Friday After the Ascension

The Novena to the Holy Ghost

Preparation. - The novena to the sanctifying Spirit, says St. Alphonsus, is the most important of all. Let us consider, first, the motives of this importance, and secondly, the means of making this novena with fruit. Let us during these days keep ourselves united to the dispositions of the apostles and the Blessed Virgin, by persevering with them in prayer to draw within us the sanctifying Spirit. “They were persevering with one mind in prayer (Acts 1. 14).

I. Importance of the Novena to the Holy Ghost.

The Church has consecrated the custom of making novenas in preparing for the liturgical feasts. That to the Holy Ghost is of greater importance, for in it we honor the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, who intervened in all the works of God, and especially in that of the Redemption. In fact, is it not the Holy Ghost who applies the Savior’s merits to us? “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost,” says our Lord, “he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’ (John 3. 5). It is the divine Paraclete who causes us in baptism to be born to grace; who fills us with heavenly gifts in confirmation and unites us to the God man in the Eucharist by the charity He pours into our hearts (Romans 5. 3). He intervenes even in the sacrifice of our altars as the prayers of the Mass indicate. “Come, Almighty Sanctifier.”

And how does the Church sanctify the world, unless through the Holy Ghost, who gives life to her? He is, according to St. Thomas, her heart, as Jesus is her Head. He pours supernatural life into all the faithful, which is like the blood of souls, whence they derive strength for doing good. How grateful should we be to Him for having given us the light of faith, made us children of God, partakers of His nature, enriched us with infused virtues and precious gifts, the least of which surpasses in value all the wealth of the universe. Thanks to Him we are endowed with the power of meriting, and of every moment increasing our spiritual and eternal treasure.

Let us do this especially during this novena with an earnestness like that of worldlings for accumulating perishable goods, or rather with the constant fervor of the greatest saints. Is there in our heart or conduct some defect to be rooted out, or some virtue to be strengthened? The occasion is now favorable. The divine Paraclete, wishing to sanctify us, is ready to load us with His benefits. He will increase in our soul habitual grace, the intensity of our faith, the firmness of our hope, the generosity of our devotedness. If we invoke Him with fervor and perseverance, He will cause us to fear God more profoundly, to meditate and pray more attentively, to correspond more faithfully to His attractions and to advance more rapidly in the mysterious ways of interior life. Is it not, then, of great importance for us to make this novena efficacious?

O my God, I will do so by means of recollection and mental prayer. Wherefore I unite myself with the Virgin Mother and the apostles in retreat in the Supper room until Pentecost. “They were persevering with one mind in prayer.”

II. How to Profit by the Novena to the Holy Ghost.

Let us adopt the sentiments of the apostles, preparing themselves in the Supper room to receive the Holy Ghost. With what deep humility they recalled there past ignorance, their weakness during the Passion, and Christ’s reproaches for their unbelief after His resurrection!

As for us, how many motives of confusion have we not? Not only can we say with the Church: “O Holy Ghost, without Thy operation, there is nothing good in man, nothing that is undefiled”; not only can we make this humiliating avowal, but we can also make many other personal admissions. With how many faults and imperfections we can reproach ourselves! With how much resistance and infidelity to the graces of the Holy Ghost! And how slothful we are in His service, how cold in His love, how forgetful of His presence and benefits! Do not all these obstacles to the perfect reign of the divine Paraclete require of us frequent acts of self-abasement and of a loving contrition?

To these acts the apostles added their prayers and their wishes. Persuaded of their helplessness and their need of grace, how ardently they longed for the Holy Ghost! And should we not also long for Him likewise, we who have so many defects to correct, so many weaknesses to heal, so many virtues to consolidate! How we are filled with vain thoughts at mental prayer, at holy Mass, and even when partaking of the Eucharistic banquet! How many natural and selfish motives defile even our holiest actions! So many unmortified propensities, ignoble, ungenerous sentiments, a patience and a self-denial which have scarcely taken a little root; does not all this spiritual poverty compel us to call to dwell in us the Author of the heavenly gifts, and to do so with the dispositions of a starving beggar imploring most earnestly a little food to save his life?

O my God, Spirit Creator, source of living water, refresh my heart consumed by its passions. Glowing furnace of divine charity, inflame me with zeal in the search of perfection. I am resolved, first, to offer Thee daily during this novena some acts of mortification and some special prayers; secondly, to combat my defects more strenuously and to observe my rule, my rule of life more faithfully, and thirdly, to perform more carefully my pious exercises, and to recommend myself particularly to the Mother of God and the holy apostles meditating and praying together at Jerusalem, with an ever new fervor.