A Prayer for the Day
O God, it was not enough that you gave your Beloved Son to us. Jesus gave us his Spirit, who breathes the life of faith into us. It is faith in you that gives birth to hope and love. You, Blessed Trinity, dwell in us, inhabit us and fill us so we can rest in you. Joy, spiritual joy, is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. O God, you fill the heart of the person. Fired by the Spirit, the heart prays spontaneously with acts of faith, love, petition, and reconciliation full of thanksgiving. We can do nothing on our own, for we are creatures who depend on you for everything. You sustain us in life. For the person who remains with you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is peace and spiritual joy which the spirit of the world cannot understand. Here on earth in our daily struggles, we will always find joy according to you, O God, mixed with the sufferings of our journey. You will give the fullness of joy in heaven. But joy does begin here on earth when we make a gift of ourselves in our effort to love. This effort is our own personal living of the mystery of Jesus.
God, the source of all hope, fill me with all joy and peace through my belief in you, so that I’ll “overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Romans 15:13).
Bless me now as I search for deeper meaning of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and life eternal in the presence of the Gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen.