Today we celebrate Pentecost. Happy Birthday, Church! Rather than give you my own reflection today, I want to share the sequence that you will hear at today’s Mass. (Why try to improve on perfection?)
Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store! Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best; You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below; In our labor, rest most sweet; Grateful coolness in the heat; Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of yours, and our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught, nothing good in deed or thought, nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew; on our dryness pour your dew; wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill; guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore and confess you, evermore in your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward; give them your salvation, Lord; Give them joys that never end. Amen. Alleluia.
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