Our Lord gave his disciples very specific instructions on what to do after his Ascension as they awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit.
On the day of the Ascension, while meeting with them, Luke tells us in the Acts, Jesus enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.
So they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem.
And then the Acts continues, all these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer together with some women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers.
So this is what the apostles and the disciples were doing in that interim period between the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, which will be this Sunday.
In preparation for Sunday, it's good to think about the Holy Spirit and his divine mission.
The coming of the Holy Spirit is a divine mission, that's the expression we use in theology.
And a divine mission is a new presence of God in his creatures.
And because it's a new presence, it's a new operation of God in his creatures.
And because it's a new operation, it's a transformative presence of God in his creatures.
When it comes to the Holy Spirit and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we can speak of this in relation to the gifts that he gives us, a new presence, a new operation of God, which in a creature causes the predominance of the gifts, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
The seven gifts, if we just review them briefly, I think it's good to do so, just because they're amazing gifts.
And we need to, one, ask for them to dispose ourselves for them.
And to do one and two, to ask and to predispose ourselves, we need to desire them.
And they are desirable.
So the seven gifts are, one, the gift of fear of God, which is a gift which inclines our will to feel your respect for God, removes us from sin, which is displeasing to him and gives us hope in his omnipotence.
Without this gift of fear of God, we seek, what, human respect instead.
And we are afraid, not of God, but of human beings and their judgment and their opinions and their thoughts and their condemnations.
Without this gift, we are trapped by the thoughts and judgments of our neighbors.
And then on top of that, whatever it is, political correctness, public opinion, all of the above.
Two, there's the gift of counsel, which perfects the virtue of prudence by making us judge promptly and rightly by a sort of supernatural intuition what must be done and how it must be done, especially in difficult cases.
Without this gift, we are without the power of knowing what is good and doing what is good, especially in difficult cases.
It's not always easy to discern right from wrong, good from evil.
And even when we can do that, it's not always easy to do what is right.
And without this gift, we are precisely in that situation.
Can't tell right from wrong, or even when we can, we can't put it into practice.
Piety, the third gift, perfects the virtue of religion by begetting in our hearts a filial affection for God and a tender devotion towards those things and persons consecrated to God in order to make us fulfill our religious duties with joy.
Without this gift, we are without piety, without joy.
And our faith is lived as a burden to ourselves and to others.
We feel it as a burden.
And if we are without the gift of piety, others perceive our faith to be a burden to them as well.
And we can't share it effectively.
It's got no unction.
Fortitude, perfects the virtue of fortitude by imparting to the will an impulse and an energy which enable it to do great things, beyond human strength even, joyfully and fearlessly despite all obstacles.
And without this gift, we are trapped by the obstacles all around us and within us.
And many of them are exactly that, just within us, fear, anxiety, depression, all of the above.
Fifth, the gift of knowledge, a gift which perfects the virtue of faith and thereby gives us a profound knowledge of created things in their relation to God.
Without this gift, we don't really know the purpose of the things of this world.
We don't know how to use them.
We don't know how to use them for our salvation and for our sanctification.
And we use them poorly.
Sixth, the gift of understanding, a gift which gives to us a deep insight into revealed truths.
And without this gift of understanding, or rather, without an effort to understand, there's no gift.
We must always, again, predispose ourselves for the gifts.
Without an effort to understand, there's no gift of understanding.
And without understanding, our faith is always at peril, in danger.
Faith is supposed to be understood.
Without understanding, our faith is in danger.
Lastly, the gift of wisdom, which is a gift which perfects the virtue of charity by enabling us to discern God and divine things in their ultimate principles and by giving us a relish for them.
In Franciscan theology, this is a particularly important gift, a gift of wisdom, sapientia, which has at its root the Latin word to taste.
So without this gift, we really never taste God.
We lack the profound experience of God and the things of God, and our faith is at best merely intellectual and hence just dry, bland, tasteless, unappetizing.
Whereas God, again, wants us to have experiential knowledge of Him and of the things that He has revealed and already on this earth to have an anticipation of the things that He has prepared for us in heaven.
That's the gift of wisdom.
These gifts are very desirable.
We must think about them.
And thinking about them, our desire for them will be inflamed.
We will ask for them, predispose ourselves for them, and receive them.
But again, just to conclude, how did the apostles and the disciples receive the Holy Spirit?
They devoted themselves with one accord to prayer with some women and together with Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Prayer obtained the scent of the Holy Spirit, especially prayer with Our Lady and through Our Blessed Lady.
Let us ask Her then to give us a desire for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to predispose us to receive them, and to open our hearts to possess them, and to allow God to operate in us in this new way, in this transformative way.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.

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Ave Maria.