Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

"What the soul is to the human body, the Holy Spirit is to the Body of Christ, which is the Church" (St Augustine)... The Holy Spirit makes the Church "the temple of the living God" (2 Co 6:16; 1 Co 3:16). Indeed, “it is to the Church herself that the 'Gift of God' has been entrusted.... In it is in her that communion with Christ has been deposited, that is to say: the Holy Spirit, the pledge of incorruptibility, the strengthening of our faith and the ladder of our ascent to God.... For where the Church is, there also is God's Spirit; where God's Spirit is, there is the Church and every grace” (St. Irenaeus). The Holy Spirit... works in many ways to build up the whole Body in charity: by God's Word...; by Baptism, through which he forms Christ's Body (1 Cor 12:13); by the sacraments, which give growth and healing to Christ's members; by "the grace of the apostles, which holds first place among his gifts" (Vat II, LG 7); by the virtues, which make us act according to what is good; finally, by the many special graces (called "charisms"), by which he makes the faithful "fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the Church” (LG 12). Whether extraordinary or simple and humble, charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefit the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.

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"He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you"

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