Sacred Stones, Sacred Stories

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.”

 At Easter we profess faith in God the Father, in Jesus Christ His son and in the Holy Spirit.  We boldly acclaim our belief in the three persons of the Trinity.  When we pray the Nicene Creed during Sunday Eucharist we remind ourselves and recommit to this faith.

Pentecost gives us the opportunity to focus on the Holy Spirit and his work.  He is the giver of life.  He is the Paraclete, the Advocate sent by Jesus.  Pentecost ends the Easter season and ushers in ordinary time in a powerful way.  With the coming of the Holy Spirit Christ’s victory now flows to and fills his mystical body, the Church of whom we are living stones.  It is this faith which brings peace and hope to our hearts in this imperfect world.

The seven gifts the Holy Spirit showered upon us during this feast are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord.  Each gift perfects our natural virtues.  Each gift helps us live more fully our call to be a child of God in word and action.

Let us join Christians the world over in praying for the coming of the Spirit,

“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Your Love. Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created; and Thou shall renew the face of the earth.  O, God, who instructs the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in His consolation.  We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.  Alleluia”

The Holy Spirit is the very breath of God. God breathed out his spirit to fill the nostrils of Adam with life. He gave life to every living creature. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can experience God as Creator and as God. It was through the Holy Spirit that the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus.  The power of the Holy Spirit is life giving and life sustaining. And we all have the divine breath within us.

The Holy Spirit is received at conception, and this gift is strengthened by our Baptism. It was no different when John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan before he went in to the desert. This means that Jesus did not enter the desert alone. He was accompanied by the strength of the Trinity.

When we experience a desert in our lives we too need to trust that we are not alone. We are never alone. We always have the power of the Spirit to guide us and bring us to greater being. All we need to do is call upon our source of life and love to find our way and the strength to persevere.

The Holy Spirit is a mighty force to be reckoned with.  Let us put our faith in the One who can vanquish sin and death in us and in our world. May The Spirit be with you.

From a sermon of St. Gregory of Nazianzen

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness.  Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of people, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all humankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from  the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

“[Jesus] said, ‘Peace be with you…(and) breathed on them, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:21-22)

Jesus shared his living and lasting peace as well as his breath of life, his breath of creation, his breath of God. We Christians became the church on this day; we were given everything we need to be Christ’s body, everything necessary for our holiness and greatest call – to be the children of God.

Jesus’s peace is powerful. It sets the world on its head. Everlasting peace vanquishes all need to earn our way into heaven. Heaven is our gift. But with the gift comes the responsibility to share it as all gifts are given for the common good. Do not our hearts stir when we try not to share this peace? Jesus’s peace negates the hatred and violence of the world and their pull on our souls. As Christians we joyfully share this peace and faithfully bring others into the fold.

Jesus’s breath is powerful. Like a mighty wind, able to move mountains and oceans, able to bring forth order from chaos, able to bear life from nothing. The Holy Spirit is the promise Jesus gave us that he would not leave us alone. The Holy Spirit dwells in our human bodies and brings gifts for each of us. We are enabled to be the people we are called forth to be. We are enabled to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable and the impossible. We have truly become the body, soul and divinity of Christ. We take on Christ and are welcomed into the cosmic dance of creation, into the inner sanctum of the sacred, the Triune God, and strengthen this unity every time we celebrate the Eucharist.

Now that we have received the ability and the ensuing gifts, let us go forth proclaiming the good news, co-creating peace to the ends of the earth. Let us each speak, with tongues set on fire, the words of eternal salvation. Let us together be a sign of God’s divine love.

Today is the sixth of nine days praying for priests as we near Pentecost. Please join us!

Sixth Day, June 8: The gift of understanding

Understanding, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, helps us to grasp the meaning of the truths of our holy religion by faith. We know these truths, but by understanding we learn to appreciate and relish them. It enables us to penetrate the inner meaning of revealed truths and through them to be quickened to newness of life. Our faith ceases to be sterile and inactive but inspires a mode of life that bears eloquent testimony to the faith that is in us; we begin to “walk worthy of God in all things pleasing and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Let us pray. Come, O Spirit of Understanding, enlighten our minds, that we may know and believe all the mysteries of salvation; and may merit at last to see the eternal light in Thy Light and in the light of glory to have a clear vision of thee and of the Father and of the Son. Amen.

Pray the Our Father once, the Hail Mary once and the Glory Be seven times; then pray the Prayer of the Seven Gifts:

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (recited daily)

O, Lord Jesus Christ, who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish thy work in the souls of thy apostles and disciples, deign to grant, in our own times, the same Holy Spirit to our bishop and priests, that he may perfect in their souls the work of thy grace and thy love.

Grant them the Spirit of Wisdom that our priests may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal; the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten our priests’ minds with the light of thy divine truth; the Spirit of Counsel that our priests may ever choose the surest way to pleasing God and gaining heaven; the Spirit of Fortitude that our priests may bear their crosses with thee and that they may overcome with courage all the obstacles to salvation; the Spirit of Knowledge that our priests may know God and themselves and grow perfect in the science of the Saints; the Spirit of Piety that our priests may find the service of God sweet and amiable; and the Spirit of Fear that our priests may be filled with a loving reverence toward God and may dread in any way to displease him. Mark our priests, dear Lord, with the sign of thy true disciples, and animate them in all things with thy Spirit. Amen.

Yesterday we blogged about joining us in prayer for our priests this Pentecost. There is one prayer to be recited daily during the Novena and nine additional prayers. We will post these prayers each day as a reminder.

Second Day, June 4: The Gift of Fear

The gift of Fear fills us with a sovereign respect for God and makes us dread nothing so much as to offend him by sin. It is a fear that arises, not from the thought of hell, but from sentiments of reverence and filial submission to our heavenly Father. It is the fear that is the beginning of wisdom, detaching us from worldly pleasures that could in any way separate us from God. “They that fear the Lord will prepare their hearts and, in his sight, sanctify their souls.”

Let us pray. Come, O blessed Spirit of Holy Fear, penetrate our inmost hearts, that we may set thee, our Lord and God, before our faces forever, help us to shun all things that can offend thee and make us worthy to appear before the pure eyes of thy divine majesty in heaven where thee lives and reigns in the unity of the ever Blessed Trinity, God’s world without end. Amen.

Pray the Our Father once, the Hail Mary once and the Glory Be seven times; then pray the Prayer of the the Seven Gifts (below).

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (recited daily)

O, Lord Jesus Christ, who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish thy work in the souls of thy apostles and disciples, deign to grant, in our own times, the same Holy Spirit to our bishop and priests, that he may perfect in their souls the work of thy grace and thy love.

Grant them the Spirit of Wisdom that our priests may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal; the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten our priests’ minds with the light of thy divine truth; the Spirit of Counsel that our priests may ever choose the surest way to pleasing God and gaining heaven; the Spirit of Fortitude that our priests may bear their crosses with thee and that they may overcome with courage all the obstacles to salvation; the Spirit of Knowledge that our priests may know God and themselves and grow perfect in the science of the Saints; the Spirit of Piety that our priests may find the service of God sweet and amiable; and the Spirit of Fear that our priests may be filled with a loving reverence toward God and may dread in any way to displease him. Mark our priests, dear Lord, with the sign of thy true disciples, and animate them in all things with thy Spirit. Amen.

(image courtesy of CHURCHPowerPoint.com)

As contemplative monastics, our main ministry of service to the Church is that of prayer. So please join us this Pentecost as we prepare to celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles.

The novena in honor of the Holy Spirit is the oldest of all novenas since it was first made at the direction of Our Lord 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 plea for the light, strength and love desperately needed by our priests.

There is one prayer to be recited daily during the Novena and nine additional prayers. We will post these prayers each day as a reminder.

First Day, June 3: The Holy Spirit

We must ever stay focused on eternal salvation. Only one thing, therefore, is to be feared – sin.

Sin is the result of ignorance, weakness and indifference. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Light, of Strength and of Love. With his sevenfold gifts he enlightens the mind, strengthens the will and inflames the heart with love of God.

To ensure our salvation we ought to invoke the Divine Spirit daily for “The Spirit helps our infirmity. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. But the Spirit himself asks for us.”

Let us pray. Almighty and eternal God, who has granted to regenerate us by water and the Holy Spirit and has given us forgiveness of all sins, granted to send forth from heaven upon us the sevenfold Spirit, the Spirt of Wisdom and Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel and Fortitude, the Spirit of Knowledge and Piety and fill us with the Spirit of Holy Fear. Amen.

Pray the Our Father once, the Hail Mary once and the Glory Be seven times; then pray the Prayer of the the Seven Gifts (below).

Prayer for the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (recited daily)

O, Lord Jesus Christ, who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish thy work in the souls of thy apostles and disciples, deign to grant, in our own times, the same Holy Spirit to our bishop and priests, that he may perfect in their souls the work of thy grace and thy love.

Grant them the Spirit of Wisdom that our priests may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal; the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten our priests’ minds with the light of thy divine truth; the Spirit of Counsel that our priests may ever choose the surest way to pleasing God and gaining heaven; the Spirit of Fortitude that our priests may bear their crosses with thee and that they may overcome with courage all the obstacles to salvation; the Spirit of Knowledge that our priests may know God and themselves and grow perfect in the science of the Saints; the Spirit of Piety that our priests may find the service of God sweet and amiable; and the Spirit of Fear that our priests may be filled with a loving reverence toward God and may dread in any way to displease him. Mark our priests, dear Lord, with the sign of thy true disciples, and animate them in all things with thy Spirit. Amen.