Welcome to our Rosary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Jesus ascended into heaven on a Thursday exactly 40 days after Easter Sunday. Then the Apostles went back to the upper room on Mount Zion where they gathered in prayer for nine days in preparation for Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them in a new way to strengthen them for their mission to make disciples of all nations.

Today we are nine days away from Pentecost, so we will focus our next nine days of prayer on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the

beatitudes that correspond to each gift of the spirit.

In this way, we, like the apostles gathered in the upper room,

will prepare for the Holy Spirit to come upon us in a new way that we may carry out this mission.

Like the Apostles, we too are given gifts of the Holy Spirit so that we can

fulfill the mission we have been given to bring Jesus to others.

For that is the essential identity and mission of a Christian,

one who lives a deep friendship with Jesus and then goes out through authentic

friendship to help others into friendship with Jesus.

In fact, if you are not personally helping someone else into friendship with Christ,

well, then what are you doing?

Because that is what it means to be a Christian.

The Holy Spirit gives seven gifts

to those who are baptized and confirmed to carry out this mission.

By the sacrament of confirmation, the baptized are enriched with the special strength of the Holy Spirit

to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of

Christ and to confess the name of Christ boldly and never be ashamed of the cross.

That special strength comes from the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Those gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.

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