Introduction When Jesus had completed his task on earth, he ascended to the Father, promising to send the Holy Spirit to guide and inspire the Church he had founded. Throughout the centuries we, as the Mystical Body of Christ, have experienced this guidance and inspiration. We find various symbols for the Holy Spirit: tongues of fire, a gentle breeze, a strong wind, a dove, etc Within our Schoenstatt Family, the Holy Spirit plays an important role as the Spirit of Love, the Spirit of the Father, constantly nourishing and revitalizing our spiritual life. The symbol of the Holy Spirit, a dove surrounded by golden rays, is attached in most of our shrines, reminding us of his task as sanctifier. This novena should open our hearts and minds for these gifts and for the one who gives them to us. It contains words from our father and founder, a prayer, and a daily resolution. Each day ends with the prayer of Cardinal Mercier, as adapted by Father Kentenich. May our Mother Thrice Admirable, the most perfect Vessel of the Spirit, open our hearts and minds so that the Holy Spirit can fill us, also, with his gifts and enlighten and guide us from the shrine as we journey homeward to the Father. 1 to be said each day of the novena: Holy Spirit, you are the soul of my soul. I humbly adore you. Enlighten me, strengthen me, guide me, comfort me. Reveal your wishes to me as far as this is in accordance with the will of the Eternal Father. Show me what Eternal Love wants of me. Show me what I should do. Show me what I should suffer. Show me what I should humbly and thoughtfully accept, bear and endure. Holy Spirit, show me your will and the will of the Father, for I want my whole life to be nothing else than a continuous, an everlasting yes to the wishes, to the will of God, the Eternal Father. (Cardinal Mercier, as used by Fr. Kentenich) Our Lady must intercede for us so that the Holy Spirit with his gifts may break through in our souls and lead us to such heroic childlikeness that we are only concerned about fulfilling the Father s will. We must become firm personalities, able to cope with life. Only the Holy Spirit can give this to us. (Fr. Kentenich, God, My Father, p. 40) 2
1 st Day Life in the Holy Spirit Our purely natural thinking, our purely natural willing, our purely natural loving will be lifted through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These gifts enable us to stand in divine light, in divine confidence and in divine strength in all situations of life We see that we cannot reach out for such an ideal with purely human means, even if we all were little heroes. Therefore, what is presupposed? The Holy Spirit is immense power and strength of transformation is presupposed. (The Game of Love II. P.3) Veni Sancte Spiritus! So come, do come, Holy Spirit! We know that it is relatively easy for you to transform us completely, to bring all the good drives and powers lying hidden within us to their victorious completion. O Come! Fill the hearts that you have created with the power of your grace. (Fr. Kentenich, Mary and the Holy Spirit, p. 8) Today when I experience my own personal limitations, at least once I will turn to the Holy Spirit and ask him to come live in me and sanctify me. 3 2 nd Day: Gifts of the Holy Spirit Words of Father Kentenich What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit? They are supernatural, infused properties by which a soul in the state of grace is enabled and willing to say a prompt, persevering yes to every, even the slightest movement and inspiration of God s Spirit When the gifts of the Holy Spirit, that is, the gift of wisdom, fills our souls we view all knowledge and life in a new light as though we had been blind before. It seems that this should stimulate us to petition and even beg above all, Our Lady to intercede with the Holy Spirit for us. In what new perspective the child will then view the Father and understand him in light and darkness amid the blows of fate! The man who plants a tree and wants it to grow, will see to it that the tree takes root. When we compare childlikeness with a tree, the roots symbolize holy wisdom The gift of wisdom is an extraordinary degree of knowledge coupled with great reverence and awe. The mystics tell us that the gift of wisdom is for the soul a light of extraordinary clarity and at the same time a light of extraordinary ardor. (I Go to the Father, pp. 39-42) O Mary, your shrine radiates into our time the glory and brightness of Tabor s sun Enveloped in 4
the brilliance of Tabor s sun, and open as a vessel to the Holy Spirit, you work in Schoenstatt as a mediatrix, mercifully leading us to the Holy Spirit. Draw us deeply into Christ s spirit, richly bestow on us the gif of eloquent love so Christ s glory ma evermore radiate from us as it does from you, the Mirror of Justice. (Fr. Kentenich, Heavenwards, p.14) Today I will go in spirit to the shrine and ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for me the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gift of wisdom. 3 rd Day: The Spirit of Childlikeness Childlikeness is a need of our nature. It is also, and even more so, a gift of the Holy Spirit, and that to an eminent degree If my childlikeness is to become deep and lasting, if it is to endure the trials of life, than I am in absolute need of the Holy Spirit for the gift of childlikeness. With ordinary virtues and graces alone, I will not accomplish very much. The childlikeness we aspire to presupposes a most extraordinary activity of the Holy Spirit in our souls. No matter how strong our natural disposition toward childlikeness may be, it will not endure on its own. 5 If a person wants to become childlike quickly, deeply, perseveringly and heroically, and wants to withstand ever more difficult trials, he needs the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must first take possession of the soul of the person In as far as childlikeness is a virtue, we must continuously exercise it; in as far as it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, we must strive for humility, the spirit of prayer, and confidence, (I Go to the Father, pp. 37-39) We see you, Mother, as you hasten with Christ to serve Elizabeth. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she rejoices because she realizes that the child she bears is made holy. We, too, wish to serve quietly the work of salvation, giving it all our strength and time. (Fr. Kentenich, Heavenwards, pp. 62-63) Today I will make a special effort to see one of my difficulties or crosses in divine light, and conquer it in divine strength. 5 th Day: The Game of Love By begging, obtain from the Holy Spirit the art of understanding the entire Christian life as an ever- 6
lasting, exciting game of love between the Father and the Father-child The expression game should not surprise us. How many difficult hours did I experience in my life some of you might say. From all eternity, Eternal Wisdom plays God s game before him. The words eternal wisdom is also applied to the Blessed Mother. She played her life before the Father. Later on the words were applied to every Christian s life, is a game before God the Eternal Father. Of course, as in every game, we need two partners. Who is the main partner in every life? It is God. The co-actors and subordinate actors we are these. (The Game of Love 1, p., 36-37) Eternal Father, see to it that we, as the important co-players in the great drama of our salvation history, become truly free co-players, interiorly detached from old forms whether it is a question of daily life or forms of prayer, or piety. See to it that we become pliable, open, little snowflakes. (Fr. Kentenich, The Game of Love 1, p. 47) : I will try to see God as my co-player in the events of this day and will respond generously and freely. 6 th Day Experts in the Game of Love 7 We expect a twofold gift from the Holy Spirit, a deeper understanding of the rules for a Christian life under the viewpoint of a continuous, exciting, and exceedingly significant game of love between God the Father and the Father-child. Besides this, we expect gradually to become experts in playing the game love Seek to successfully play the game with God, the game of your personal salvation history and that of others. You should play it with great inner detachment, with everlasting joy and with persevering animation. (The Game of Love 1, p. 55) Mother, your example, your strength and your grace shall help all of us so that during this (day) we become more and more little masters in the game of love, interiorly free, always joyful and thus animated co-players with the eternal God in the game for our own salvation and that of others. Amen. (Fr. Kentenich, The Game of Love 1, p. 54) Today I will try to play the game of love with our Heavenly Father with an especially joyful attitude. I will try to bring joy to at least one person he sends into my life today. 7 th Day: Temple of the Holy Spirit 8
My soul is a temple of the Holy Spirit. What does this mean? The whole person is dedicated to the Holy Spirit who dwells within him. This is intelligible only in the light of faith. We shall ask St. Paul who is our interpreter of old. He says: Never try to suppress the Spirit and avoid every form of evil (1Thess. 5:19). What does this mean? When do we grieve him? We grieve him when we forget him and do not think of him, when we fail to seek him God desires to be sought by us, but how little do we seek him. We seek money and material goods, but we do not seek God. St. Augustine expresses it this way: O God, you are within me, but I keep looking for satisfaction and goods outside. Triune God, you dwell and reign within me, but I am always outside of myself, outside of myself with heart and mind. (The Game of Love 1, p. 33) This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every family, whether spiritual or natural, takes its name: Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter fullness of God. Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we 9 can ask or imagine; glory be to him from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21) Today I will often greet the Holy Spirit dwelling in my heart shrine. 8 th Day The Holy Spirit in our Shrine Is it not true that, from the very beginning, we realized the cenacle situation, spirit, and fruit an ideal which we clearly envisioned, extended, and completed as time went on Indeed, we may say that in regard to its spirit, our shrine has always been our cenacle, even though we did not always phase it that way. We have always seen the material cenacle, the cenacle of stone, as a symbol of the live cenacle which the entire family represents and has striven to grasp over more deeply in life and prayer. When we now think of the cenacle spirit, does not the biblical text hold true for us, word by word? Have we not always striven after the unity of spirit to an extraordinary degree in spite of all variety within the different branches of the family?... How seriously do we in our ranks now strive after insoluble solidarity! (Pentecost, pp. 8-9) 10
Mary, in the cenacle you called down the Spirit upon the Church who freed her from half-heartedness, led her to understand Christ s teaching, and filled her with the spirit of the apostles and the martyrs. You want to work in our shrine and strengthen our weak faith so we may see life with supernatural eyes and always walk in divine light. In this light, let me trustingly see how the Father s love has accompanied me today. Let my mission loyalty be my thanks to him for the gifts he richly bestowed on me. (Fr. Kentenich, Heavenwards, p. 17) Today I will go to my home shrine or in spirit to the shrine and ask our Mother and Queen to call down the Holy Spirit in a very special way upon our Schoenstatt Family that we can become filled with the spirit of the apostles and martyrs. 9 th Day: The Holy Spirit Guides the Church Today the Holy Spirit overshadows the Church and all communities within the Church. He also comes down over Schoenstatt What kind of work does he want to perform? The same as he did years ago. For example, he wants to perform a complete transformation of the Church and of the People of God, a 11 complete transformation of men in general. Send forth your Spirit, your Holy Spirit, and everything shall be re-created, and the face of the earth shall be renewed. Come, Holy Spirit!... The situation of the cenacle then, what was it like? We think back as far as the time of which Holy Scripture speaks in connection with the coming of the Holy Spirit. And we recall that, actually, all present at the Council (Vatican II) were to present a similar picture all the Council Fathers within the room of the cenacle! All members of the Church were to think of themselves during this period as parts and members of that community that, centuries ago, was gathered in the cenacle. According to the intention of the Pope, this conception should also rule the time after the Council. Therefore, we have had special expectations of the Holy Spirit ever since. (Pentecost, May 14, 1967, pp. 4-5) Mary, in the midst of the apostles you pray for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit, who transforms weak men and leads the Church to victory. Open our hearts for God s Spirit that he may powerfully transform the world. (Fr. Kentenich, Heavenwards, p. 68) Today I will especially pray for our Church leaders that Mary will always be in their midst, interceding with them and for them for the Holy Spirit. 12