Reflection
After Pentecost we reflect on what are known as the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. These are evidences of how persons who live in tunewith the Spirit of God can eflect these qualities inwardly and into all of creation. Linked with the whole web of life, they are always in process and always opening themselves to new possibilities. By their response to the Spirit who urges them, they help to “renew the face of the earth”.
Prayer
Come Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth.
Action
Reflect on the fact that the Spirit of God is always within you. To what is God’s Spirit urging you?
Suggested Reading
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
John 14:26
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Acts 1:8
For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
1 Corinthians 12:8 – 10
But you have received the Holy Spirit, who lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you all things, and what is taught is true — it is not a lie. So continue in what the Spirit has taught you, and continue to live in Christ.
1John 2:19-27
The Spirit is “the gift of God” par excellence. The Spirit is a gift of God, and in turn communicates various spiritual gifts to those who receive it.
Pope Francis
Come HolySpirit, breathe down upon our troubled world.Shake the tired foundations of our crumbling institutions.Break the rules that keep you out of all our sacred spaces,and from the dust and rubble, gather up the seedlings of a new creation.Come Holy Spirit, enflame once more the dying embers of our weariness.Shake us out of our complacency. Whisper our names once more,and scatter your gifts of grace with wild abandon.Break open the prisons of our inner being,and let your raging justice be our sign of liberty.Come Holy Spirit and lead us to places we would rather not go.Expand the horizons of our limited imaginations.Awaken in our souls dangerous dreams for a new tomorrow,and rekindle in our hearts the fire of prophetic enthusiasm.Come Holy Spirit, whose justice outwits international conspiracy,whose light outshines religious bigotry,whose peace can halt our patriarchal hunger for dominance and control,whose promise invigorates our every effort:to create a new heaven and a new earth, now and forever. Amen
Diarmuid O’Murchu, Prayer to the Holy Spirit
There are countless Christians who consider the occasional working of the Holy Spirit in their spirit to be the most sublime of their life experiences. Were they to live by the spirit according to its law, however, they would discover that these are everyday occurrences.
Watchman Nee