On the sixth day of the Novena to the Holy Ghost, we pray for the gift of understanding, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which helps us to grasp the meaning of the revealed truths of Christianity and to live our lives in accordance with those truths.
Verse for the Sixth Day:
If Thou take Thy grace away,
nothing pure in man will stay,
All his good is turn’d to ill.
Meditation for the Sixth Day—The Gift of Understanding:
Understanding, as a gift of the Holy Ghost, helps us to grasp the meaning of the truths of our holy religion. By faith we know them, but by Understanding, we learn to appreciate and relish them. It enables us to penetrate the inner meaning of revealed truths and through them to be quickened to newness of life. Our faith ceases to be sterile and inactive, but inspires a mode of life that bears eloquent testimony to the faith that is in us; we begin to “walk worthy of God in all things pleasing, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
Prayers for the Sixth Day:
Come, O Spirit of Understanding, and enlighten our minds, that we may know and believe all the mysteries of salvation; and may merit at last to see the eternal light in Thy Light; and, in the light of glory, to have a clear vision of Thee and the Father and the Son. Amen.