The Litany Project: The Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 15

Come, Holy Ghost! Fill the hearts of Thy faithful.
And enkindle in them the fire of Thy Love.

As we approach the end of the litany, we ask the Holy Spirit one more time to come to us and fill our hearts. We recognize, though, that as He fills our hearts, He also sets our hearts on fire. Love is a power. It is dynamic. It is strong. It is warm, even hot. It spurs us forward to reach up to God and out to other people. 

This is a dangerous prayer, in a good way, for when we invite the Holy Spirit into us, when we invite Him to set our hearts on fire, He will change our lives. 

Let us pray.
Grant, O merciful Father, that Thy Divine Spirit enlighten, inflame and purify us, that He may penetrate us with His heavenly dew and make us fruitful in good works; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee, in the unity of the Spirit, liveth and reigneth forever and ever. Amen. 

The litany’s final prayer is directed to God the Father. We remember His great mercy, and we beg Him to send the Holy Spirit, His Divine Spirit, to enlighten us, to inflame us, and to purify us from our sins and faults and weaknesses.

We also beg the Father that the Spirit may penetrate us, may probe deep down within us, and fill us with His heavenly dew, with His great gifts and with all the virtues. That dew will make us bloom and blossom, bearing the fruit of good works in love. 

As always, we pray in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ as we remember the unity of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, living and reigning together for all eternity and loving us more than we can imagine.

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 14

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, send us Thy Holy Ghost.

The Lamb of God, of course, is none other that Jesus. John the Baptist identified Him as such in John 1:29 when he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world.” The reference goes back centuries to the time when the Israelites were still in slavery in Egypt. In preparation for the first Passover, God told Moses to have the Israelites sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorposts with its blood. They were to eat the lamb and be ready to depart, for the angel of the Lord would come upon Egypt, bringing death to all the firstborn sons of that place except where he saw the lamb’s blood. The angel passed over the Israelites, and they left Egypt and slavery behind.

We, too, are enslaved, not by the Egyptians but by our sins.  And Jesus, the Lamb of God, by His blood, takes away the sins of the world. He became the willing sacrifice on the Cross, taking the covenant curses upon Himself and reconciling us with the Father. We now ask Jesus to send us His Holy Spirit, the Love He shares with the Father.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, pour down into our souls the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

We also ask our Lamb of God, our Jesus, to pour down the gifts of the Holy Spirit into our souls. Of course, we must be prepared for this outpouring of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. We must open our hearts wide to receive them, and then we must respond by making good use of these gifts so that they continue to grow within us.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, grant us the Spirit of wisdom and piety.

In this petition, we beg our Lord to grant us the Spirit of wisdom and piety. We are pleading for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, for the sanctifying grace that gives us a share in divine life, for the eternal life that we begin living right now and that we will enter into fully in Heaven.  

We recall that wisdom is the “God’s eye” perspective of the world, at least as much as we human beings can ever possess. Piety refers to our devotion to God, our desire and efforts to place Him first, above all else, and to love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 13

Holy Ghost, grant us the merits of all virtues.

“Merits” is a tricky word when we use it in a religious sense. If we don’t understand it correctly, it can sound like we think we earn or deserve our salvation in some way. We do not. God gives us our salvation by His grace alone when we open ourselves up in faith and love. 

However, because God loves us so much, He allows us to cooperate in the process of salvation. It is a process, too. Even though He initiates it and saves us by His grace, we have to grow in that grace. This takes work, and through our efforts, God allows us to “merit.” He rewards us as we grow closer to Him in virtue and as we enter deeper and deeper into His sanctifying love. Of course, we can only do this by His grace. 

So our merits, as one professor remarks, are a bit like the praise and hugs a father gives to his child when the child offers his father a gift that the father has paid for and helped the child wrap. Because the father loves his child, he rewards the child for his “hard work” even though the father has done most of it. What the father wants most is the child’s love. The same is true for God.

Holy Ghost, make us persevere in justice.

The concept of justice is often misunderstood in today’s world. What it ultimately means, however, is being right with God, and that is its sense in this petition. When we ask the Holy Spirit to help us persevere in justice, we are asking for an outpouring of grace to keep us right with the Blessed Trinity.

Holy Ghost, be Thou our everlasting reward.

This petition might as well be “Holy Ghost, get us to Heaven,” for God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our ultimate, everlasting reward in Heaven, where we will see Him face-to-face and spend eternity growing in love for Him and for each other. 

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 12

Holy Ghost, grant us the only necessary knowledge.

We are surrounded by “knowledge” these days. Information is everywhere. With just the click of a mouse or the tap of a screen, we can easily know everything from the latest sports scores to the weather next week (maybe) to the most recent celebrity gossip. But is this easy access to information a good thing? It may be, depending on how we use it, but it can also be extremely overwhelming, tiring, and even irritating. 

So we ask the Holy Spirit to grant us the only necessary knowledge. We ask Him to help us prioritize what we need to know and to put first things first. What is this “only necessary knowledge”? It is knowledge of God. And by “knowledge,” we don’t mean just some vague idea of God. We don’t even mean the most complex and intricate theology. We mean a knowledge that entails personal experience, a knowledge that is an intimate relationship. This is the kind of knowledge the Holy Spirit will grant us if we ask Him and then open our hearts to receive His gift.

Holy Spirit, inspire in us the practice of good.

St. Paul captures a feeling that all of us have probably experienced at one time or another: “For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Romans 7:19). We human beings are perverse creatures. We are weak and inconsistent, always knowing what we should do and often failing to do it and doing just the opposite instead. 

The Holy Spirit inspires us in our efforts to do good, and He gives us the grace we need to actually do the good we desire. When we ask Him, He will nudge us toward a deeper relationship with God, more fruitful prayer, and more effective service toward our neighbors. He will show us what is good, and help us desire and achieve that good. But we have to be willing to listen and respond. 

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 11

Holy Ghost, teach us to pray well.

We do not know how to pray as we ought. Paul tells us this in Romans 8:26, and he explains that the Holy Spirit prays within us. The Spirit teaches us how to pray if we open ourselves to His guidance. He guides in opening our hearts and minds to the Blessed Trinity. He Who is love shows us how to express ourselves in love. 

When we listen to and follow the Holy Spirit’s instructions on prayer, we learn that prayer is all about expanding our desire for God. We learn that prayer is far more about getting Someone than about getting something. God wants us to ask for what we need and want for ourselves and others, but He also wants us to grow ever closer to Him in prayer and in love. This is what the Spirit teaches us when He teaches us to pray well.

Holy Ghost, enlighten us with Thy heavenly inspirations.

The Holy Spirit inspires all of us. He nudges us in particular directions. He guides us into a deeper understanding of truth. He shows us how to act with love in all situations. He shines a light into our hearts, minds, and souls that that we may know ourselves, and so that we do not get discouraged by what we learn, He enlightens us about God’s great love even for weak, sinful little people like us.

Holy Ghost, lead us in the way of salvation.

In 1 Timothy 2:4, Paul tells us that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The Holy Spirit leads us into that salvation, filling us with the divine presence when we are baptized and guiding us to deeper faith, hope, and love as we grow ever closer to God along the path to Heaven. That is the goal, of course, Heaven, the beatific vision, eternal life face-to-face with God, full immersion in His love forever and ever. 

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 10

Holy Ghost, engrave Thy law in our hearts.

In Jeremiah 31, God says that He is going to make a new covenant with His people. It will not be like the old covenant that they have broken. Rather, in the new covenant, God explains, “I will put My law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts.” In the new covenant, the people will know God in a different way, from the inside out. 

We are living in this new covenant, and it is the Holy Spirit Who enters into us, engraving the law of God, the law of love, in our hearts. The old covenant set forth God’s law, but it did not provide the grace people needed to fulfill it. The new covenant gives us both the law and the grace to fulfill it. The law is no longer external, something to gaze at and try to live up to as best we can. Rather, it is within us, in our minds and hearts, because God is within us, giving us the strength we need to embrace His will.

Holy Ghost, inflame us with the fire of Thy Love.

On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the place where the apostles were gathered with the noise of “the rush of a mighty wind.” Then “tongues as of fire” rested on each one of them, and suddenly their fear was gone (see Acts 2). They begin to speak in different languages, and they hurried right outside to proclaim the Gospel to all those gathered in Jerusalem for the feast.

The apostles were on fire with the Holy Spirit. The appearance of flames over their heads was symbolic of the fire burning in their souls, a fire that burst out in love for God and for the people they hurried to evangelize. The Holy Spirit can inflame us with that same love. He wants to set us on fire so that we may pour ourselves out to God and for others. 

Holy Ghost, open to us the treasures of Thy graces.

Do we realize how much God wants to pour out His love for us? Do we understand the graces He has reserved for us? Do we know that He longs to give us everything we need for our salvation? God has a treasure house of graces for us, a treasure house of love, a treasure house of joy and peace.  

Jesus tells us to store up our treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6:19), but we should also realize that God gives us all these treasures and then some. When we have God, we have everything. 

The Litany Project: Litany of the Holy Ghost, Part 9

Holy Ghost, inspire us with horror of sin.

Our culture often has a dismissive attitude toward sin or, worse yet, a tolerance for or even acceptance of sin. People laugh about it or brush it off as no big deal. Yet here we ask the Holy Spirit to inspire us with a horror of sin. 

We should be horrified. Sin is the worst thing that can possibly happen to us because it weakens or even breaks our relationship with God. When we sin, we tell God that there is something more important to us than He is, that we know better than He does what we need, and that we just are not going to obey Him. And who are we to say such things? It should horrify us that we do every time we sin.

Holy Ghost, come and renew the face of the earth.

This petition recognizes that we need the Holy Spirit to renew us and all creation at every moment. We so easily fall. We get discouraged. We sin. We slide away from the right path. We grow dark and depressed. We lose track of who we are and what God has called us to be. So we need the Holy Spirit to renew His life-giving, energizing, healing presence within us all the time.

We can also pray this line looking ahead to the end of time when God will renew all things in a definitive, final way. When Jesus returns, He will bring with Him a new Heaven and a new earth. We will rise up in the general resurrection and enter into a whole new realm of existence that we cannot even imagine now. It should make us excited and eager. Are we?

Holy Ghost, shed Thy light in our souls.

The Holy Spirit enlightens us with knowledge, understanding, counsel, wisdom, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. He illuminates us with divine love. He makes us shine brightly before the world like lamps that do not cower under bushel baskets but glow from a lamp stand or like a city on a hill, offering God’s light to everyone we encounter (see Matthew 5:14-15).