May 8: Waiting in Prayer on the Holy Spirit

The Upper Room, Jerusalem

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Reading I: Acts 1:12-14

When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers (NRSV, Acts 1:13-14).

Father, your holy people are liturgically gathered in the upper room with Mary, the apostles, and companions in prayer. It is the great novena of the Church praying for the coming of your Holy Spirit.

Father, may we always be responsive to the gift of your life in the Spirit offered to all peoples, in every place, at every moment, even from the womb. May we grow constantly in that life as we accept your Spirit ever more completely into our own lives.

Your Spirit empowers us to live the resurrection even here in this world. May we manifest that life in the Spirit by loving and serving one another and may the Spirit bring us to the fullness of the resurrection with you and all the saints in the world to come.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.