not according to your ideas

St. Anthony of Padua: A sermon against those who preach much but do little or nothing:

"They began to speak in various tongues.

And they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak. He who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in various tongues. These tongues are the various testimonies to Christ (such as humility, poverty, patience and obedience) in which we speak when we show them in ourselves to other people. When actions speak, words come alive. Let words cease, I beg you, and let your works give utterance! We are so full of words, so empty of deeds! That is why we are cursed by the Lord, who cursed the fig-tree in which he found no fruit, but only leaves [cf. Mt 21.19]. St Gregory says: "The law is given to the preacher, that what he preaches he may also practice. He vainly boasts of knowing the law, if he undermines his teaching by his deeds." The Apostles spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them to speak. Blessed is he who speaks as the Holy Spirit prompts, and not according to his own ideas. There are people who speak from their own spirit, stealing other people’s words and putting them forward as their own, taking the credit themselves.

Of these and suchlike people the Lord says in Jeremiah: Behold, I am against the prophets who steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, who use their tongues and say: The Lord saith it. Behold, I am against the prophets that have lying dreams, saith the Lord, and tell them and cause my people to err by their lying and by their wonders: when I sent them not nor commanded them, who have not profited this people at all, saith the Lord. [Jer 23.30-32]

Let us speak, then, as the Holy Spirit gives us to speak, asking him humbly and devoutly to pour out his grace, so that we may complete the days of Pentecost in the perfection of our five senses and in the observance of the Ten Commandments. May we be filled with the mighty wind of contrition, and be set afire with the fiery tongues of confession; so that, ablaze and alight in the splendour of the saints, we may be found fit to see God the Three and One. May he grant this, who is God Three and One, blessed for ever and ever. Let every spirit say: Amen. Alleluia."