Come Holy Spirit

Dear Friends,

Each year, in late May or early June, driving along the country roads and Thruway in Upstate New York, wild phlox can be seen tucked away at the edges of woods, in dainty clusters or occasionally in generous swaths. Pink and purple and white, the wild phlox seems to appear out of nowhere and then it’s gone.

I think of the Holy Spirit when I see these flowers, obscure, often missed by the unperceptive eye. So often we miss the Holy Spirit in our personal lives and our lives together.  The Holy Spirit: God -  given to us by Christ and His Father, and God received. The attentiveness and the allure of God which causes us to burn with the fire of God’s love.

The Irish theologian, Diarmuid O’Murchu composed a prayer to the Holy Spirit, which I offer here. In it, O’Murchu gives insight into the breadth and depth and scope of God the Spirit’s reach in human life. Pray it out loud, if you can. Let your ears hear it as well as your eyes see it:

          Come Holy Spirit, breathe down upon our troubled world,

                Shake the tired foundations of our crumbling institutions,

                Break the rules that  keep you out of all our sacred spaces.

                And from the dust and rubble, gather up the seedlings of a new creation.

          Come Holy Spirit , inflame once more the dying embers

                Of our weariness, shake us out of our complacency,

                Whisper our names once more, and scatter your gifts of grace with wild abandon.

                Break open the prisons of our inner being

                And let your raging justice be a sign of our liberty.

          Come Holy Spirit, and lead us to places we would rather not go;

                Expand the horizons of our limited imaginations.

                Awaken in our souls dangerous dreams for a new tomorrow,

                And rekindle in our hearts the fire of prophetic enthusiasm.

          Come Holy Spirit, whose justice outwits international conspiracy;

                Whose light outshines spiritual bigotry,

                Whose peace can overcome the destructive potential of warfare,

                Whose promise invigorates our every effort

                To create a new Heave and a new Earth,

                Now and forever.

                

         Amen.

-Sister Joan Sobala