How Can I Pray to the Holy Spirit?
“I can relate to the Father as creator and as a father. I can relate to Jesus because He actually walked among us. But the Holy Spirit? I just don’t know how to relate to Him.”
I hear this all the time. On one hand, I understand.
- The Third Person of the Holy Trinity doesn’t play a leading role in Sacred Scripture. He’ a supporting actor.
- While the charismatic movement did a lot of good in making people aware of the Spirit, it also caused a lot of people to equate prayer to Him with emotionalism and sensationalism. So many Catholics just assume that the Third Person of the Holy Trinity isn’t for them.
- We don’t really have an image of Him we can relate to. We have the incarnated Jesus. We have the First Person of the Trinity as our Father (and the old man with white hair in a lot of our artwork). But for the Holy Spirit? A dove. Wind. Fire. Not much personal to work with there.
Why We Should Make the Effort
But we can’t let that stop us. There are a number of good reasons that we need to cultivate a relationship with the Spirit.
- He is a member of the Holy Trinity. So really we are praying to Him whenever we pray to the Father and to the Son. We always address all three (which is why we often use the title “God”). That’s also why we use the Trinitarian formula when we pray the Sign of the Cross.
- The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Holy Trinity who animates the Church in her current mission. This is so true that Pope Leo XIII called Him the “soul of the Church.” Remember, Jesus said that He had to leave so the Consoler would be sent. The Spirit’s coming at Pentecost is what animated and empowered the Church to start her mission. He also empowers us, the individual members of the Church, to fulfill our role in the mission. If you’re not connected to the Holy Spirit, you’re not fully living your mission!
- Saint Augustine teaches us that Jesus is the Father’s self-knowledge made manifest, and the Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son made manifest. This gets into some deep theology, but to make our point here it’s enough to know that the Spirit is God’s love moving in the world. What Christian wouldn’t want to connect with that?
So how do we approach the Holy Spirit in prayer?
First, we realize – again – that whenever we approach one member of the Holy Trinity, we approach them all. They are intimately united. So we want to be careful not to fall into the error of “modalism,” which too closely identifies the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity with the roles they play in salvation history. However, we can glean guidance form salvation history for how to approach the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls Him the Consoler and the Paraclete (the defender). Saint Paul tells us that the Gifts and charisms all come from the “same Spirit.” So it seems most fitting to call upon Him for help in our mission, for an outpouring and empowerment of the supernatural gifts He gives us, for strength and for comfort, and for help in carrying out the mission of Jesus.
Remember always that the Holy Spirit is the love of God. Perhaps the best way to pray to Him is to spend time in meditation, basking in the presence of the Love of God.
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