor can I move myself unless you move me. But when you have moved, then, O beloved spouse of my soul, ‘we run,’ we two. You run before me, ever drawing me forward, and for my part I will follow in your path by consenting to your call.” 4 Here we come face to face with the essence of Salesian prayer, the human heart being drawn through these interior movements of divine inspirations into the very Heart of God. This, in turn, is allowing ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit because inspirations are always God’s initiative. Of course, although the divine goodness draws and attracts us, we are left free to respond: “In spite of the all-powerful strength of God’s merciful hand, which touches, enfolds and bends the soul with so many inspirations ... grace has the power not to overpower, but to entice our heart.” 5 The essence of inspiration is the way in which God addresses us intimately and reveals his will to us personally. As St. Francis expresses it, “His vital breath is called inspiration because by it supreme goodness breathes upon us and, therefore, inspires in us the desires and intentions of his heart.” 6 Inspiration allows for mutual friendship between God and us because Jesus reveals the ‘intentions of his heart’ and speaks to our hearts. As André Brix comments: “The Salesian method is situated at the level of freedom and personal inspiration. Inspiration reveals that God would like to act in an absolutely original and authentic manner in each freedom, so as to change the world and create it. It is not a question of forming a regiment of obedient robots. Inspiration is to do with my acting in a concrete situation where no-one else can take my place. We must let the exterior be born from the interior.” 7 Whilst inspirations remain always the initiative of God’s grace, nevertheless, we can foster an interior disposition that makes us vigilant and ready to respond as the occasion arises. The cultivation of such an interior disposition allows us to respond to these inspirations ‘carefully, frequently, and promptly’ 8 while ‘leading an ordinary life to all outward appearances. 9 ’This inculcates “the virtue of devotion” which ‘is nothing other than a general inclination, readiness of the soul to do what it knows to be agreeable to God. It is that enlargement of heart of which David said ‘I have run the way of your Commandments, when You did enlarge my heart.’” St. Francis, therefore, “invites us ‘to do everything by love’ because he knows that love broadens the heart while at the same time keeping it simple and master of itself.” 10 Indeed, St. Francis argues that if we only “accepted God’s Photo by Fabio Comparelli - www.unsplash.com 11 April - Ġunju 2022 hajja