Prayed on the nine days from the day after Ascension to the vigil of Pentecost.
A daily prayer: O Holy Spirit, Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, Spirit of truth, love, and holiness, proceeding from the Father and the Son, and equal to Them in all things, I adore Thee and love Thee with all my heart.
Teach me to know and to seek God, by whom and for whom I was created. Fill my heart with a holy fear and a great love of Him. Give me the seven gifts — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Make me faithful to every inspiration of Thy grace, and never let me resist or grieve Thee.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.
The Novena to the Holy Spirit holds a unique place among all the Church’s prayers: it is the first novena — indeed the origin of the very practice. The word "novena" means "nine," and it goes back to the nine days the Apostles and Our Lady spent in prayer between the Ascension of Our Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is, many hold, the only novena of divine institution, for Our Lord Himself commanded the waiting: "stay you in the city, till you be endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49; cf. Acts 1:4–8).
Scripture shows us that first novena. After the Ascension the Apostles "returned to Jerusalem… and going up into an upper room… all these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus" (Acts 1:12–14). For nine days they prayed in the Cenacle, with the Blessed Virgin at their heart; and on the ninth day — Pentecost — "there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind… and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" (Acts 2:2–4). The Church was born. Every novena since is an imitation of those nine days of expectant prayer.
Because the whole Christian life depends on the Holy Spirit, Pope Leo XIII, in his 1897 encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Divinum Illud Munus, asked that this novena be made publicly in every parish in the days before Pentecost each year. Traditionally its nine days meditate in turn on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2) and on the fruits He brings forth in the soul (Galatians 5:22–23), so that the faithful, like the Apostles, may be renewed and set on fire for the mission of Christ.
Prayed on the nine days from the day after Ascension to the vigil of Pentecost.
A daily prayer:
O Holy Spirit, Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, Spirit of truth, love, and holiness, proceeding from the Father and the Son, and equal to Them in all things, I adore Thee and love Thee with all my heart.
Teach me to know and to seek God, by whom and for whom I was created. Fill my heart with a holy fear and a great love of Him. Give me the seven gifts — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Make me faithful to every inspiration of Thy grace, and never let me resist or grieve Thee.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Prayed on the nine days from the day after Ascension to the vigil of Pentecost.
A daily prayer:
O Holy Spirit, Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, Spirit of truth, love, and holiness, proceeding from the Father and the Son, and equal to Them in all things, I adore Thee and love Thee with all my heart.
Teach me to know and to seek God, by whom and for whom I was created. Fill my heart with a holy fear and a great love of Him. Give me the seven gifts — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and the fear of the Lord. Make me faithful to every inspiration of Thy grace, and never let me resist or grieve Thee.
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.