May 20, 2012

Novena to the Holy Spirit - Day 4


The novena in honour of the Holy Spirit is the oldest of all novenas since it was first made at the direction of Our Lord Himself when He sent His apostles back to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. Addressed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, it is a powerful plea for the light and strength and love so sorely needed by every Christian.

The nine-day Novena to the Holy Spirit will be prayed collectively by Jesus Youth around the world in union with the Universal Church to invoke a renewed out pouring of the Holy Spirit. The traditional Novena has been modified to include special prayers for a ‘new anointing’ on the movement.

DAY FOUR

1. Come Holy Spirit

Leader: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.
Community: Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth.

2. Introductory Prayer

Leader: O God, of old you instructed the hearts of your faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit. Give us this Holy Spirit; under His divine inspiration, may we have a sense of what is true and a taste for what is good, and always experience the fruit of His consolation. This we ask through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.
Community: Amen.

3. Prayer

Leader and Community: God the Father, Creator and Protector of all, we praise you. God the Son, who incarnated as man to show the world the love of the Father, we worship you. Jesus, we thank you for sending your Holy Spirit upon us to prepare us to acknowledge and believe that you are our Saviour and Lord. O, Holy Spirit, who, since the creation of the Universe, has been continuously renewing the face of the earth with your presence, we glorify you. You, who descended upon our Holy Mother and the apostles who had been prayerfully waiting in the House of Sion, come and fill this community with your presence. Fill the hearts you created with your divine graces. Enable us to fill our bodies, your dwelling places, with holiness. O, Holy Spirit, fountain of holiness and love, come and purify us. Give us the grace to know and believe in the Father, the Son and their Spirit, you, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

4. Word of God – Acts 4:23-31

5. Short Reflection

6. Intercessions

Leader: Let us offer ourselves entirely to the Holy Spirit, who leads us in our daily lives, and pray to Him with great keenness, to fill us with strength of Spirit. By the gift of Fortitude the soul is strengthened against natural fear, and supported to the end in the performance of duty. Fortitude imparts to the will an impulse and energy which moves it to undertake without hesitancy the most arduous tasks, to face dangers, to trample under foot human respect, and to endure without complaint the slow martyrdom of even lifelong tribulation. “He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.”
Community: Fill us with strength of Spirit.
  • O, Holy Spirit, who led the early Church in strength and fullness of grace, that we may boldly proclaim our faith in you,
    Comm: Fill us with strength of Spirit.
  • O, Jesus, who warned us about the torments and persecutions that we may have to face in the world, that in the midst of difficulties and sufferings, we may not waver, but be strengthened in faith,
    Comm: Fill us with strength of Spirit.
  • That in the midst of all the atrocities and persecutions that are occurring against Christians, we may persevere in faith,
    Comm: Fill us with strength of Spirit.
  • That having received God’s call to be the prophets of the times, we may in our journey towards heaven, identify the evil around us and accept you, who are good and good alone,
    Comm: Fill us with strength of Spirit.

7. Our Father

8. Prayer to Mary

Leader and Community: O Holy Mary, Mother of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, intercede for me to God the Father that I may be freed from my sins by the merits of the Precious Blood of your Divine Son, and that I may be filled with the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. Take away from me my sinful heart and give me the new heart that Almighty God promised through the prophet Ezekiel. “I will give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them. Then they shall be my people and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). Holy and loving Mother, intercede for me that I may be filled with the love of the Holy Spirit. Help me to be filled with the spirit of repentance, to abandon my sinful ways and be transformed into a new individual by the power of the Precious Blood of Jesus.

9. Concluding Prayer

Leader: O God, give us the fruit of patience. Help us to be patient at work and in our enterprises so that we will never give way but always hold on to the end. Help us to have patience with people, so that we may never lose our temper or grow irritable, or blaze into angry words. Help us to have patience when things are slow to come and slow to happen or when something takes a long time to do. Help us to remember that everything worth doing is hard to do and takes time; that everything worth getting is hard to get; that everything worth being is hard to be, but that the struggle and the effort are worthwhile in the end. This we ask in the name of Jesus.

Community: Amen.

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