The Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, moves us from o­ne stage of spiritual life, you might say, to another.  That's why our journey very much follows the seven mansions that He showed to St. Teresa of Avila.  What He uses to move us, believe it or not, are His own wings--His very own wings.  He gave us an image of that o­ne time. It was an image of the big Holy Spirit at St. Peter's in Rome.  It is a huge stained glass window with an image of the Holy Spirit.  But in our image, we saw that from His body, out through these wings, came the gifts of the Spirit.  I had always seen them depicted before as coming forth from Him in rays, as we imagine Him coming o­n Pentecost.  But in this image, the gifts were coming out through the wings.  And I realized then that this is how He uses His wings.  He can move them to move us, because His wings are the wings of the Church.  And this is how He moves the Church and each person in it. 

Through the seven stages of glory, these seven mansions, and by the seven gifts of the Spirit , the Lord moves us.  And, by the time we reach the end, we will have the full armor of God – it is all the same.  That was such a surprise to me when I first realized it.  This journey is all about the full armor of God! 

One of the first thing which Saint Paul tells us is, "Draw your strength from the Lord and His mighty power."  If there is anything a prayer warrior needs to learn by heart, I believe, it is this sentence from Scripture:  "Draw your strength from the Lord and His mighty power!"  And the gift that the Spirit uses here, believe it or not, is the gift of fortitude--fortitude.  It produces the fruit of joy.  There is a song we sing:  "The Joy of the Lord is my strength."  Fortitude is our strength.  It is a very special gift that we received when we received the sacrament of  Confirmation.  It makes us soldiers of Christ; it gives us courage.  I used to wonder, "Why do we need so much courage?"  We need it at every mansion, every stage of the journey.  We need courage.

In Mansion o­ne, (really in the first three mansions about which Teresa of Avila teaches us) is when a soul is really beginning to take prayer very seriously.  And when that starts to happen, there are changes that occur in our life.  I think o­ne of the gospel stories that illustrates this beautifully is story of the woman at the well.  What precedes prayer always is some kind of a desire to want to connect with God.  If we do not have that desire then not much will happen in prayer.  What brought her to the well there was thirst.  She was looking for water.  We need to draw from the living water of the Holy Spirit.  We need to draw from the living water Himself.  As Paul tells us, "Draw your strength."  We cannot be passive. We need to use our wills actively to take the step to somehow get into prayer, to set aside time for prayer, to make it a priority.  And it is a discipline, particularly that first pillar is silence.

It is a discipline to shut all the noise out of our minds.  It is o­ne to get into your prayer chair or into a little prayer closet, but it can be noisy in there too, because the noise is inside of us.  It takes discipline and it takes courage. 

For some of us it is the experience of "Grin and bear it," or maybe just, "Bear it."  Maybe we are not even grinning.  It takes courage.  Then,  as the Spirit starts to enlighten us with different things that need to go or things that need to change, that takes more fortitude, doesn't it?  You have got to have these gifts.  It takes courage to pray, believe it or not.  It takes courage to persevere in prayer.  Maybe we can do it for Lent--we have a resolution.  Maybe I can do it when I have a special intention.  But day in, day out--that fidelity-- when I have to say "No" to this or "No" to that, I mm making choices.  That takes courage, believe me.  Any of you that have tried to pray seriously for any length of time, over a period of months or years, will know, it takes this gift of fortitude.  Otherwise, we give up.  We don't have than inner discipline.  We don't have that supernatural strength

Teresa of Avila talks about drawing water.  Water she depicts as a level of prayer.  She speaks of drawing water from the well.  This is the first level of prayer.  We have to do a lot of it.  We have to initiate a lot of things in the early stages of prayer.  It takes energy.  It takes time.  It takes patience.  But then, she tells us that there is another level of water.  At this level you do not have to draw.  It is like using a garden hose--not quite so strenuous.  You can hook something up and water a larger area.  That's another level of prayer.  It's getting a little bit easier.  I don't have to exert myself quite so much to get this strength from the Lord, to get this Living Water. 

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s, “Wings,” CD Listening Series