The Novena for Pentecost

I did a post earlier which was misunderstood about how the liturgical prayers and readings actually comprise the prayer of the Church in preparation for Pentecost.  I wondered aloud why anything else was needed, when these prayers are so rich.  I forgot about community prayers outside the liturgy that enhance, such as novena prayers one might have found in the Roman Rota, or the litanies, and so on.  The tone of the post came off as if I was denigrating such prayers - which happen to be just as efficacious and instructive, and may inspire even deeper devotion.  I took the post down lest an unknowing reader think that I was teaching on the subject, rather than simply sharing an observation.

Having cleared that up, I am daily deeply impressed by what the 'Spirit says to the Churches' in the daily psalms and readings at Mass.  Every day is a grace, deep calling to deep.  These days, hearing the Lord's prayer from John's Gospel, it seems to me that the soul is brought into the most intimate recesses of the Heart of Christ, plunged as it were into the very bosom of the Trinity.  As one ruminates the Lord's prayer it seems as if the soul begins to understand and experience the love between the Father and the Son, how the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son and so on.  What is so incredible is the knowing that the Father has given us to the Son - which means the Father loves us as he loves the Son - and he gifted us to the Son who is in turn his gift to us for the salvation of the world, 'the grace of God has appeared'.  Those who believe, who accept him, are in turn gifted with the Holy Spirit - who proceeds from the Father and the Son and is as theologians say, the love between the Father and the Son.  In the Holy Spirit we go in and out as it were, traveling without moving, if you will, yet we remain in Them and They in us.  In communion.  In time and eternity.