A Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Saint Mary of Jesus Crucified, the newest Carmelite Saint, was very devoted to God the Holy Spirit. Such was the grace she received, rooted in her eastern Catholic heritage and in the Byzantine liturgy. She received from on high or was inspired to compose this beatiful, easily memorized prayer. She used to pray it in the singular, "me", or in the plural, "us". It has circulated throughout the world.

 

Holy Spirit, inspire me.

Love of God, consume me.

Along the true road, lead me.

O Mary my mother, look upon me.

With Jesus, bless me.

From all evil, from all danger, from all illusion, deliver me!

 

The content and richness of this prayer is very great, very deep. I am especially impressed by the very last request: "...from all illusion, deliver me." If I may make the connection to another holy Carmelite, already canonized in effect during her life (!), by our Lady, who promised her that this person would be taken to Heaven at the end of her life: Sister Lucy of Fatima. A phrase found in her letters is "diabolical disorientation". Let no one think himself immune. And even if our doctrine and our Faith is pure, we are all of us infected, perhaps deeply infected, with PRIDE. So let us pray with all our hearts to be freed from self-deception, from the disorientation that the Devil spreads in the Church and not only in the world (of which he is "prince"), from the neo-modernism which is spread far and wide. "From all illusion, deliver me! Deliver us!"