Veni Creator Spiritus
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…" Acts 1:8
When Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after the Resurrection, He instructed His Apostles to remain Jerusalem, where they were to wait for the promise of the Father to be fulfilled that they would be “clothed with power from on high.”
Fearful and not fully understanding this promise, the Apostles gathered in the upper room in Jerusalem to wait and pray. For nine days they prayed, and on the tenth day, the Feast of Pentecost, they received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The nine days the Apostles spent in prayer prepared them to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, good counsel, courage, reverence for God, and the holy fear of His awesome power. These gifts and their fruits - charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and goodness – flowed out beyond measure to the Apostles, enabling them to cast off fear and go out to spread the Good News, and the Church was born. These nine days of prayer before Pentecost became the first and oldest Novena.
In his 1897 Encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Pope Leo XIII asked the whole Catholic Church to pray this novena each year from the Feast of the Ascension through Pentecost Sunday, and he granted indulgences to those who pray it. It is still the only novena that the Church officially recommends to all the faithful.
There are many other novenas that are powerful prayers that bring graces and blessings to those who pray them faithfully and submit the outcome to God’s holy will. But the one thing that Jesus promised would come to those who asked, unfailingly, is the Holy Spirit. When we ask for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we are truly asking God to make His home in our heart. And God, who knows how to give good gifts to His children, will hear and answer us, and He will come to us and dwell in us, filling us with the light and love of His Holy Spirit.
Veni Creator Spiritus!Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,
and in our souls take up Thy rest;
come with Thy grace and heavenly aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast made.
O comforter, to Thee we cry,
O heavenly gift of God Most High,
O fount of life and fire of love,
and sweet anointing from above.
Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are known;
Thou, finger of God's hand we own;
Thou, promise of the Father, Thou
Who dost the tongue with power imbue.
Kindle our sense from above,
and make our hearts o'erflow with love;
with patience firm and virtue high
the weakness of our flesh supply.
Far from us drive the foe we dread,
and grant us Thy peace instead;
so shall we not, with Thee for guide,
turn from the path of life aside.
Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow
the Father and the Son to know;
and Thee, through endless times confessed,
of both the eternal Spirit blest.
Now to the Father and the Son,
Who rose from death, be glory given,
with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
henceforth by all in earth and heaven. Amen.
St. Augustine said: To sing is to pray twice!
The prayer in Gregorian Chant is linked below
Veni Creator Spiritus
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