The Church's tradition of novenas -- nine days of prayer -- is rooted in the nine days the Apostles and Mary spent in the Upper Room between the Ascension of Christ into Heaven, and his gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
During this novena, we will spiritually place ourselves in the Upper Room, asking each day for a fruit and a gift.
When we receive and welcome him into our heart, the Holy Spirit immediately begins to make us sensitive to his voice and to guide our thoughts, our feelings, and our intentions according to the heart of God. At the same time, he leads us more and more to turn our interior gaze to Jesus, as the model of our way of acting and of relating with God the Father and with the brethren. Counsel, then, is the gift through which the Holy Spirit enables our conscience to make a concrete choice in communion with God, according to the logic of Jesus and his Gospel.
~ Pope Francis, May 7, 2014
In Confirmation, we receive the Holy Spirit and peace: that peace that we must give to others. ... in the Mass, we exchange it among ourselves. This signifies harmony; it signifies charity among us; it signifies peace. But then what happens? We go out and begin to speak ill of others, to “excoriate” others. Gossip begins. And gossip is war.
This will not do! If we have received the sign of peace with the power of the Holy Spirit, we must be men and women of peace, and not destroy, with the tongue, the peace that the Holy Spirit has created. Poor Holy Spirit: the work we give him, with this habit of gossiping!
Think carefully: gossip is not the work of the Holy Spirit; it is not the work of unity in the Church. Gossip destroys what God has made. Please: let us stop gossiping!
~ Pope Francis, May 23, 2016
