Day 5 Holy Spirit Novena

Novena for Pentecost

June 5, 2022

 

Day 5

 

Do you have DBS?  It’s rather common in anyone who is serious about a relationship with Jesus.  It’s different from ADHD or OCD. It’s been around since biblical times.  DBS manifests itself in different ways for different people. It can make it hard to get up for Church on a Sunday or confession on a Saturday. It can decrease our appetite for food for the soul and increase it for things that please the mind like time on our devices. It can cause blindness—to the needs of others. It’s not usually permanent, thank God, but it can be debilitating at the least when it manifests itself.  And at its worst, DBS draws us right into the desert where we just lie down under the hot sun and say, “I’m done.”

 

DBSDry Bone Syndrome. You can check it out in Ezekiel 37:1-14. Our spiritual bones dry out and become good for nothing, piled up one on the other, lifeless. There is just no soul in any lifeless bones, and if they belong to us, these dry bones, we hardly recognize ourselves for what we used to be. Have you had it? Are you experiencing it now?

 

Well, there is Hope. Hope for our dry bones. He is called the Holy Spirit. He’s more than a physician or a therapist. He is the Life of our bones, the Life of our soul. He will restore us to our former living self, to the person God created us to be. What’s more, He will help us discover the cause of Dry Bone Syndrome. He teaches us to look into our heart to see what brought it on and how it crept in. He’ll show us how to examine ourselves to find the subtle ways we fall into the trap that creates the perfect storm for this condition, and to root out those subtleties.

 

The cure? At His coming on Pentecost we will find, if we ask Him, that He brings everything we need to move beyond Dry Bone Syndrome. Here’s what He promises:

 

I shall bring you out of your tombs….  

O my People, I will bring you out of your graves when I put my Spirit in you, and you will live.

(Ez. 37:12-14, Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition).

 

Tomorrow I will reflect on the difference between this syndrome and dryness in prayer—two very distinct situations.  For today, though, let us pray:

 

Dear Mother of my soul, open me to the life-giving Love of God who can remake my dry bones into a living, loving image of the Father. Make me yearn for the rush of His Spirit as He gently bends over the pile of my dry bones and whispers, ‘May I have this Dance?’*  Set me upright on my feet and along the path to the Heart of God. On the coming Feast of Pentecost, may He find me watchful and waiting, ready to receive from Him kindness, zeal, generosity and goodness. Please, Mother, empty me by Grace that He may fill me. Make me a new creation by the power and tenderness of the Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Don’t lie too long in the sun. Instead, stay awake, and wait for the Son to send His Spirit to you.

In a few days….

 

 

*Joyce Rupp, May I have this Dance? (Ave Maria Press, 2007).

 

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