Waiting for the Spirit Online Retreat Day Six

Waiting for the Spirit: Ascension to Pentecost Retreat - text next to image of disciples at Pentecost

Welcome again to Waiting for the Spirit! Thank you for your presence and participation in this online retreat. Feel free to post your reflections in the comments area below each day’s content as we encourage one another in prayer.

The Grace I Seek

I pray for the grace to recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life.

Come, Holy Spirit Prayer

Scripture

Read today’s Scripture readings: May 27, 2020, Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter.

Mark Thibodeaux, SJ, reflects on today’s Gospel, John 17:11b–19. Thibodeaux is author of Ignatian Discernment of Spirits in Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Care and Reimagining the Ignatian Examen.

For Further Reflection

The Holy Spirit helps us to grow in holiness.

The Trinity is a communion of Persons, a relationship of three in one. As such, each Person of the Trinity helps sanctify us. The Latin word sanctificare means “to purify, cleanse, or to make holy.” The Holy Spirit helps us grow in discipleship by sanctifying us and our actions.

As you reflect upon your relationship with the Holy Spirit, ask yourself the following question: When you pray, which member of the Trinity do you pray most to: God the Father? God the Son? God the Holy Spirit?

—Julianne Stanz

Take some time to ponder the message that God shares with you today through the Scripture readings and reflections. When you are ready, proceed to the closing prayer.

Closing Prayer

Rebecca Ruiz leads us in prayer.

21 COMMENTS

  1. Rebecca, Your prayer is like a poem: the title and the final stanza coming full circle. This prayer to cultivate our hearts, invites an openness to God’s work within us, and not necessarily with immediate or known effect. This is helpful, as it directs me toward a stance of ready openness without a specific ‘aim’ or ‘outcome’. Petition less, offer and be, have more of me be, available, to God’s will. Thank you.

  2. I always address my prayer to Jesus. but in a moment of great decision and favor, I invoke God the Father, God the Son, and the Blessed Mother. This is what I learned in my Ignatian retreat. I realized seldom I call the Holy Spirit.

  3. Thank you for this beautiful scripture passage brought to life in our humanity-
    I believe I can express that the joy of the Lord Jesus is my strength having come through many trials with the help of the Holy Spirit knowing that God is the Creator of the universe and loves me unconditionally.
    I take one day at a time and pray for the needs of my family community and the world for through perseverance faith and hope is where true joy belongs.
    Thank you to the presenters for the joy you share with us all.

  4. “When you pray, which member of the Trinity do you pray most to: God the Father? God the Son? God the Holy Spirit?” This question opened me to the desire to establish a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

  5. I know I am one with God, with the Holy Trinity, but being one among us Christians, not Christians, and all human beings is harder. But that was (and is) what Jesus intended when he prayed to the father. And that is what I also pray for. Being in the world, but not of the world, can help to achieve that unity.

  6. This retreat is wonderful, and refreshing. I love the expression, there is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. It puts life experiences, particularly now, in perspective. May the Holy Spirit strengthen us to know always that there is Joy in the Morning!

  7. ‘I do not ask that you take them out of the world
    but that you keep them from the Evil One.’
    Reading these lines in the Gospel made me think of similar lines in another part of the Bible:
    ‘In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world’

  8. To the retreat team thank you for leading us in this retreat. It’s true nourishment for us all doing this retreat. I pray that all participants will receive many blessings from the Holy Spirit.
    My continuous prayers & blessings to all. Praise the Lord

  9. Praise the Lord Jesus christ.i like the intermingle of darkness and light.II got the proof when I got sick when doctors telling my families that I will not be the same if I ever make it not enough blood hoping to my brain.Jesys and the Holy spirit gave me second life and light.Doctos and nurses could not believe not I am the living proof of miracle and power if oraywrs.Thabks I am very thankful and grateful if what you have done for me and my family.I always pray to the father ,son and holy spirit unable to separate them.Gid Cont to Bless us All

  10. Gospel reflections and the closing prayer are wonderful. God, hep me to be grateful for all that you have given me.

  11. Thank you for this wonderful retreat it is something I really need. The following is a prayer I read on The Sacred Space this morning. I pray for the Grace to recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life. I know The Holy Spirit is within me but I cannot tell or understand when He is leading me.

  12. Isn’t it awesome that Jesus prays for me, for all of us retreatants, for ALL
    that we may be one wth Him and the Father; that we may have His joy; that we may triumph through the difficulties; that we may be safe from the evil one…!!
    Gratitude in silence!

  13. Grateful this retreat to retreat into myself to find the Trinity. Uplifting and prayerful, the reflection and prayers

  14. Thanks God we were created free and therefore can experience joy and pain. No pain no gain. There can be no Easter Sunday without Holy Friday, that brings balance to our life and the possibility of enjoying the good things and give thanks for the blessings. I am so glad to meet you again here Fr. Mark. I miss our daily ascending reflections. Thanks again and greetings from Mexico.

  15. Prayer is prompted (i.e. we are prompted to pray) by the Holy Spirit to pray to God Our Father, as His Son taught us. It is in this fact, this trinitarian prayer spirituality, that makes a Christian prayer be a Christian prayer. Therefore, waiting for the Holy Spirit, the Advocate/Helper, is to wait for one who prompts/jolts/motivates us to pray! he will tell you everything, Jesus said, including how to pray (I suppose!)

  16. Julianne: I often pray to God the Father, and equally to Jesus as I find Him in scripture. Your thoughts this morning asked me to reconsider where I find the Holy Spirit in all of that. How can I really trust that “The Holy Spirit helps (me) to grow in holiness?” Wherever my soul travels? Even in this pandemic? Thank you.

    Rebecca: “Cultivate our hearts as we wait for the new life you will place within us.” I was moved between waiting for Pentecost and waiting for the shelter-in-place order to be lifted. Wonderful closing prayer.

  17. Jesus’ words …’that we are one with Him’, comforts our bewildered hearts.

    That, there is light after grey days. That, there’s joy behind tears of hurt and sorrow. This is best depicted in the image of the Resurrected Christ nailed on the cross. That, it is OK to embrace the cross because in that cross there is Christ that give us Life everlasting.

    O Holy Spirit, breathe life in our weakened souls so we may become worthy in the oneness with Him, the Lover and the Beloved.

    Come Holy Spirit, come.

    Hi Fr. Mark & Rebecca, with grateful heart, I am going to close this day with your and reflections and prayers. Maraming Salamat 👼

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