If you are not Catholic you might like the short form, or the first few paragraphs of the longer form. For those of you who are Catholic, when you have time you might enjoy the longer form. Incidentally, my long form, copied so long ago, said "Holy Ghost" and had "Thee" and "Thy". But I have updated it to "Holy Spirit" and "You" and "Your". If there is anyone who is bothered by that change, you can switch it back for yourself. If anyone knows where else this long form can be found, besides here, or whether or not it was all penned by Cardinal Mercier himself, I would love to hear from you about it.
Short Form of the Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier:
O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything that You permit to happen to me, only show me what is Your will.*
Notes:
(*According to several websites:
'This prayer is part of A Secret of Sanctity by Cardinal Mercier in which he said: "I am going to reveal to you a secret of sanctity and happiness. If every day during five minutes, you will keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all things of sense, and close your ears to all sounds of earth, so as to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, speaking there to that Holy Spirit, saying: "O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul..." If you do this, your life will pass happily and serenely. Consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles. Grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it, bringing you to the gates of Paradise full of merit. The submission to the Holy Spirit is the Secret of Sanctity." ')
I would add that the short form might even be more conducive to the above form of meditation, simply by reason of its brevity. But I have always loved the long form - I - who usually am not attracted by long prayers; hence, I decided to share it with you, the hand-copied version from my old prayer book.
Long Form of this Prayer to the Holy Spirit:
O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul, I adore You, I praise You, I love You, I thank You. Enlighten, guide, strengthen, console me. Inspire me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything You permit to happen to me; only show me Your holy will, and fill me with Your grace and Your love to refuse You nothing no matter how hard it may be. I abandon myself entirely to You. Strengthen my will to carry out all my resolutions, and give me the grace of perseverance.
Teach me to pray. Grant me the grace to pray with unlimited confidence of being heard, according to God's holy will.
Give me true humility of heart.
Increase and strengthen my faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Make me an ardent adorer and lover of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Strengthen my love and confidence in Our Blessed Mother.
Holy Spirit, I offer You the loving Heart of Jesus to repair for all my offenses and negligences.
I consecrate myself unreservedly to You. I place all my trust in You. Help me to make You better known and loved throughout the world. Give me an intense zeal for souls, to console Jesus. Amen.
Praying for you all, and please pray for me.
7 comments:
Hello,
I happened upon your blog while searching for the text of Cardinal Mercier's Holy Spirit prayer for my son's Confirmation holy card. I love the long version that you posted! I think that it's a shame that some prayers have lost their "umph" over the years. In one prayer book that I own, there is a longer version of the Litany of Humility -- one that I've not seen elsewhere. Anyway -- thanks for posting. Now to see if it will fit on the back of a holy card. :-) God bless you, Michele F.
Michele, thank you for commenting, and I'm glad you like the long version, too. :)
There are slightly different versions of Mercier's Holy Spirit prayer on line. Thank you for posting Mercier's EXACT words taken from his book and noted in quotes. Mercier was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write this prayer using specific words strung together in a specific way. I see no point in changing those words as this can easily lead to a misinterpretation of Divine intent no matter how slight. If anyone is going to spread the WORD let it be in God's words and not his own. Who are we to challenge, substitute, and rearrange inspiration. This excludes modern substitutions for archaic words as Thee, Thou, and Holy Ghost for you and Holy Spirit although the original text is my preference. Thank you, again. Maria.
There are slightly different versions of Mercier's Holy Spirit prayer on line. Thank you for posting Mercier's EXACT words taken from his book and noted in quotes. Mercier was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write this prayer using specific words strung together in a specific way. I see no point in changing those words as this can easily lead to a misinterpretation of Divine intent no matter how slight. If anyone is going to spread the WORD let it be in God's words and not his own. Who are we to challenge, substitute, and rearrange inspiration. This excludes modern substitutions for archaic words as Thee, Thou, and Holy Ghost for you and Holy Spirit although the original text is my preference. Thank you, again. Maria.
Margaret Mary, according to the Institute of the Holy Spirit (instituteoftheholyspirit.com) the prayer as written by Cardinal Mercier in his words is as follows. Please take a look at this website. It contains a plethora of prayers to the Holy Spirit. God Bless You for your endeavors to spread devotion to the Holy Spirit. -Maria
Cardinal Mercier's Prayer to the Holy Spirit*
O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything that You permit to happen to me, only show me what is Your will.
* This prayer is part of A Secret of Sanctity by Cardinal Mercier in which he said plainly: "I am going to reveal to you a secret of sanctity and happiness. If every day during five minutes, you will keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all things of sense, and close your ears to all the sounds of earth, so as to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, speaking there to that Holy Spirit saying: "O Holy Spirit, Soul of my soul ..." If you do this, your life will pass happily and serenely. Consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles. Grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it, bringing you to the gates of Paradise full of merit. The submission to the Holy Spirit is the Secret of Sanctity."
Hi, Margaret Mary. Thank you for posting about this very special prayer. I was just going to revisit a page about the good Cardinal, and your site popped up among I enjoyed reading your sharings on this.
I was about to share this prayer (the version I have) on my daughter's website, but wanted to recheck the historic facts about Cardinal Mercier, since it has been years since I read about him.
For many years I had this prayer on a tiny plaque hanging in my kitchen with 3 other prayers and spiritual items, which I rarely said. I was not even sure how some of them came to me. (Although a few years ago I finally guessed that this one in particular was probably in my Mom's possession when I had to move her from apartment to nursing home.) But not really sure of that.
Anyway, after years of not saying this prayer, my husband of many years had a very rare and serious cancer and large surgery. While he was in the hospital I started saying this prayer and it just clicked with me. That started in mid-August 2010. Every single morning of my life since that time I say this prayer within 5 minutes of waking up, and then I have a good prayer period following that (at least 20 minutes to an hour.) That is one of perks of retirement. Sometimes I even dose off, then wake up a continue. It is a beautiful prayer which just totally touches my spirit and has brought me very close with The Holy Spirit.
My husband also loves this prayer. We also love the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, but need to make an effort to get back to that one on a regular basis. We have moved and had some big projects going on and have slipped away from that.
(By the way, my name if Mary Catherine, and my sister is Mary Margaret. If our parents had any more girls I am sure my Dad would have named them all Mary)
Again, thank you for sharing Margaret Mary.
My local priest hands this prayer to his flovk regularly. I had a big problem recently and went to see my priest he recommend this prayer from personal use. I think if your unsure of your own prayer life and possible mistakes you may be making in life that make you unhappy then try this prayer it takes your mistakes and will and places it in gods hands
Post a Comment