Restoring Paradise

I love reading the early Church Fathers; there is so much for us to learn from them. So on this feast of Pentecost, as we close this great season of Easter, I offer you a few words form St Basil the Great.

“The Spirit restores paradise to us and the way to heaven and adoption as children of God; he instills confidence that we may call God truly Father and grants us the grace of Christ to be children of the light and to enjoy eternal glory. In a word, he bestows the fullness of blessings in this world and the next; for we may contemplate now in the mirror of faith the promised things we shall someday enjoy.  If this is the foretaste, what must the reality be? If these are the first fruits, what must be the harvest?” 

Come Holy Spirit and enkindle in us the fire of Your love; that we may be recreated in the image of God by Your breath of life, and renew the face of the earth.