Among the countless prayers that Christianity has produced, there are two invocations to the Holy Spirit that, because of their beauty and complementarity, deserve to be included together in any devotional book.

The first is attributed to the French cardinal Jean Verdier (1864-1940). Its first part asks the Holy Spirit to enlighten our thoughts, words, and actions; the second incorporates an ancient prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which requests intelligence, memory, discernment, and eloquence.

Due to its extraordinary beauty, it is worth reproducing in its entirety:

O Holy Spirit, love of the Father and the Son! Inspire me always with what I should think, what I should say, how I should say it, what I should keep silent about, how I should act, what I should do, for the glory of God, the good of souls and my own sanctification.

Holy Spirit, grant me keenness to understand, ability to retain, method and faculty to learn, subtlety to interpret, grace and effectiveness to speak.

Grant me success in beginning, guidance in progressing, and perfection in finishing. Amen.

The other prayer, attributed to the Belgian cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier (1851-1926), has a different, more intimate and trusting character:

Oh Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore you! Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, comfort me. Tell me what I should do, give me your commands.

I promise to submit to all that you desire of me and to accept all that you allow to happen to me. Simply let me know your will. Amen.

The secret of holiness and happiness

Mercier accompanied this brief prayer with a recommendation of what he considered the key to achieving happiness and holiness, a key worth knowing. He proposed dedicating five minutes daily to silence and inner reflection, closing our eyes to the distractions of the world and quieting our imagination in order to enter the sanctuary of our own soul, which, through baptism, is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

There, in that intimacy, he recommended addressing the Spirit with the words of his prayer, convinced that whoever sincerely surrendered to His will would find serenity, even comfort in the midst of suffering, because he would receive the necessary grace to face trials.

And he concluded:

“This submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of holiness.”

The outward resemblance of this exercise in contemplation to some contemporary meditation practices, such as mindfulness, is interesting. However, the Christian contemplative tradition is much older and has an essentially different purpose: it seeks not only psychological serenity or self-knowledge, but a personal encounter with God.

Two complementary sentences

There is an essential difference between the two invocations we just reproduced.

Verdier asks the Holy Spirit to teach him how to think, speak, and act; Mercier asks him to teach him how to listen, accept, and obey.

The first is a prayer of discernment and wisdom to act; the second, of humility and trust to abandon oneself to God.

However, we find ourselves facing two sides of the same spirituality: discerning the divine will and having the courage to fulfill it.

These are not, of course, the only memorable invocations. The Church has preserved for centuries the Veni Creator Spiritus, traditionally attributed to Rabanus Maurus, which begins by imploring the visit of the Creator Spirit, and the beautiful Veni Sancte Spiritus, a Pentecost sequence that invokes him as father of the poor, light of hearts, and sweet guest of the soul.

Due to their length, we reproduce both complete sentences at the end of this article, along with the brief traditional invocation that begins “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful.”

But there is something that deserves deeper reflection: why does it seem that, precisely in our time, we are rediscovering the Spirit?