Favourite Prayers to the Holy Ghost (I)

Apart from the universally treasured Veni Creator Spiritus, the Veni Sancte Spiritus, and the O Heavenly King, there are a few prayers to the Holy Ghost that have rooted themselves in my heart and served me well over the years.

I don’t remember where or how I came across the first of these prayers. It was written by Désiré-Joseph Cardinal Mercier (1851–1926). I vaguely remember that it was printed on a little leaflet. Cardinal Mercier wrote this prayer on the back of a holy picture while on pilgrimage at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in England. In 1926, while preaching a retreat, he offered a little commentary on it:

I am going to reveal to you a secret of holiness and of happiness. Every day for five minutes, silence your imagination, closing your eyes to things of the senses and your ears to all earthly sounds so as to withdraw into yourselves, and there in the sanctuary of your baptized soul, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, speak to that Divine Spirit, saying:

Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore Thee;
enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me;
tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it,
I promise to be submissive in everything that Thou shalt ask of me
and to accept all that Thou permittest to happen to me,
only show me what is Thy will.

If you do this, your life will flow along in happiness, serenity, and consolation, even in the midst of sorrows, because grace will be proportioned to your trials, giving you the strength to bear them, and you will arrive at the gates of Paradise laden with merits. This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of holiness.

I found the second prayer when I was about fifteen years old. It was in a small paperback edition of the Pastoral Prayer of Saint Aelred, published in England. I believe it came into my hands in the 1960s on an early visit to Saint Joseph’s Trappist Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. The prayer so impressed me that I copied it out on the last blank page of the breviary I was using at the time:

Lord, may Thy good, sweet Spirit descend into my heart,
and fashion there a dwelling for Himself,
cleansing it from all defilement both of flesh and spirit,
inpouring into it the increment of faith and hope and love,
disposing it to penitence and love and gentleness.
May He quench with the dew of His blessing the heat of my desires
and with His power put to death my carnal impulses and fleshly lusts.
In labours and in watchings and in fastings
may He afford me fervour and discretion,
to love and to praise Thee:
to pray and think of Thee:
and may He give me the power and devotion to order every act and thought
according to Thy will,
and also persevere in these virtues until my life’s end. Amen.

To be continued.