Tomorrow the Church worldwide will begin praying a novena – nine days of prayer – to the Holy Spirit as we prepare for the great Solemnity of Pentecost on Sunday, June 5. Veni Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit! The Diocese of Lansing’s General Consul, Will Bloomfield, now explains more about the Novena to the Holy Spirit. Will writes:
The Feast of the Ascension of the Lord is traditionally 40 days after Easter on Ascension Thursday. This year, Ascension Thursday is today, May 26.
While our Diocese will be celebrating this great feast on this coming Sunday, Ascension Thursday also serves as a marker for the beginning of the Novena to the Holy Spirit.
This novena, which is considered the original novena, begins the day after Ascension Thursday and then concludes nine days later on the Vigil of Pentecost.
The very idea of a novena — nine days of praying for a particular intention — comes from the fact that, after Christ’s Ascension, the disciples and Mary gathered in the upper room in prayer for nine days in prayerful anticipation of the coming of the Holy Spirit.
* If you would like to pray the Novena to the Holy Spirit, beginning tomorrow, Friday, May 27 and concluding on Saturday, June 4, the daily prayers are found at EWTN’s website here: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/devotions/novena-to-the-holy-spirit-for-the-seven-gifts-309