Come, Holy Spirit Novena Day 2
Scripture:
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1)
“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (John 7:37-39)
Meditation: On the greatest day of the festival, when surely the crowd would have been the largest, Jesus stood up, and cried out in a loud voice. Jesus knew His death was imminent, and at this last hour of His life on earth, He cried out to all who would listen. We should pay careful attention to the importance and urgency of His message. What was Jesus’s message? He called all those who thirst and promised to quench their thirst with the Holy Spirit.
Our thirst has great value. Jesus seeks the thirsty and promises to overflow them with His Holy Spirit. We are all thirsty, but often we don’t recognize our thirst as a longing for God. We seek love, security, peace, recognition, and more. Yet, ultimately, only God Himself can calm our restless hearts, and only He is the fulfillment of all our desires. So, blessed is the person who turns to Jesus, recognizing his or her thirst as a longing for God because Jesus promises to satisfy our thirst by filling us with the Holy Spirit.
“There is nothing for which we should pray more earnestly and more importunately than for spiritual longing and desire. It is indeed the very soul of all true prayer. It is the empty hand reached out to receive new and richer gifts from heaven. It is the heart’s cry which God hears with acceptance and answers always with more and more of life. It is the ascending angel that climbs the radiant ladder to return on the same bright stairway with blessing from God’s very hand. It is the key that unlocks new storehouses of divine goodness and enrichment. It is indeed nothing less than the very life of God in the human soul, struggling to grow up in us into the fullness of the stature of Christ.” (Come Ye Apart by J.R. Miller, italics mine.)
Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, You alone can truly satisfy my thirst. Help me to understand that my deepest yearning is for You alone. And most of all, Lord, fill my heart with longing for You because You reward those who earnestly seek You. Thank You for loving me so much that You call me to You and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Amen
Traditional prayer invoking the Holy Spirit: 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.
O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.