How Can I Stop Feeling So Powerless?

 

So many of us feel so powerless.  I wonder why that is?

 

With Pentecost coming up, my mind has been taken up with the subject of Power. Pentecost, in Christian circles, is a day when God supposedly empowered the early Christians to move forward to proclaim the “good news” with boldness and with signs and wonders.

 

I went to Google to see what the Sevenfold gift of the Spirit meant.  What is this sevenfold gift?

 

I found this traditional prayer, said by Catholics around the time of Pentecost.

As I read it I found myself somewhat puzzled and offended by the language used in this prayer.

 

So I asked myself; how would I write it?  Below is the result.

 

Rewriting of an old prayer asking for the Holy Spirit in the catholic church…in words and concepts more in keeping with our time and the new awareness that is immerging.

 

Here is the traditional prayer:

 

 

PRAYER FOR THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Spirit to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples, deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul, the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal, the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth, the Spirit of Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation, the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God and know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints, the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable, and the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord, with the sign of Your true disciples and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

 

Here is the rewrite:

 

O Lord Jesus Christ who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy-Spirit to finish your work in all souls and entities in the Universe, starting with your Apostles and Disciples, attend my prayer.

 

Grant me/us, awareness of this Gift of Power that has been bestowed in the Universe.  This Holy-Spirit is Present to us all and is the Force at the centre of each one.  It beckons me to have no fear and to allow myself to enter into the conversation with the Infinite all-powerful, everywhere present and all-knowing Essence that we call God.

 

With Gratitude I invite myself to let myself become aware of this living Presence bestowed upon us by the loving Heart of the Father and the Son.

 

Help me to become aware of the sevenfold Gift that is Spirit.

 

Help me grow in the awareness that I am one in Wisdom.  I am focused on the essence of life.  I know that Spirit is my core.  I remember this in every moment of my day and if I forget I am quickly brought back to the memory of this healing, knowing what to do, that is the Spirit of Wisdom.

 

I am also aware that I am one with Understanding.  I deeply know that Wisdom guides my mind and heart to bask in the truth at a cellular level.  I understand my unity.  I understand I am founded on a solid Rock.  I rest in that securing awareness and from moment to moment do all my actions in the same spirit.

 

Help me also to understand that Spirit and my spirit Counsel together and co-create.  I am in the counsel of infinite wisdom and understanding.  I know the way.

 

Help me know also that Fortitude wells up from within because of my awareness that I am One.  I am strong in the Strength that is given and I live in deepest humility.

I have the power to move forward for the highest Good and with enthusiasm to express all that I am meant to give in service to others.

 

Help me also to know the Knowledge that comes from the deepest depths of certitude.  This knowing not emanating from my neo cortex but coming from the Source that generates the whole brain and thinking mechanism.  This knowledge is the awareness that I Am.  I know God.  I know myself.  I know the other.

 

Help me to know the spirit of Reverence or Piety that moves my heart at one with the creator and the universe.  I do not consider my equality with God something to be ‘grasped’ but I enjoy being one in the Whole that causes me to participate fruitfully in Truth.

 

Help me also to be in reverential Awe and Wonder.  I am firm and secure within myself opting to stay present and loving and lifting up all of Creation in a deep reverent spirit of gratitude.  I rejoice in the mystery and the beauty of Simply Being.  In this Bliss may I rest and grow in the Awareness that I Am That Which I Am.

 

Jesus I embrace your Gift.  I believe Holy Spirit so fills my heart, mind, body and soul that I am being conformed to the Image of God at my core.  I surrender to the will of God to be fully who I am.  I release all old thinking that held me captive and I allow myself to move away from the ‘victim’ mindset that besets us all.  I choose to enter fully into and out of the certitude and confidence in the Love that is God, which generates the glorious liberty of the children of God.

 

 

So there it is.  A simple attempt at making more contemporary the language used in Christianity to ask for God’s help.

 

Maybe this could be the start of a conversation about the language Christianity has traditionally used to express itself in.  I mean the whole business of sin and evil and “woe is me wicked wretch that I am,” etc…

 

Aiming for new and improved ways to understand and express the old.

 

What say ye?