Customer Reviews

Come, Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator

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Fr. Cantalamessa writes with a gentle, engaging clarity about the Holy Spirit, profoundly opening my understanding of who this Third Person of the Holy Trinity is, does, and wants for us, and for me, specifically. From the first pages, this book swept past my guard and straight to my heart.

I was drawn to the book, in part, because the "Veni Creator Spiritus," which Pope Benedict XVI names one of Christianity's most beautiful hymns, is egregiously mistranslated in the current ecclesial form; the one sung in Church for Pentecost begins with, "Come Holy Spirit, Creator Blest," and is way off the actual Latin, which Cantalamessa, (and Fortesque!) accurately render as, "Come Creator Spirit."

Assuming the hymn's author, Rabanus Maurus, had a good reason for choosing the words he used to write this sung prayer, that he intended to pray what he actually said, I've wondered about the clerical reasons for our modern, inaccurate, and misleading version.

Fr. Cantalamessa, however, doesn't enter that debate, he just more accurately translates from the original Latin, and explains why and how that effects our understanding and connection to the Holy Spirit; that's the ground for his exegesis; what the words actually are, what that says to us, and does for us as we pray and live.

But this is no dry, academic work on translation. From this forthright beginning, he writes the most beautiful, yet still powerfully engaging and informative meditations on each line in the hymn, using Scripture, the teachings of the Catholic Church, and especially the writings of the Church Fathers, to open up the substance and meaning contained in this hymn to the Holy Spirit. While that sort of catechesis is not unusual at all, Fr. Cantalamessa takes it to a much higher than usual level, really engaging the heart, and the hope, we carry within us for, toward, and about our Creator.

Among the most powerful and helpful books I've ever read, well beyond "standard" theological texts on the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. Worlds beyond the usual modern, "popular" fare on "living in the Spirit."

Come, Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator I have long thought that the Holy Spirit is given short shift within the Catholic church He is poorly understood by both the clergy,and especially, the laity. Fr. Raniero has brought him to life, and into our lives. The text is written so that I felt I was present at a lecture by the author. Some sections are so filled with wisdom that they require re-reading, however, the results are well worthwhile. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in meeting the Holy Spirit and inviting him to come into their lives in a more personal way.

I felt so touched by this book that I ordered another one to give it as a present! It lights a fire of love in our hearts!

Nicky Gumbel calls this the best book he's ever read on the Holy Spirit. I agree. This book approaches the Holy Spirit through the ancient hymn with a solid foundation in scripture, tradition and contemporary experience of the Spirit. While the foreword (written by then Cardnial Ratzinger) was thick with Jargon, Cantalamessa writes in a way that anyone can access.