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Prayer for the week
In prayer, Christians should invoke the Holy Spirit, says Hugh Wybrew
 God dwelling within: an icon of the Day of Pentecost by Michael Damaskenos from the second half of the 16th century |
| Heavenly King, Advocate, Spirit of Truth,
You are everywhere and fill all things,
The treasure-store of all good things, and giver of life.
Come and make your home in us,
cleanse us from every stain of sin,
and in your goodness save us.
A hymn from Orthodox Vespers for the feast of Pentecost IN BOTH the Eastern and Western Christian traditions, prayer addressed to the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, like prayer addressed to God the Son, is less common than prayer addressed to the Father. This prayer is remarkably similar in content to the Western hymn “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire”. Particularly appropriate at Pentecost, it is used at the beginning of most services in the Orthodox Church, as well as informally in personal prayer and at church gatherings. This reflects the greater prominence traditionally given to the Holy Spirit in the Christian East than in the West. Prayer to the Holy Spirit is appropriate at all times; for it is the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, with whom we are in immediate contact. It is by the Spirit that we know Jesus Christ; and it is in Christ that we are one with the Father. That New Testament pattern should shape the way we understand our relationship with the triune God, and the way in which we pray. The Spirit is God within us, reaching out to Christ who is God among us, and giving us communion with the God who is beyond us. So invocation of the Spirit should be integral to both our liturgical and our personal prayer. This prayer reflects the paradox of the Christian life. The Spirit, called, after St John’s Gospel, “advocate” and “Spirit of truth”, is present everywhere, and fills all things. All God’s good gifts, including life itself, come to us from the Spirit, by whom the gift of eternal life, the life of God who is love, is poured into our hearts. Yet, at the same time, we pray that the Spirit, who already dwells in us, might come and make his home in us. We do so because the Spirit dwells in us insofar as we give him space. God the Holy Spirit may be “a ready guest”, but he never forces himself on us: he needs a ready host. To ask the Spirit to make his home with us is to accept responsibility for making room for him at the centre of our being, our biblical heart. We make that room by putting the Spirit’s love into practice in our daily lives, in our attitudes, our reactions, and our relationships. Every act of selfless service, every act of forgiveness, every act of self-forgetting love — no matter how small — gives the Spirit more space within. That, in turn, increases our capacity for loving, and so for becoming a still more willing host for the Spirit who is love. So the Spirit builds up in us what Paul calls “the mind of Christ”. He renews in us the image and likeness of God, which is already renewed for us in Jesus by his loving obedience and willing self-offering. They, too, were the work of the Spirit, who rested on Jesus at his baptism and remained with him. On us, who have been baptised into the death and resurrection of Jesus, the same Spirit rests. And he remains with us, in his goodness, to cleanse and heal us. The Revd Hugh Wybrew is a former Vicar of St Mary Magdalen’s, Oxford, and the author of Risen with Christ: Eastertide in the Orthodox Church (SPCK, 2001). |
