Holy Spirit Novena
Shepherds of Christ Publications
China, Indiana
This book is published by Shepherds of Christ Publications, a
subsidiary of Shepherds of Christ Ministries, a tax exempt religious public
charitable corporation organized to foster devotion to the Two Hearts, the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
For additional copies, contact us:
Shepherds of Christ Ministries
P.O. Box 193
Morrow, OH 45152-0193
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Nihil Obstat:
Rev. Daniel J. Mahan, S.T.L.
Censor Librorum
Archdiocese of Indianapolis
Imprimatur:
Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein, O.S.B.
Archbishop of Indianapolis
Copyright © 1998 Shepherds of Christ Ministries
Rights for non-commercial reproduction granted: May be copied in its
entirety, but neither re-typed nor edited.
First Printing: November, 1998
DAILY NOVENA PRAYERS
Opening Prayer
In the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear Father, we come to You in the
name of Jesus, in union with Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the Holy
Spirit. We come to You united to the Child Jesus of Good Health and the Infant
of Prague. We come to You in the perfect, sinless heart of Our Mother Mary,
asking her powerful intercession, uniting ourselves to her holy tears. We come
to You united to all the angels and saints, and the souls in purgatory.
Prayer for Holy Spirit
We pray for an outpouring of the
Holy Spirit on us, to be baptized by the Holy Spirit, that He will descend
mightily on us as He did on the Apostles at Pentecost. That the Holy Spirit will
transform us from fear to fearlessness and that He will give us courage to do
all the Father is asking of us to help bring about the Reign of the Sacred Heart
and the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. We pray for the Holy Spirit to
descend mightily on the Jesuits and the Poor Clares on the Shepherds of Christ
leaders and members and on the whole Body of Christ and the world.
Protection by the Blood of Jesus
We pray that the Blood of Jesus
will be spread on us, everyone in our families, and the Shepherds of Christ
Movement, that we will be able to move steadfastly ahead and be protected from
the evil one.
Healing
We pray for healing in body, mind,
and soul and generational healing in ourselves, in all members in our families,
and in all members of the Shepherds of Christ Movement, the Jesuit Community,
the Poor Clares, the Body of Christ, and the world.
Prayer for Strength and Light
We adore You, oh Holy Spirit. Give
us strength, give us light, console us. We give ourselves entirely to You. Oh
Spirit of light and grace, we want to only do the will of the Father. Enlighten
us that we may live always in the Father's will.
Eternal Spirit fill us with Your
Divine Wisdom that we may comprehend more fully insight into Your Divine
Mysteries.
Give us lights, Oh Holy Spirit that
we may know God. Work within the heart, the spiritual womb of the Virgin Mary,
to form us more and more into the image of Jesus.
Prayer to Be One with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
We long for You, Oh Spirit of
Light, we long to know God, we want to be one with Him, our Divine God. We want
to be one with the Father, know Him as a Person most intimately. We want to know
the beloved One, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and live and dwell in Him at all
times, every moment of our lives. We want to be one with You, Oh Spirit of
Light, that You move in us in our every breath.
Prayer to Be One in Jesus
Let us experience life in the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, so we can say as Saint Paul, "I have been crucified
with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in
me...." Let us live, united to the Mass, all through the day being one in
Him. Let us be able to love and know in this elevated state of oneness with our
God. We long for Thee, oh beauteous God, we love You, we love You, we love You.
We praise You, worship You, honor You, adore You, and thank You, our beloved
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Prayer to Dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
We seek to be one in God, to live
and dwell in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, our little heaven on earth, to
experience life in the all perfect, pure, sinless heart of our Mother. We want
the Holy Spirit to move in us and to be united to Jesus as the Bridegroom of our
souls and be a most perfect sacrifice offered to the Father at every moment as
we unite in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass around the world to help in the
salvation of souls.
Prayer for the Holy Spirit and His Gifts
Come Holy Spirit, come, come into
our hearts, inflame all people with the fire of Your love.
Leader: Send forth Your
Spirit and all will be reborn.
All: And You will renew the face of the earth.
We pray for the seven gifts of the
Holy Spirit, we ask for perfection in our souls to make us holy, holy souls
likened to God.
Dear Holy Spirit, we give ourselves
to You soul and body. We ask You to give us the Spirit of Wisdom, Understanding,
Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
Prayer for the Word Alive in Our Hearts
We know, dear Holy Spirit, the Word
in His human nature was brought forth within the womb of the woman. We pray that
His word will be brought forth in our hearts as He lives and dwells in us. We
want the incarnation to go on in our lives. Dear Holy Spirit, work in us.
Little Prayers to the Holy Spirit
Dear Holy Spirit, help us not to be
ignorant or indifferent or weak, help us to be strong with the love of God.
Dear Holy Spirit, please pray for
our needs for us.
Dear Holy Spirit, help us to
respect God and to avoid sin. Help us to live in the Father's will.
Dear Holy Spirit, help us to keep
Your commandments and to respect authority. Help us to love all things as You
will us to love them. Help us to want to pray and always serve God with the
greatest love. Help us to know the truth. Help us to have the gift of faith,
hope, and love. Help us to know what is right and what is wrong.
A Prayer for Intimacy with the Lamb, the Bridegroom of the Soul
Oh Lamb of God, Who take away the
sins of the world, come and act on my soul most intimately. I surrender myself,
as I ask for the grace to let go, to just be as I exist in You and You act most
intimately on my soul. You are the Initiator. I am the soul waiting Your favors
as You act in me. I love You. I adore You. I worship You. Come and possess my
soul with Your Divine Grace, as I experience You most intimately.
First Period
Meditations Nine Days
- Romans 8:14-17
All who are guided by the Spirit of God are sons of God; for what
you received was not the spirit of slavery to bring you back into fear; you
received the Spirit of adoption, enabling us to cry out, 'Abba,
Father!' The Spirit himself joins with our spirit to bear witness that we
are children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God
and joint-heirs with Christ, provided that we share his suffering, so as to
share his glory.
- Romans 8:5-9
Those who are living by their natural inclinations have their minds on the
things human nature desires; those who live in the Spirit have their minds
on spiritual things. And human nature has nothing to look forward to but
death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace, because the outlook
of disordered human nature is opposed to God, since it does not submit to
God's Law, and indeed it cannot, and those who live by their natural
inclinations can never be pleasing to God. You, however, live not by your
natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a
home in you. Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not
belong to him.
- 1 John 4:12-16
No one has ever seen God, but as long as we love one another God remains in
us and his love comes to its perfection in us. This is the proof that we
remain in him and he in us, that he has given us a share in his Spirit. We
ourselves have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as Saviour of
the world. Anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains
in him and he in God. We have recognised for ourselves, and put our faith
in, the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love
remains in God and God in him.
- 1 John 4:17-21
Love comes to its perfection in us when we can face the Day of Judgement
fearlessly, because even in this world we have become as he is. In love
there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear
implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love.
Let us love, then, because he first loved us. Anyone who says 'I love God'
and hates his brother, is a liar, since whoever does not love the brother
whom he can see cannot love God whom he has not seen. Indeed this is the
commandment we have received from him, that whoever loves God, must also
love his brother.
- 1 John 4:7-11
My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and
everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever fails to love
does not know God, because God is love. This is the revelation of God's love
for us, that God sent his only Son into the world that we might have life
through him. Love consists in this: it is not we who loved God, but God
loved us and sent his Son to expiate our sins. My dear friends, if God loved
us so much, we too should love one another.
- Acts of the Apostles 1:1-5
In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and
taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the
apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven.
He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations:
for forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the
kingdom of God. While at table with them, he had told them not to leave
Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. 'It is', he
had said, 'what you have heard me speak about: John baptised with water but,
not many days from now, you are going to be baptised with the Holy Spirit.'
- Acts of the Apostles 1:6-9
Now having met together, they asked him, 'Lord, has the time come for you to
restore the kingdom to Israel?' He replied, 'It is not for you to know times
or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority, but you will
receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you
will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and
Samaria, and indeed to earth's remotest end.'
As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him
from their sight.
- Acts of the Apostles 1:12-14
So from the Mount of Olives, as it is called, they went back to Jerusalem, a
short distance away, no more than a Sabbath walk; and when they reached the
city they went to the upper room where they were staying; there were Peter
and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew,
James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Jude son of James. With one
heart all these joined constantly in prayer, together with some women,
including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
- Acts of the Apostles 2:1-4
When Pentecost day came round, they had all met together, when suddenly
there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire
house in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of
fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak different languages
as the Spirit gave them power to express themselves.
Second Period
Meditations Nine Days
- John 14:21-31
Whoever holds to my commandments and keeps them is the one who
loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love
him and reveal myself to him.'
Judas-not Judas Iscariot-said to him, 'Lord, what has happened, that you
intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?' Jesus replied:
Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we
shall come to him and make a home in him. Anyone who does not love me does
not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not my own: it is the word
of the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while still with
you; but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.
Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace which the world
cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or
afraid. You heard me say: I am going away and shall return. If you loved me
you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater
than I. I have told you this now, before it happens, so that when it does
happen you may believe. I shall not talk to you much longer, because the
prince of this world is on his way. He has no power over me, but the world
must recognise that I love the Father and that I act just as the Father
commanded. Come now, let us go.
- John 17:11-26
I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am
coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name,
so that they may be one like us. While I was with them, I kept those you had
given me true to your name. I have watched over them and not one is lost
except one who was destined to be lost, and this was to fulfil the
scriptures. But now I am coming to you and I say these things in the world
to share my joy with them to the full. I passed your word on to them, and
the world hated them, because they belong to the world no more than I belong
to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to
protect them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more
than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth; your word is
truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and
for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in
truth. I pray not only for these but also for those who through their
teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father,
you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the
world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you
gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in
me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it
was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.
Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that
they may always see my glory which you have given me because you loved me
before the foundation of the world. Father, Upright One, the world has not
known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me.
I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so
that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be
in them.
- I Corinthians 15:20-28
In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits
of all who have fallen asleep. As it was by one man that death came, so
through one man has come the resurrection of the dead. Just as all die in
Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life; but all of them in their
proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who
belong to him. After that will come the end, when he will hand over the
kingdom to God the Father, having abolished every principality, every ruling
force and power. For he is to be king until he has made his enemies
his footstool, and the last of the enemies to be done away with is death,
for he has put all things under his feet. But when it is said
everything is subjected, this obviously cannot include the One who subjected
everything to him. When everything has been subjected to him, then the Son
himself will be subjected to the One who has subjected everything to him, so
that God may be all in all.
- Revelation 3:1-3,12,16-19
'Write to the angel of the church in Sardis and say, "Here is the
message of the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I
know about your behaviour: how you are reputed to be alive and yet are dead.
Wake up; put some resolve into what little vigour you have left: it is dying
fast. So far I have failed to notice anything in your behaviour that my God
could possibly call perfect; remember how you first heard the message. Hold
on to that. Repent! If you do not wake up, I shall come to you like a thief,
and you will have no idea at what hour I shall come upon you.
Anyone who proves victorious I will make into a pillar in the sanctuary of
my God, and it will stay there for ever; I will inscribe on it the name of
my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which is coming
down from my God in heaven, and my own new name as well.
'...but since you are neither hot nor cold, but only lukewarm, I will spit
you out of my mouth. You say to yourself: I am rich, I have made a fortune
and have everything I want, never realising that you are wretchedly and
pitiably poor, and blind and naked too. I warn you, buy from me the gold
that has been tested in the fire to make you truly rich, and white robes to
clothe you and hide your shameful nakedness, and ointment to put on your
eyes to enable you to see. I reprove and train those whom I
love: so repent in real earnest.'
- Revelation 5:9-14
They sang a new hymn: You are worthy to take the scroll and to
break its seals, because you were sacrificed, and with your blood you bought
people for God of every race, language, people and nation and made them a
line of kings and priests for God, to rule the world.
In my vision, I heard the sound of an immense number of angels gathered
round the throne and the living creatures and the elders; there were ten
thousand times ten thousand of them and thousands upon thousands,
loudly chanting:
Worthy is the Lamb that was sacrificed to receive power, riches, wisdom,
strength, honour, glory and blessing.
Then I heard all the living things in creation-everything that lives in
heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea, crying:
To the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honour,
glory and power, for ever and ever.
And the four living creatures said, 'Amen'; and the elders prostrated
themselves to worship.
- Revelation 7:14-17
I answered him, 'You can tell me, sir.' Then he said, 'These are the people
who have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white
again in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are standing in front of
God's throne and serving him day and night in his sanctuary; and the One who
sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. They will never
hunger or thirst again; sun and scorching wind will never plague
them, because the Lamb who is at the heart of the throne will be
their shepherd and will guide them to springs of living water; and God will
wipe away all tears from their eyes.'
- Revelation 12:1-8
Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, robed with the sun, standing
on the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant, and
in labour, crying aloud in the pangs of childbirth. Then a second sign
appeared in the sky: there was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten
horns, and each of the seven heads crowned with a coronet. Its tail swept a
third of the stars from the sky and hurled them to the ground, and
the dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was at the point of giving
birth, so that it could eat the child as soon as it was born. The woman was
delivered of a boy, the son who was to rule all the nations with an
iron sceptre, and the child was taken straight up to God and to his
throne, while the woman escaped into the desert, where God had prepared a
place for her to be looked after for twelve hundred and sixty days.
And now war broke out in heaven, when Michael with his angels
attacked the dragon. The dragon fought back with his angels, but they were
defeated and driven out of heaven.
- Revelation 14:1-7
Next in my vision I saw Mount Zion, and standing on it the Lamb who had with
him a hundred and forty-four thousand people, all with his name and his
Father's name written on their foreheads. I heard a sound coming out of
heaven like the sound of the ocean or the roar of thunder; it was like the
sound of harpists playing their harps. There before the throne they were
singing a new hymn in the presence of the four living creatures and the
elders, a hymn that could be learnt only by the hundred and forty-four
thousand who had been redeemed from the world. These are the sons who have
kept their virginity and not been defiled with women they follow
the Lamb wherever he goes; they, out of all people, have been redeemed to be
the first-fruits for God and for the Lamb. No lie was
found in their mouths and no fault can be found in them.
Then I saw another angel, flying high overhead, sent to announce the gospel
of eternity to all who live on the earth, every nation, race, language and
tribe. He was calling, 'Fear God and glorify him, because the time has come
for him to sit in judgement; worship the maker of heaven and
earth and sea and the springs of water.'
Revelation 19: 7-8
let us be glad and joyful and give glory to God, because this is the time
for the marriage of the Lamb. His bride is ready, and she has been able to
dress herself in dazzling white linen, because her linen is made of the good
deeds of the saints.'
- Revelation 21:1-10
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven
and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I
saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call
from the throne, 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his
home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, God-with-them.
He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no
more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past
has gone.'
Then the One sitting on the throne spoke. 'Look, I am making the whole of
creation new. Write this, "What I am saying is trustworthy and will
come true."' Then he said to me, 'It has already happened. I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the
well of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious
will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he will be
my son. But the legacy for cowards, for those who break their word, or
worship obscenities, for murderers and the sexually immoral, and for
sorcerers, worshippers of false gods or any other sort of liars, is the
second death in the burning lake of sulphur.'
One of the seven angels that had the seven bowls full of the seven final
plagues came to speak to me and said, 'Come here and I will show you the
bride that the Lamb has married.' In the spirit, he carried me to the
top of a very high mountain, and showed me Jerusalem, the holy city,
coming down out of heaven from God.
Revelation 22:20
The one who attests these things says: I am indeed coming soon.
Amen; come, Lord Jesus.
Scriptural quotations are taken from The New Jerusalem Bible,
Doubleday & Co.
Imprimatur granted by Cardinal Hume.
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