A new love principle

To illustrate the change the Spirit brings about in us, I think of a boy that I once knew. He would not comb his hair, wash behind his ears, clean his fingernails, or come to the table with clean clothes. When he went out the door, he always slammed it. One day he came down, hair combed, clean clothes, hands well-washed, and clean behind the ears. His parents could not understand it. They had begged, coaxed, pleaded, and bribed to no avail. And when he went out the door, he closed it gently. He had met Suzie. There was a new love principle introduced into his life.  This is precisely what the Holy Spirit does for us. It is a love principle. Therefore it will result in a kind of spiritual impulsiveness to do good. A man who loves a woman, for example, will not give her a ring of tin instead of gold, because the gold represents a sacrifice. When we love, the Spirit inspires us, because we are possessed by love to do that which we would never do from reason. That is one of the reasons, too, why the love of the Holy Spirit is something that will prompt us to pray every day in reparation for the sins of the world.