Pentecost

Tomorrow is the Feast of Pentecost when we celebrate and remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the first church in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.

In Romans 8:26, the Apostle Paul says this about the Holy Spirit...

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

C. S. Lewis echoes these words in a poem he wrote and included in the last book he prepared for publication, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer...

They tell me, Lord, that when I seem

To be in speech with you,

Since but one voice is heard, it's all a dream,

One talker aping two.

Sometimes it is, yet not as they

Conceive it. Rather, I

Seek in myself the things I hoped to say.

But lo!, my wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake

The listener's role and through

My dumb lips breathe and into utterance wake

The thoughts I never knew.

And thus you neither need reply

Nor can; thus, while we seem

Two talkers, thou art One forever and I

No dreamer, but thy dream.

Here is one of my favorite musical pieces from the film, Shadowlands. It is quite appropriate for Pentecost as the title is Veni Sancta Spiritus... Come Holy Spirit...

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Will Vaus

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