PENTECOST NOVENA 2024 - Tuesday 14 May: Understanding

Sign of the Cross

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.

Intention

For every parishioner. That we all might strive to nurture our friendship with Christ through persevering in prayer, and seeking Him in the Scriptures and through reception of the Sacraments.

Understanding, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, perfects our faith by enabling us to penetrate the inner meaning of revealed truths in a way that transcends human reason. Our natural way of knowing is elevated by a graced intuition and insight into the things of God.

By faith we know them, but by the gift of understanding we learn to appreciate and relish them. This appreciation radiates outward to others, because our faith is no longer just a matter of information from a book, but a way of living rooted in intimacy with the mysteries of Christ.

May the Holy Spirit attune our hearts and minds to a deeper spiritual understanding of these mysteries, so that as missionary disciples of a new Pentecost in our time, we may draw others to Christ and to his church.

Let us pray

Father, send the Holy Spirit into our minds and hearts, giving us a deeper understanding of the mysteries of salvation. May He teach and instruct us, the people you have made your own, so that we may never waver in our faith, but by the gift of understanding may be ready to give an answer to all who ask the reason for the hope that is within us.

We make our prayer through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Mary, Seat of Understanding, pray for us.

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Scriptures regarding the Holy Spirit

Luke 11:13 "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”	John 14:26 "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you."
Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”	Acts 2:38 "Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Acts 9:31 "Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up. Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers."	Romans 5:5b "God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
1 Corinthians 6:19 "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?"	1 Corinthians 12:3b "No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit."
Ephesians 1:13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;	2 Timothy 1:14 "Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us."
Titus 3:5 "He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit."