NV-Pentecost

NOVENA TO BEG THE GRACES AND GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST
OR IN PREPARATION FOR PENTECOST SUNDAY

What is a Novena?
A novena is a traditional devotion consisting of specific prayers recited on nine successive days. Besides being a form of praise, a novena is frequently offered for a particular intention. The first novena took place in the Cenacle, during the nine days preceding Pentecost, or the coming of the Holy Ghost. As a regular popular custom, this practice began in 12th century Christianity and continues to be beneficial today as a way of praying for healing, protection or other blessings for ourselves or others.

This particular novena is prayed to God the Holy Ghost in honor of, in anticipation of, and in thanksgiving for that wonderful day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended upon Our Lady and the Apostles in the Cenacle, and filled them with His power and gifts. We too received the Holy Ghost in a similar manner on the day that we received the Sacrament of Confirmation. We will use this novena to both look at the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Ghost, as well as our role, given to us by the Sacrament of Confirmation, as Soldiers for Christ.

In praying this Novena, as in the case of all prayer, it is good to begin by opening ourselves wholeheartedly to God's will, offering a simple act of trust in God's wisdom and in His providential love for us all, that disposes all things for the ultimate benefit of our souls and their salvation.

How to Pray This Novena
This novena will be largely based upon Holy Scripture, the writings of the saints and the works and sermons of various theologians. Each day of the novena is divided into the following parts: (1) a relevant quote from Holy Scripture; (2) if applicable, the actual account revealed by Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda; (3) an occasional quote from the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas; (4) an occasional quote from a saint or a pope; (5) a Mediation; (6) a Prayer; (7) after mentioning your intention, pray the Our Father and the Hail Mary; (8) a Closing Prayer.

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

Lord, have mercy on us,
Christ, have mercy on us
Lord, have mercy on us
Father, all powerful,
Have mercy on us.
Jesus, Eternal Son of the Father, Redeemer of the world,
Save us.
Spirit of the Father and the Son, boundless life of both,
Sanctify us.
Holy Trinity, Hear us.

Holy Ghost, Who proceedest from the Father and the Son, Enter our hearts.

Holy Ghost, Who art equal to the Father and the Son,
Enter our hearts.

Promise of God the Father, Have mercy on us.
Ray of heavenly light,  Have mercy on us.
Author of all good,  Have mercy on us.
Source of heavenly water,  Have mercy on us.
Consuming fire,  Have mercy on us.
Ardent charity,  Have mercy on us.
Spiritual unction, Have mercy on us.
Spirit of love and truth,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of wisdom and understanding, Have mercy on us.
Spirit of counsel and fortitude,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of knowledge and piety,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of the fear of the Lord,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of grace and prayer,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of peace and meekness,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of modesty and innocence,  Have mercy on us.
Holy Ghost, the Comforter,  Have mercy on us.
Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier,  Have mercy on us.
Holy Ghost, Who governs the Church, Have mercy on us.
Gift of God, the Most High,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit Who fillest the universe,  Have mercy on us.
Spirit of the adoption of the children of God,  Have mercy on us.

Holy Ghost, inspire us with horror of sin.
Holy Ghost, come and renew the face of the earth.
Holy Ghost, shed Thy light in our souls.
Holy Ghost, engrave Thy law in our hearts.
Holy Ghost, inflame us with the flame of Thy love.
Holy Ghost, open to us the treasures of Thy graces.
Holy Ghost, teach us to pray well.
Holy Ghost, enlighten us with Thy heavenly inspirations.
Holy Ghost, lead us in the way of salvation.
Holy Ghost, grant us the only necessary knowledge.
Holy Ghost, inspire in us the practice of good.
Holy Ghost, grant us the merits of all virtues.
Holy Ghost, make us persevere in justice.
Holy Ghost, be Thou our everlasting reward.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Send us Thy Holy Ghost.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Pour down into our souls the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Grant us the Spirit of wisdom and piety.

V. Come, Holy Ghost! Fill the hearts of Thy faithful.
R. And enkindle in them the fire of Thy Love.

Let us pray
Grant, O merciful Father, that Thy Divine Spirit enlighten, inflame and purify us, that He may penetrate us with His heavenly dew and make us fruitful in good works; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, liveth and reigneth forever and ever. R. Amen.

FIRST DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: Gifts and Obligations

Holy Scripture
"It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you" (John 16:7)

Meditation on the Gifts of the Holy Ghost
To live the spiritual life to its fullness we need the instinctive governance of the Holy Spirit. All day long, and even all through the hours when consciousness is asleep, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us in many ways. He is offering us His heavenly counsel, enlightening our minds to an ever more complete understanding of the deep truths of Faith, and generally imparting to us that deep knowledge without which we cannot advance.

Reason and common sense have their own contribution to make, in opening our minds and hearts to a proper interpretation of all that is about us and within us; but reason and common sense have to be supernaturalized themselves, to be illumined by the light of a far higher plane of truth. Hence the need of this divine instinct is obvious to anyone who considers the purpose and destiny of the soul. But it is difficult, at times, to understand and to grasp surely the words of divine wisdom, since, by sin's coarseness, the refinement of the soul is dulled and has become barely responsive; or, rather, it is not so much a matter of being responsive to a message, as primarily of not hearing and understanding it in the first place! It seems to be very obvious that God must be speaking to me almost without ceasing; it is equally obvious that very little of this is noticed by me.

Here, then, I am in the world and needing the governance of God's instinct. Here, too, is this whispered counsel and enlightenment of God, perpetually being made to me. Yet, although made by God, and needed by me, this counsel and enlightenment, I can be certain, must frequently be entirely lost to me. It is as though I lived in a perfectly beautiful country, with stretching landscape about, and beautiful glimpses of hills and woodland, and yet never saw or appreciated the view; as though heavenly music were about me, to which I never paid the slightest attention; as though my best-loved friend stood by me and I never lifted my eyes, and so did not know of his presence. Of course, it is really a great deal worse than that, for I do not need with an absolute necessity the view or the music, or the friend, whereas I do most certainly need this divinely offered help, guidance, and enlightenment.

Hence it is clear that neither my need nor God's instinct suffices. Something else is required by means of which I am able to make use of that instinct, to hear its message, to discover its meaning, to apply its advice to myself; otherwise am I no better than a general, who possesses the full plan of his allies, in all its details, but written in a cipher or code that he cannot read.

To produce this reaction or perception is the work of the sevenfold Gifts. They are habits infused into the soul, which strengthen its natural powers, and make them responsive to every breath of God and capable of heroic acts of virtue. By the Gifts, my eyes are made able to see what had been hidden; my ears quick to catch what had not been heard. The Gifts do not, so to say, supply eye or ear, but make more delicate, refined, and sensitive the eye and ear already there. Their business is to intensify rather than to create powers established in me by grace. Less excellent necessarily than the Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity) which unite me to God, they are yet more excellent than the other virtues, although, being rooted in Charity and thereby linked up among themselves, they are also part of the dowry that Charity brings in her train.

On this account it is clear that, from the moment of Baptism, the sevenfold Gifts are the possession of the soul, and whosoever holds one, holds all. Yet by the Sacrament of Confirmation, it would appear certain that something further is added, some more delicate perception, some livelier sensitiveness; or it may be, as other theologians point out, that by Confirmation these Gifts are more steadily fixed in the soul, more fully established, more firmly held. But in any case, it is clear what they are to me: habits whereby I am perfected to obey the Holy Spirit of God.

Meditation on my Confirmation
In 350 A.D., St. Cyril of Jerusalem gave a series of lectures during Easter week to the newly initiated members of the Church. He spoke on the liturgical ceremonies of the three sacraments which they had received during the Easter Vigil. When speaking on Confirmation, he stated:

"Just as Christ, after His Baptism and the coming upon Him of the Holy Spirit went forth and defeated the adversary, so also with you. After holy Baptism and the Mystical Chrism, having put on the full suit of armor of the Holy Spirit, you are to withstand the power of the adversary, and defeat him, saying, 'I am able to do all things in Christ, Who strengthens me.'"

Here, St. Cyril tells us two things. The first, is the answer to our question. The enemy with whom we will do battle is none other than the one whom our king Himself defeated in the desert — Satan. But before any soldier can go into battle, he must first be fully trained, fully armed, fully strengthened, and fully protected. On this point, St. Cyril tells us that it is through this Sacrament of Confirmation that we will put on the full suit of armor that is the Holy Spirit Himself. Hence you become a "knight in shining armor." And the armor that you will be clothed with shines with the glory of God Himself, and it will be our King who strengthens us in this sacrament.

The Church can speak for Herself in the remaining part of this overview. But before She does, let us answer one question that was raised earlier. Recall that the term "knight" also has another meaning as well as that of "soldier", and that is, "One who is devoted to the service of a lady as her attendant or champion" (Websters Collegiate Dictionary).

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into Heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

SECOND DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: We Need the Holy Ghost to be Supernatural

Holy Scripture
"Take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Psalm 50:13)

Meditation on the Virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Ghost
The Holy Ghost, in union with the Father and the Son, is the sweet guest of our souls--dulcis hospes animae—where He dwells as in a true living temple. However, the Holy Ghost does not dwell in our souls in a passive and inoperative manner, but displays in them a very lively activity aimed at improving our souls by degrees and conducting them (if they do not place obstacles in the way of His divine action) to the highest peaks of union with God, in which sanctity consists.

The infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost are instilled in the soul together with sanctifying grace at our Baptism. Both are supernatural habits that the Holy Ghost pours in our souls to enable us to produce supernatural acts proper to our condition as children of God. Without the Gifts and Virtues, we could not achieve supernatural acts even if we possessed sanctifying grace. The grace is like soil, but it is not a ‘plant’ and cannot produce fruit—yet the ‘plants’ (Virtues and Gifts) need the ‘soil’ in order to grow and produce fruit. Both kinds of ‘plants’—the Virtues and Gifts—are under the hand of the ‘gardener’, the Holy Ghost, though each in very different ways.

The Infused Virtues
The infused virtues are supernatural habits of soul, infused by God, to dispose them to operate supernaturally following the guidance of correct human reasoning enlightened by Faith. God could force us to do things by the force of exterior actual graces, but He prefers that our actions are not coerced from the outside, but that we choose to do them willingly through our own choice, under the guidance of grace and the habits He has infused into our souls.

Two Kinds Infused Virtues
The infused virtues are divided in two fundamental groups. The first group of Faith, Hope and Charity, direct our souls in things pertaining our supernatural purpose and end in life: God, salvation and Heaven. The second group is made up of the four Cardinal Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance) with a whole host of subordinate virtues that are linked or are born of these four Cardinal Virtues. St. Thomas lists and discusses more than fifty of these virtues in his marvelous Summa Theologica. With these Theological, Cardinal Virtues and subordinate virtues, we are elevated to and equipped for the supernatural order of grace.

How They Act
This is a most important point for the accurate understanding of how the Holy Ghost works in our own sanctification. For an infused virtue (a disposition for good) to pass into good action (in other words, for the apple tree to actually an apple), an prior impulse of an actual grace (an external grace, like an inspiration, a word of good advice, a good example, some reading from a holy book, etc.) coming from God is absolutely necessary. It is absolutely impossible for the purely natural effort of the soul to produce something supernatural. There is an unfathomable abyss between the natural and the supernatural. They belong to two entirely different levels, the supernatural surpassing and infinitely transcending the natural level. The action of God, in this respect, is absolutely necessary. Every act of an infused virtue and every operation of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, requires a previous actual grace from God (directly or indirectly) that sets that Virtue or Gift in motion. The actual grace is nothing other than the divine influence that has moved the infused habit into action. Without God we can do nothing supernatural!

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into Heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

THIRD DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: The Holy Ghost Leads Us To Holiness

Holy Scripture
"Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost .. was led by the Spirit" (Luke 4:1)

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
Love is the essence of the Christian life. It is the Charity poured by the Holy Spirit into souls, the Charity which brings about the perfection of all the virtues. But it is a very ordered love, because, according to the beautiful and profound words of St. Augustine, Virtue is order in love.

In this natural world, parents should beget children out of love; they should raise those children with love and teach those children love. For love is the highest virtue. In the supernatural world, the same applies to the children of God. However, here we have a different kind of parenthood: the two spouses are the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and just as the two worked together to produce the Son of God, Jesus, at the Incarnation, so too do they work together in raising, teaching and sanctifying of the children of God. Mary is the Mother of Church, and she is the Mediatrix of All Graces.

St. Louis de Montfort, in his excellent writings, True Devotion to Mary and The Secret of Mary, has fittingly established the most holy Virgin in her place in Christian piety. These works of his show an understanding of the universal and indispensable function of Mary in the sanctification of souls: a traditional doctrine of the Church which was further confirmed and reinforced by the Holy See in modern times, when the feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, was introduced into the liturgy.

St. Louis de Montfort understood so clearly the place that belongs to Mary, in the work of our sanctification, that he made devotion to Mary, not something superficial or sporadic, being made up of isolated practices in some special place and at a certain hour in our day, but St. Louis makes devotion to Mary constant and essential, that does not relegate Mary to those occasional and specific times of the day, but fills every moment of our life. For as we need the grace of God for all moments of the day, so too do we need Mary, the Mediatrix of those graces, at every moment of the day.

With even greater reason, then — because He is more forgotten — the Holy Spirit must be given His proper place too, the place which rightfully belongs to Him in Christian Life and Christian Perfection. Devotion to the Holy Spirit must become what St. Louis de Montfort made of devotion to Mary: not just something that is superficial and sporadic, but constant and profound, filling the depths of souls and filling lives with the sweet unction of His infinite love.

Christian Life is the reproduction of Jesus in souls; and Christian Perfection, which is the most faithful and perfect reproduction of Jesus in souls, consists in the transformation of souls into Jesus. This is the doctrine of St. Paul, set forth time and again in his Epistles: “Do you not know yourselves that Christ Jesus is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:5) “For all you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27) “ ... Christ dwelling through Faith in your hearts” (Ephesians 3:17). “Those whom He has foreknown He has also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). These are some of the many expressions of the Apostle relative to Christian Life.

As for Christian Perfection, the following profound words are well known: “It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The word “transformation” is also from St. Paul: “But we all, with faces unveiled, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His very image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Now, how can this mystical reproduction of Christ be brought about in our souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the world, for God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all His works. Divine acts may be varied in their kind and number; nevertheless, a most perfect unity always shines forth from them. We can vaguely compare this to the works of a musical composer or an artist: even though they have produced thousands of works in their lifetime, there is often a certain style that manifests itself in them and thus unifies them and identifies them as the work of this or that composer or artist.

In His miraculous birth, Jesus was the fruit of Heaven and earth. Isaias foretold this in words breathing forth a poetry, which the Church lovingly repeats during Advent: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior” (Isaias 45:8) The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of the Father to Mary, and this virginal soil brought forth, in an indescribable manner our most loving Savior, the divine Seed, as the prophets called Him.

This is what we are taught regarding Jesus, with the conciseness and the precision of an Article of Faith in the Creed: “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.... of the Virgin Mary.” Since God does not change, that is the way Jesus is always conceived. That is the way He is reproduced in souls. He is always the fruit of Heaven and earth. As is the case with natural conception, according to God's laws of nature, two persons must cooperate in the work that is both at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who produced Christ over 2,000 years ago, and remain the only ones that can reproduce Christ since that time. This is the will of God.

Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier by essence: because He is God, who is infinite sanctity; because He is the personal Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating His life and His unity, and it belongs to Him to communicate to souls the mystery of that sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the cooperator, the indispensable instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the human body of Christ is derived her relation to His Mystical Body, which is being formed, through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete, and glorious.

These two, then, the Holy Spirit and Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers of souls. Any saint in Heaven can cooperate in the sanctification of a soul, but his cooperation is not necessary, not profound, not constant; while the cooperation of these two artisans of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual design of Providence), and it is so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our soul. For the Holy Spirit pours Charity into our heart, makes of our soul a holy temple of God, and directs our spiritual life by means of His gifts.

The Virgin Mary has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate operations of grace in our souls. And, finally, the action of the Holy Spirit and the cooperation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them, not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow, no gift be developed, no grace increase, no bond of union with God be strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.

Such is the place that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant.

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

FOURTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: Little is Known About the Holy Ghost! Why?

Holy Scripture
“And he said to them: ‘Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?’ But they said to him: ‘We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost!’” (Acts 19:2).

“How then shall they call on Him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
There has been much written about our Blessed Lord, shelves can be readily filled with the numerous books treating of some aspect of the life of Jesus. Yet of the Holy Ghost, there is very little to be found. Even in past centuries there was complaint about the lack of scholarly and devotional works dedicated to the Holy Ghost. That is why the laity, and even some of the clergy, know so little about the Holy Ghost and His operations, due mainly to the scarcity of doctrine available on the subject. This is due, in turn, to the scarcity of good publications—either ancient or modern—about this Divine Person.

The celebrated French theologian, Msgr. Gaume (1802-1879), wrote: "“How many times have we heard our venerable brothers in the priesthood lament the dearth of works about the Holy Ghost! Unfortunately, their complaints are only too justified. Indeed, what treatise about the Holy Ghost has been written in many centuries? ... Even the teachings of classical theology, about this subject, are usually confined to some chapters on the Trinity, the Creed, and the Sacraments. All agree that these notions are completely insufficient. The diocesan catechisms, necessarily more limited than the manuals of elementary theology, have only some definitions. With real regret, it has to be admitted that even in countries that are predominantly Catholic, the teaching about the Holy Ghost could be improved considerably."

Nothing much has changed since his day! There is still a woeful lack of easily available material on the Holy Ghost! However, with sufficient research and 'digging around' we can unearth some valuable works on the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, and, in sharing some snippets with you over the upcoming season of Pentecost, we encourage you to take time to read and learn more about the Holy Ghost. Considering that He is now supposed to be 'center-stage' since the Ascension of Our Lord (excepting, of course, that other 'center-stage' presence of the Blessed Sacrament), then we should really take time to get to know Him and how He works in bringing about our sanctification and salvation—which is the main purpose of His presence among us. If cannot be bothered to get to know someone who is trying to help us, and to communicate with them, then we will be the sufferers in the long run!

Meditation on My Confirmation
“I am the vine, you the branches,” said Christ, thus likening the Church to a living thing or organism (John 15:5). St. Paul instituted a similar comparison between the Church and the living human body: “As in one body there are many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we are many in one Body, in Christ” (Romans 12:4-5). Christ, said St. Paul, is the head of this Body (Colossians 1:19). He is the source of its life, and as the limbs of the human body should be governed by the head, so too should the members of the Church be governed by Christ.

In the human body the health of each limb is of immense importance to the others and to the body as a whole. Injury to any means a certain sickness in all, proportionate to the importance of the limb and the extent of the injury. So too in the Mystical Body of Christ the well-being of each member, is of concern to the whole.

By Baptism a man becomes a member of the Mystical Body. He is reborn, as it were, into anew spiritual body, of which the lifeline is the Christian Faith and the grace of God. His first duty is naturally to conserve this new life in himself—an apostolate, so to speak, to his own soul. But, as we have just seen, his duty does not stop at this He must also work for the, spiritual health of his fellow-members in Christ and must try too, in so far as he can, to bring in new members. Indeed this duty is such that, unless he performs it, he is failing even in his duty to sanctify himself.

Reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation
We learn from the Catechism that by the Sacrament of Confirmation we are made strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ. In everyday life, children are not expected to work like adults; they have neither the knowledge nor the strength to be able to do so. It is the same with the Christian life. After Baptism until receiving Confirmation, the Christian is a child, as it were, as far as the life of the Church is concerned. The reception of Confirmation makes him strong and mature, gives him extra graces to enable him to extend his work for Christ.

In particular it fits him to take part in apostolic work. For it confers on him in a special way the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, an increase in that sanctifying grace, which is the source of all apostolic zeal and “spiritual efficiency.” This is the explicit teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. “The Sacrament of Confirmation,” he says, “confers the fullness of the Holy Ghost in view of the spiritual vigor that befits the adult man. Man, when adult, begins to communicate his actions to others, whereas at first he lived only to himself” (Summa Theologica, IIIa, q. 72, art. 2).

The Implications of Charity
That the Christian is bound, out of Charity, to work for the salvation of his fellow-man, is already clear from what we have said about the Mystical Body of Christ. But, in addition to this, both implicitly and explicitly, he is commanded by God to practice such Charity. Holy Scripture tells us that God “wills that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:4). We know too that the purpose of the Incarnation was that Christ should redeem all men. He tells us Himself that He came that He might give life (John 10:10). Clearly then, our love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ must necessarily mean that we work for the salvation of other men.

As well as this, we are told by Pope Pius XI, the work of the apostolate is an act of gratitude to Our Redeemer: ”Besides the motive of Charity, the Christian apostolate is obligatory as an act of gratitude rendered to Jesus Christ. So, when we cause others to participate in the spiritual gifts that we have received from His divine largesse, we satisfy the desires of His most loving heart, which asks but to be known and loved. As He Himself said in the Gospels: I come to send fire upon the earth, and what will I, but that it should be kindled?” (Pope Pius XI, Letter to the Bishops of Argentina, 4th February, 1931).

To clinch the argument, we have the special command of Christ that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. By “love” is meant not only loving thoughts but, as St John says, love “in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). And by love "in deed" is meant not merely the provision of material help; it extends too to aiding one’s neighbor who is in spiritual poverty. In a word, it means aiding the weak members of the Body of Christ and seeking to bring to Christ those who know Him not. “Let each make part of the gift he has received to others,” says St. Peter, “as good dispensers of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). Am I dispensing what I have received from God, or have I buried it? Confirmation gives us both an obligation to fight for the Kingdom of Christ as well as giving us the weapons (the Gifts of the Holy Ghost and graces). Is my armor and weaponry hung in the closet, rusting away, or is it being used in the daily warfare that cannot be escaped?

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

FIFTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: Grace and Obligation

Holy Scripture
“And he said to them: ‘Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?’ But they said to him: ‘We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost!’” (Acts 19:2).

“How then shall they call on Him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14).

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
Sanctifying Grace is the base and foundation of the dwelling of the Holy Ghost and the entire Blessed Trinity in the soul. Sanctifying Grace is a supernatural gift. Supernatural means that it is over, above nature. So much is grace above that it is a Divine reality, infinitely superior to all created or creatable nature.

In effect: If we echelon all God’s creatures in their different levels, known by us through natural light and Divine revelation, we find the following five, from lesser to higher:

1. Minerals. They are in the lowest category. They exist, but do not live.
2. Plants. They live, but do not feel or understand.
3. Animals. They live and feel, but do not understand or think.
4. Men. As St. Gregory says, man is a kind of microcosm (a world in miniature), summarizing and containing all other created beings: He exists, like the minerals; lives, like the plants; feels, like the animals; and understands, like the angels.
5. Angels. Pure spirits, they do not have a body or any admixture of matter and are, therefore, naturally superior to men, as they are closer to God’s own being.

To which of these levels or categories does habitual or sanctifying grace belong? To none of them, because it transcends and surpasses all of them. Grace, as we will explain immediately, is a Divine reality that, for this very reason, belongs to the plane of Divinity and is a thousand times above all created beings, including the angels themselves. It is an absolutely supernatural reality; in other words, it is above, surpasses and transcends all nature, created or creatable. This is why the least participation of sanctifying grace is worth infinitely more than the whole universal creation, that is, the ensemble of God’s creatures that have existed, exist or will exist until the end of time. Is this how we look upon and treasure Sanctifying grace? Perhaps, or more probably, not. We sometimes (or often) put things from the 5 lower levels before Sanctifying Grace. We are more ready to lose grace than we are ready to lose something from these 5 inferior levels. Shame!

Only God, author of the supernatural order, can infuse Sanctifying Grace in the soul. All the creatures of the universe combined could never produce the least participation in the very nature of God, which is precisely what Sanctifying Grace communicates to us. Because of this St. Thomas says that “the good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the whole universe” (Summa, Ia-IIae, q. 113, art. 9, ad 2).

Grace is a spiritual reality that resides in the soul, not in the body. Because it is spiritual, it cannot be seen, nor touched, nor heard. Neither thought nor love can be seen or touched, yet it is an authentic reality that we think and love.

To give us a true and real participation in His own Divine nature is the first and greatest prerogative of the grace of God, and will be explained in detail when we treat of the effects of grace in our souls.

Sanctifying Grace makes us true children of God. This is a necessary consequence of the fact that sanctifying grace makes us participants in the very nature of God. Without this participation we would be merely creatures of God, but in no way His children.

How much do we treasure, appreciate and thank God for His Divine Grace? A neglect in this area will automatically hinder the grace of the Holy Ghost working in our souls in an attempt to guide, strengthen and sanctify them.

Meditation on My Confirmation

Confirmation can be defined as a Sacrament instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ in which, by the imposition of hands and the anointing with the chrism under the prescribed form, the plenitude of the Holy Ghost is given to the baptized person, together with the sacramental grace and character, to strengthen him in the Faith and so that he confess it courageously as a good soldier of Christ.

In this wide definition are present all the essential elements that impart to us the intimate nature of this great sacrament, which is called with good reason the sacrament of the plenitude of the Holy Ghost. This is the sacramental form pronounced by the minister: “I sign thee with the Sign of the Cross, and I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” The Roman Catechism, or Catechism of the Council of Trent, shows the effects of this sacrament in the following manner:

"It is peculiar to Confirmation first to perfect the grace of Baptism. For those who have been made Christians by Baptism, still have in some sort the tenderness and softness, as it were, of new-born infants, and afterwards become, by means of the Sacrament of chrism, stronger to resist all the assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil, while their minds are fully confirmed in faith to confess and glorify the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, also, originated the very name Confirmation" (Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. 209).

The sacrament of Confirmation is equivalent to a true Pentecost for each one of those baptized in Christ. Like the apostles, whose weakness and cowardice in the hours of the passion of Christ were converted into superhuman energy and fortitude when the fire of Pentecost descended over them, the Christian who receives the sacrament of Confirmation feels his spiritual forces strengthened, especially in regard to the proclamation and public defense of the faith received in Baptism.

Fr. Philipon writes: “The sacrament of confirmation perpetuates in the Church all of the benefits of Pentecost. The effects of baptism are marvelously surpassed. The Holy Ghost, already in possession of the Christian soul, fills it to overflowing this time with His superabundant graces, with the plenitude of His gifts. With good reason, the moral triumph of the virgins and martyrs is attributed to Him. It is the Spirit of God, Who forms the souls of the saints. Those secret warnings, those incessant invitations, those continuous motions of the Holy Ghost, without which no one can neither enlist nor stay in the way of salvation and even less advance in the way of perfection. On the contrary, by the activity and the functioning of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the just man, who already lives the life of grace since baptism, is elevated to perfection. Thanks to them, the soul, docile to the least divine inspiration, advances rapidly in the life of faith, hope and charity and in the practice of all the virtues. His spiritual life finds its full expansion and development. Those gifts of the Holy Ghost work in it with such an efficacy that they conduct it to the highest peaks of holiness.” (Fr. Philipon, The Sacraments in the Christian Life, chapter 2).

The Sacrament of Confirmation imprints an indelible character or mark on the soul of those who receive it validly (even if one receives it in state of mortal sin, since the character is separable from grace), by virtue of which the Christian becomes a soldier of Christ and acquires the power of confessing officially--ex officio--the Faith of Christ and of receiving the sacred things in a more perfect way, together with the right to the actual graces that he will need during his whole life for this confession and defense of the Faith. Thus, it is of an inestimable price and worth. However, precisely because of its lofty greatness, the Sacrament of Confirmation carries with it great demands and responsibilities. Some of the most important are:

(a) It imposes the obligation of acquiring a good religious culture, as an indispensable condition for the defense of the Faith against all its enemies.

(b) It imposes the obligation to despise so-called "human respect", which is incompatible with the ardor and courage with which the soldier of Christ is to publicly proclaim his Faith.

(c) It prompts the recipient to the apostolate in all its forms, principally in his own surroundings and special circumstances of life.

(d) It obliges the recipient to be constantly attentive to the internal inspirations of the Holy Ghost and to be exquisitely faithful to grace. To whom much has been given, much will be demanded.

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

SIXTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: God's Work of Art

Holy Scripture
“You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the Spirit of our God.’” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

"Be made acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:16).

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
How wonderful is the work of the artist! By efforts both ardent and gentle he can penetrate hard and shapeless materials, like stone or canvas, with the light of his soul. The crude instruments he uses—whether chisel or brush—can impart to these materials exquisite proportions and shapes.

That is the way we can envisage the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, the Artist of souls. Is not sanctity the supreme art? God has only one ideal which encompasses all the highest forms of beauty. This ideal is Jesus.

The Holy Spirit loves Him more than an artist loves his ideal. That love is His being, because the Holy Spirit is nothing but love, the personal Love of the Father and of the Word. In fact, Scripture tells us that God is Love--“God is charity” (1 John 4:8). With divine enthusiasm He comes to the soul so that the rough, unhewn rock of the soul can be transformed into Jesus, reproducing the eternal ideal.

That which the human artist dreams of, without ever being able to attain it, the divine Artist accomplishes, because He is perfect and infinite. His action is not exterior nor sporadic, but intimate and constant. He enters into the depths of our souls, penetrates the innermost recesses, takes up His permanent dwelling there, to produce later on His magnificent work.

To the Artist of souls, sanctification and possession are the same act: for sanctification is the work of love, and love is possession. The very lowest degree of sanctity demands that the Holy Spirit dwell in our souls, possess them; while supreme sanctity is the supreme possession that the Spirit attains in the soul, the full and perfect possession of love.

Therefore the first relationship that the Holy Spirit has with souls is that of being the “soul’s delightful Guest” — as the Church calls Him in the inspired prose of the Mass of Pentecost. Without doubt, the entire Blessed Trinity dwells within the soul living the life of grace: “If anyone love Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

Attention should be given to the fact that the Scriptures attribute, in a special manner, this indwelling to the Holy Spirit.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Without this dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we cannot “become Christ.” “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). Grace and charity, which give supernatural life to our souls, are linked to the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us, because “the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5).

And the Holy Spirit does not come to us in a passing manner; infinite Love is not a passing visitor, who pays us a call and then goes away. He establishes in us His permanent dwelling and lives in intimate union with our souls as their eternal Guest. Jesus promised this to us on the last night of His mortal life: “And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever … He will dwell with you, and be in you” (John 14:16-17).

And why is this indwelling in souls attributed to the Holy Spirit? Because it is a work of love. This is love: union or desire of union; and, as the Holy Spirit is the infinite Love of God, to Him is given this happy name: “the soul’s delightful Guest.”

The first gift of love is love itself, and all the other gifts flow out of this supreme gift, as from their source. Therefore, the Gift of the love of God is the Holy Spirit. Loving us with the love of friendship and giving us His Spirit, is, for God, one and the same thing. The love of friendship is mutual. God loves us through the Holy Spirit and we form one same love, one same spirit, as St. Paul teaches: “He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17). There is, then, a very close union between the Holy Spirit and charity: the Holy Spirit does not give Himself to us without pouring charity into our hearts, nor can there be the love of charity in us without the Holy Spirit’s coming into us by the very act of loving. He is the spark that enkindles in us the fire of love!

Consequently, the basic reason why God dwells in us, why He remains in us, and we remain in Him, is love. The love of God that descends to the depths of our souls and our weak love, which, by its irresistible needs, attracts the God of Heaven and captivates Him in bonds of charity — these are the two loves that seek each other, find each other, and fuse together in a divine unity. On the part of God, it is the Holy Spirit Who gives Himself to us; and on our part, it is charity, the image of the Holy Spirit enkindled in us, that cannot be separated from the One who enkindled it. Therefore the inspired expression of the Church, “delightful Guest of the soul,” encloses a mystery of love.

Meditation on My Confirmation
Just as love is at the root of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, so too is love the driving force within the Soldier of Christ. We speak of a soldier's love for his country, that drives him on into battle for the sake of protecting his country. Similarly, love is behind so many undertakings, enterprises, efforts and successes. Love is fuel that drives us on; it can be likened to gas, steam, electricity or any other source of power. Without that power source, everything comes to a stop.

Yet just as a fire is only maintained by a constant supply of coal, wood, or gas, likewise, our love must be sustained by our placing fresh logs or coals on that fire to prevent it from going out. These logs or coals are the acquisition of new elements of knowledge. For, as the axiom so truly states, "We cannot love what we do not know." Therefore we must keep the fire burning by constantly, yes constantly, learning more about God and our Faith. This is what is meant by loving God with our mind in that famous commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment" (Mark 12:30). And, yes, it is a penance at times—but, as Our Lord said: "Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).

Furthermore, since it is the duty of the true soldier to defend, we have to know well what we are defending. A soldier of Christ who does not know much of the Faith of Christ is a disgrace to Heaven and a bad example to his fellow soldiers. There are many Catholics who are far more familiar with the things of this world than they are familiar with their Faith! Yet the world is an enemy of God's! "Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God" (James 4:4). Therefore, these 'soldiers' study the beliefs of the enemy more than they study the beliefs of the Faith!

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

SEVENTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: The Best Teacher and Coach in the Universe

Holy Scripture
“You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
the Spirit of our God.’” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

"Be made acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 15:16).

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
The soul’s delightful Guest does not remain idle in His intimate sanctuary. Since the Church calls Him, “fire and light”, He has barely taken possession of the soul before His influence extends to the whole being and begins with divine activity its work of transformation. In other words—He wants to take over! Yet He will not force us! The Holy Spirit lives in the center of the soul, in that profound region of the will, where He Himself has poured in charity; and from that center He pours Himself out, so to speak, over the whole person.

Like the victor who, on taking possession of a kingdom, places in each city men to execute his orders and act as his regents governing the place he has conquered, so the Holy Spirit, the loving Conquerer of souls, places some divine Gifts in each of our human faculties, so that through His holy inspirations the whole person may receive His life-giving influence. Into the intelligence, He pours the Gifts of Wisdom, of Understanding, of Counsel, and of Knowledge; into the will, He pours in the Gift of Piety; and into the inferior region of the sensible appetites, the Gifts of Fortitude and Fear of God. By means of these Gifts, the Holy Spirit moves the whole person—He becomes the Director of the supernatural life, and more—becomes the very soul of our soul and life of our life.

If our moral perfection was a mere natural work, reliant on our human nature, then human reason, with a little spark of the light of God, would be enough to accomplish it all; but the work, that has to be accomplished in man, is not natural but supernatural; it is not a human work, but a divine work. It is the reproduction of Jesus, the masterpiece of God, in our souls. For such an exalted undertaking, the direction of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Sanctity is impossible without this direction, as it is impossible to obtain a finished and perfect work of art without the direction of a master.

The intimate Master of our souls is the Holy Spirit; thus Jesus taught in His discourse at the Last Supper: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name.... will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (John 14:26). His teaching is unction. He teaches us by pouring Himself into us gently and penetratingly. His teaching is as a divine caress of love. He teaches us as mothers teach their children, with kisses of love, with an indefinable outpouring of tenderness. We learn from Him as we perceive the fragrance of a perfume, as we savor the sweetness of a fruit, or enjoy the caress of a breeze that enfolds us.

The light of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of love; it is the happy consequence of union. United intimately to divine ‘things through the work of the Holy Spirit, the soul tastes them by a direct divine experience. How profoundly do the words quoted above from St. John express this: “His anointing teaches you concerning all things.” But light is not the only mark of the direction of the Spirit; there is also sanctity.

As the artist is not content with explaining to his pupil the secrets of art, but takes the uncertain hand of the beginner and gently, but firmly moves and guides it in order that the beauty of his ideal may be expressed on the canvas, even thus does the Holy Spirit take our faculties and move and guide them, so firmly that they do not stray, and at the same time so gently that our activities continue to be vital, spontaneous, and free. Only the Creator can reach in this way to the depths of our acts and, so far from changing their properties, rather marvelously perfect and elevate them. The supplications of the Church to the Holy Spirit admirably detail this work of His; in the Sequence of the Mass of Pentecost:

Wash the stains of guilt away,
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray;

and we read in the hymn “Veni Creator”:

Kindle with fire from above
Each sense, and fill our hearts with love;
Grant to our flesh, so weak and frail,
That strength of Thine which cannot fail.

All these, in addition to many other delicate and marvelous operations, are contained in that sweet and firm movement that the Holy Spirit exercises in every human faculty, which is why we can call Him the soul of our soul. Without Him, as we have already said, there is no sanctity. The perfection of a soul is measured by its docility to the movement of the Spirit, by the promptitude and fidelity with which its strings produce the divine notes of the song of love. A soul is perfectly holy when the Spirit of love has taken full possession of it, when He finds no resistance to His directions.

The inspirations of the Holy Spirit are not, then, something extraordinary and superfluous in the spiritual life; they are its vital, perfect impulse. Undoubtedly, their infrequency at the beginning of the spiritual life is due precisely to our imperfection of that life — just as the direction of reason is not frequent, nor strong, in the early years of man’s natural life, because his development is still imperfect. The more we cooperate with Him and fulfill His directions, then all the more will He work in our souls through His inspirations.

As the spiritual life grows, we are are attuned and harmonized; the soul becomes marvelously sensible to the movement of the Spirit, and life becomes intense, rich, perfect, holy. St. Paul expressed this action of the Holy Spirit in souls very well when he said: “For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). Without doubt we are sons by grace, and this precious gift, the true participation in the divine nature, puts us in intimate and special relationship with the divine Persons: it makes us sons of the Father, incorporates us with Jesus, and the Spirit of God becomes in a certain manner our spirit. These relationships are simultaneous; but, in the order of accomplishment, the mission of the Holy Spirit is the first in our soul, because the first gift, intimately connected with grace, is charity. He is the carrier or enkindler of charity: “Come, O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!”

And because of this, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, becomes ours in an imexpressible way. And just as it is our natural spirit that directs and moves temporal life, so this Spirit of God, ours by the mystery of adoption, moves and directs our life that is directed towards eternity. This intimate direction of our souls accomplished by the Holy Spirit is something profoundly bound up with the mystery of the spiritual life; it is something which that life demands essentially, just as our natural life demands the movement of our soul.

Consequently, the Holy Spirit is truly the soul of our soul and the life of our life.

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

EIGHTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: The Holy Ghost Drives Us To Action

Holy Scripture
“And when they shall lead you and deliver you up, be not thoughtful beforehand what you shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye. For it is not you that speak, but the Holy Ghost.’” (Mark 13:11).
"And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he tore the lion as he would have torn a kid in pieces, having nothing at all in his hand" (Judges 14:6).

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
A soldier was not made for boot-camp, but for the battle. Likewise, the soul’s delightful Guest does not remain idle in His intimate sanctuary. Being, as the Church calls Him, fire and light, He hardly takes possession of the soul before His beneficent influence extends itself to the whole being and begins with divine activity its work of transformation. The Holy Spirit lives in the center of the soul, in that profound region of the will where He Himself has diffused charity; and from that center He pours Himself out, so to speak, over the whole man with a divine unction, like the sacred perfume of which the Scriptures speak, which descended from the head of Aaron down his flowing beard and over his vestment to the tassel of his mantle.

Like the victor who, on taking possession of a kingdom, places in each city men to execute his orders and act as his regents governing the place he has conquered, so the Holy Spirit, the loving Conquistador of souls, places some divine gifts in each of the human faculties, that through His holy inspirations the whole man may receive His vivifying influence. Into the intelligence, the supreme faculty of the spirit from which radiates light and order over the whole human being, He pours the gifts of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, and of knowledge; into the will, the gift of piety; and into the inferior region of the sensible appetites, the gifts of fortitude and fear of God. By means of these gifts the Holy Spirit moves the whole man, becomes Director of the supernatural life, and more — becomes the very soul of our soul and life of our life.

If man had but to accomplish a work of moral perfection according to his human nature, then human reason, a spark from the light of God, would be enough to direct the life of the spirit; but the work that has to be accomplished in man, as we have already said, is divine. It is the reproduction of Jesus, the masterpiece of God, and for such an exalted undertaking the direction of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Sanctity is impossible without this direction, as it is impossible to obtain a finished and perfect work of art without the direction of a master.

The intimate Master of our souls is the Holy Spirit; thus Jesus taught in His discourse at the Last Supper: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name.... will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (John 14:26).

The Holy Spirit teaches everything, not only as earthly masters do, by projecting the light of their explications on the subject of their teaching, but intimately, by communicating a new light, a divine light, to the intelligence itself. “His anointing teaches you concerning all things” (1 John 2:27), said the Apostle St. John. His teaching is unction. He teaches us by pouring Himself into us gently and penetratingly. His teaching is as a divine caress of love. He teaches us as mothers teach their children, with kisses of love, with an indefinable outpouring of tenderness. We learn from Him as we perceive the fragrance of a perfume, as we savor the sweetness of a fruit, or enjoy the caress of a breeze that enfolds us.

The light of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of love; it is the happy consequence of union. United intimately to divine ‘things through the work of the Holy Spirit, the soul tastes them by a direct divine experience. How profoundly do the words quoted above from St. John express this: “His anointing teaches you concerning all things.” But light is not the only mark of the direction of the Spirit; there is also sanctity.

As the artist is not content with explaining to his pupil the secrets of art, but takes the uncertain hand of the beginner and gently, but firmly moves and guides it in order that the beauty of his ideal may be expressed on the canvas, even thus does the Holy Spirit take our faculties and move and guide them, so firmly that they do not stray, and at the same time so gently that our activities continue to be vital, spontaneous, and free. Only the Creator can reach in this way to the depths of our acts and, so far from changing their properties, rather marvelously perfect and elevate them. The supplications of the Church to the Holy Spirit admirably detail this work of His; in the Sequence of the Mass of Pentecost:

Wash the stains of guilt away,
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray;

and we read in the hymn “Veni Creator”:
Kindle with fire from above
Each sense, and fill our hearts with love;
Grant to our flesh, so weak and frail,
That strength of Thine which cannot fail.

All these, in addition to many other delicate and marvelous operations, are contained in that sweet and firm movement that the Holy Spirit exercises in every human faculty, by reason of which He is called the soul of our soul. The seven gifts are a divine means for making our soul fit to receive the motion of the Spirit. The celestial influence of this intimate Guest is called inspiration; its action is the breath of wind, delicately soft and irresistibly strong, that impels our life toward heaven, the warm and powerful wind of love that cleanses, eases, rectifies, consoles, refreshes — but also moves, carrying along all that is before it.

Imagine a fine lyre whose strings, perfectly harmonized, vibrate at the blowing of the wind, each giving its own sound and all together composing a beautiful symphony. This is the soul of a just man when the Holy Spirit possesses it fully and has harmonized all the faculties by means of His gifts. Each one of them, like the strings of a living lyre, gives its own sound when the wind of the Spirit blows. What else would the Holy Spirit, the personal love of God, produce but a song if it is proper to love to sing? And what shall love sing but the Beloved — the divine obsession of the one who loves? What is to be sung but the name of the Beloved, the unique word holding all beauty, that love pronounces? The earth and the heavens sing because love passes through; because the immaculate wings of the Spirit soar above them.

But the song of souls is a new song, because the Spirit infuses new love in them. The song of souls is free. It is not like the song of nature, which is harmonious but compelled, the automatic reproduction, as it were, of the impression the Spirit made in the beginning of time when He moved triumphantly over the fruitful waters. The song of souls is theirs and the Spirit’s conjointly, as the sounds given off by the strings of a lyre come also from the artist who makes them vibrate.

Nevertheless, nature and souls sing to the same Beloved, saying the same thing, each in its own language. To live spiritually is to sing, because living spiritually is loving. For the song to be perfect, all the human faculties must be rectified and harmonized, like the strings of a lyre, and the Holy Spirit must inspire the unique song of a unique love. The true Director of souls, the intimate Master, the soul of the spiritual life, is the Holy Spirit. Without Him, as we have already said, there is no sanctity. The perfection of a soul is measured by its docility to the movement of the Spirit, by the promptitude and fidelity with which its strings produce the divine notes of the song of love.

A soul is perfectly holy when the Spirit of love has taken full possession of it, when the divine Artist finds no resistance or dissonance in the strings of that living lyre, but only celestial strains coming forth from it, limpid, ardent, and delightfully harmonized.

The inspirations of the Holy Spirit are not, then, something extraordinary and superfluous in the spiritual life; they are its vital, perfect impulse. Undoubtedly, their infrequency at the beginning of the spiritual life is due precisely to the imperfection of that life — just as the direction of reason is not frequent nor strong in the early years of man’s natural life because his development is still imperfect.

As the spiritual life grows, the strings of the living lyre of the soul, which before were weak and inharmonious, are attuned and harmonized; the soul becomes marvelously sensible to the movement of the Spirit, and life becomes intense, rich, perfect, holy. St. Paul expressed this action of the Holy Spirit in souls very well when he said: “For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). The Apostle thus makes known a mysterious bond between the movement of the Holy Spirit and the divine adoption. Through the Spirit we become sons of God, and because we are sons we are moved by the Spirit. Thus He is called in the Scriptures “Spirit of adoption ... by virtue of which we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ For the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God” (Romans 15-16).

Without doubt we are sons by grace, and this precious gift, the true participation in the divine nature, puts us in intimate and special relationship with the divine Persons: it makes us sons of the Father, incorporates us with Jesus, and the Spirit of God becomes in a certain manner our spirit. These relationships are simultaneous; but, in the order of appropriation, the mission of the Holy Spirit is the first in our soul, because the first gift, intimately connected with grace, is charity. The Holy Spirit brings to our souls the fruitfulness of the Father and binds us lovingly to the Son.

And because of this, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son becomes ours in an ineffable way. And just as it is our natural spirit that directs and moves temporal life, so this Spirit of God, ours by the mystery of adoption, moves and directs our life that is for eternity. Because we are sons we are heirs, and “none can receive the inheritance of that land of the blessed, except he be moved and led thither by the Holy Ghost.” Thus St. Thomas teaches when he interprets in this sense the words of the Psalmist: “May Your good Spirit guide me on level ground” (Psalm 142:10). This intimate direction of our souls accomplished by the Holy Spirit is something profoundly bound up with the mystery of the spiritual life; it is something which that life demands essentially, just as our natural life demands the movement of our soul. Consequently, the Holy Spirit is truly the soul of our soul and the life of our life.

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!

LITANY OF THE
HOLY GHOST

NINTH DAY OF THE NOVENA (new meditations posted each day)
Topic to Contemplate: The Holy Ghost Gives Us Himself

Holy Scripture
“And the spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt be changed into another man.’” (1 Kings 10:6).

"And lifting up his eyes, he saw ... the spirit of God rushing upon him" (Numbers 24:2)

Meditation on the Role of the Holy Ghost in our Sanctification
Not only to possess us does the Holy Spirit live in us, but also to be possessed by us, to be ours. For love must possess, as well as be possessed. He is the Gift of God -- “the Gift of God Most High.” Now, the gift which belonged to the giver becomes the possession of the one who receives it. The Gift of God is ours through the stupendous prodigy of love.

Almost every time that Sacred Scripture speaks of the mission of the Holy Spirit in our souls, we find the word give. “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete [Advocate]” (John 14:16). “In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” (1 John 14:13). “For the Spirit had not yet been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7:39). “Giving them the Holy Spirit just as He did to us” (Acts 13:8).

The word “give” or “gift,” has a meaning proper to the Holy Spirit. The Father gave us His Son because He loves us: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” (John 3:16). “Through [Him] He has granted us the very great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). It is characteristic of love to give gifts, but the first gift, the gift par excellence, is love itself. The Holy Spirit is the Love of God; therefore He is the Gift of God. God gave His Son to us through love; consequently, that inexpressible gift is through the first Gift, through the Gift of all gifts.

Now to the giving on the part of God corresponds possession on our part. We have what God has given us. The Holy Spirit is then something of our own, and we can call Him, according to St. Thomas, “the spirit of man, or a gift bestowed on man.”

Have we thought of what possession of the Gift of God means in our souls? Have we thought of the divine significance of that rigorously exact phrase: “The Holy Spirit is ours”? Possession is proper to love. In its first stage it is a desire of possession; perfect love is the joy of possession, and love that is consummated is the abyss of possession.

In earthly love how imperfect, how ephemeral, how inconstant our possession is! In divine love, however, the one who is loved is necessarily possessed and with a more profound intimacy than we know, and so unchangingly — on God’s part always and on ours when love attains its perfection — that St. Paul exclaims: “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

The soul in grace has this ineffable intimacy with the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. But the first intimacy is with the Holy Spirit, because He is the first Gift. Charity, on which this close intimacy is founded, is a disposition for receiving the Holy Spirit and assimilation with Him.

Undoubtedly the root of our intimacy with God is grace, as St. Thomas teaches: “By the gift of sanctifying grace the rational creature is perfected so that it can freely use not only the created gift itself, but enjoy also the divine Person Himself; and so the invisible mission takes place according to the gift of sanctifying grace; and yet the divine Person Himself is given.” The word “mission” as it is used with regard to the Holy Spirit implies a new and special mode of presence of the Person who is sent, in those who receive Him, as St. Thomas observes (Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 43).

But grace is only the root. The immediate reason why any of the divine Persons gives Himself to us is a Gift which emanates from grace and which our soul assimilates with the Person we possess. “The soul is made like to God by grace. Hence for a divine Person to be sent to anyone by grace, there must needs be a likening of the soul to the divine Person who is sent, by some gift of grace.” And as the Holy Ghost is Love, the soul is assimilated to the Holy Ghost by charity.

We possess God because He gives Himself to us, but His first Gift is the Holy Spirit. Our first intimacy, then, is with the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that we can possess one divine Person without possessing the others, for They are inseparable; but, according to the order of appropriation, we possess the Father and the Son because we possess the Holy Spirit, who is the first Gift of God.

But let us note the just-quoted teaching of St. Thomas, whose austere precision, entirely free from the exaggerations of enthusiasm, gives to his words an admirably profound meaning: Through grace, the soul can not only use the created gift freely, but can also enjoy the divine Person. And this is not a light phrase that escaped the holy Doctor without his measuring its profundity. It is a doctrine that he sets forth fully when he explains the term “gift” as applied to the Holy Spirit:

“The word gift imports an aptitude for being given. And what is given has an aptitude or relation both to the giver and to that to which it is given. For it would not be given by anyone, unless it was his to give; and it is given to someone to be his. Now a divine Person is said to belong to another, either by origin, as the Son belongs to the Father, or as possessed by another. But we are said to possess what we can freely use or enjoy as we please: and in this way a divine Person cannot be possessed, except by a rational creature united to God. Other creatures can be moved by a divine Person, not, however, in such a way as to be able to enjoy the divine Person, and to use the effect thereof.

“The rational creature does sometimes attain thereto, as when it is made partaker of the divine Word and of the Love proceeding, so as freely to know God truly and to love God rightly. Hence the rational creature alone can possess the divine Person. Nevertheless, in order that it may possess him in this manner, its own power avails nothing: hence this must be given it from above; for that is said to be given to us which we have from another source” (Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 38, art 1). What profound and consoling truths! The Holy Spirit is ours. We can enjoy Him and use His effects. It is in our power to use Him; we can enjoy Him when we wish. Each one of these truths deserves to be extensively and lovingly meditated upon.

We have already said that possession is the ideal of love: mutual, perfect, enduring possession. God, in loving us and permitting us to love Him, divinely satisfied this exigency of love: He wished to be ours and He wished us to be His. But this possession is not superficial and transient, as in human love. It is something very serious, very profound and lasting. God gives Himself to us with ardor and vehemence, with the deep truth of His infinite love. He does not live with us, but in us. He does not wish to come only at our call to satisfy our desires, like those who love each other on earth; He gives Himself to us, delivers Himself to us, makes us the Gift of Himself, that we may use it according to our pleasure.

To use that Gift is to enjoy it for it is the supreme end of our being, our life’s happiness; and no other use can be made of happiness than to enjoy it. We are able to make use of His other gifts, the effects of His love; we can only enjoy His Gift.

It is in our power to enjoy that happiness which we carry within our souls whenever we wish to, for what is ours is ours to dispose of. The Gift that has been given to us, that we possess, is ours, and we may freely make use of God. The sweet familiarity with which the saints treat God, as well as their confident boldness in drawing near to Him, attracts our attention.

There is nothing strange about it; the wonderful, the amazing, thing is that God loves us and that He wants to be loved by us; the rest is the logical consequence of that love, because, as Lacordaire has so profoundly said: “Love in Heaven and on earth has the same name, the same essence, the same law.” From the moment in which God determined to love, He became ours. What is strange about our using freely and trustingly that which belongs to us?

Heaven itself is a natural consequence of this love. There our joy will be perfect and complete, while the joy that we have in our exile is imperfect, mixed with pain and hope. For the same gift is enjoyed in a different manner when conditions change, and especially when the capacity of the one who possesses it changes. But the root of both joys, that of Heaven and that of earth, is the same. It is the Gift of love.

To enjoy God is to know Him and to love Him. But it is not just any sort of knowledge or any sort of love that gives this joy. It is the intimate knowledge that penetrates His truth and the profound love which unites us with His sovereign goodness. For us to attain such a knowledge and such a love, our own strength is not sufficient; we need to receive from God Himself His gifts: participation in the divine Word and personal Love.

To enjoy the Holy Spirit is to love; to enjoy the Word is to know. But just as the divine Persons are inseparable, those divine joys are also intimately bound together. Intimate knowledge produces love; profound love is a source of light. Whoever enjoys the Son and the Holy Spirit attains to the joy of the Father, plunging himself, so to speak, into the bosom of immense tenderness, into the ocean from which all good proceeds.

“If thou didst know the Gift of God!” said Jesus to the Samaritan woman (John 4:10). If only we knew the treasures that are hidden in the higher life of the soul, the riches of that divine world into which the Gift of God introduces us! The world cannot receive these holy realities, nor does it even suspect them, because “it neither sees nor knows” the Gift of God. But from how many souls that could know the divine Gift are God’s wonders hidden!

Undoubtedly that full participation in the Word and in the Holy Spirit that makes us know Him intimately and love Him profoundly, is sanctity, is union. But hardly does the life of grace begin in souls when God gives His gifts to them and they begin to find their joy in Him. The spiritual life is always substantially the same from the beginning until the magnificence of its full flowering.

Before the soul reaches the maturity of union it possesses the Gift of God, but as one possessing a treasure whose value is unknown and whose advantages cannot be fully enjoyed immediately. This imperfect spiritual life is the true life, but it does not yet have full consciousness nor full possession of itself. There are such heavy shadows in the understanding! There is still such a mixture of earthly affections in the heart! The soul is so bound to creatures! It does not know what it possesses, nor has it the holy liberty of the children of God to lift its wings and soar aloft to the enjoyment of Him. This is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit in souls: to bring to holy maturity, to happy plenitude, that germ of life which He Himself deposited in them.

The spiritual life is the mutual possession of God and the soul, because it is essentially their mutual love. When the Holy Spirit possesses a soul completely, and the soul attains the full possession of the Gift of God, this is union, perfection, sanctity.

Then the soul participates in such a way in the divine Word, and in the Love that proceeds from the Word, that it can freely know God with an intimate and true knowledge, and love Him with a true and profound love. Then the soul belongs wholly to God, and God to the soul. Then God works in the soul as one would work in that which belongs to him completely, and the soul enjoys God with confidence, with liberty, with the sweet intimacy that we use with our own. If only we knew the Gift of God! If only we knew the goodness and love of God, and the happiness and riches that are contained for us in this profound invocation of the Church: “Gift of God most high!”

Our Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, Who, before ascending into heaven, didst promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Thy work in the souls of Thy Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me, that He may perfect in my soul the work of Thy grace and Thy love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Thy divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining Heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with Thee, and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God, and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Thy true disciples and animate me in all things with Thy Spirit. Amen.

[Mention Intention]

Let us pray:
O God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of Thy faithful. Grant that, by the gift of the same Spirit, .we may be always truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Say the Our Father and the Hail Mary.

Final Invocation:
Come O Creator, Spirit blest!
And in our hearts take up Thy rest!