Furthermore…

I used to pray, certainly not often enough, to the Holy Spirit to help me remember stuff on exams, understand difficult school material such as mathematics, or to “enlighten” other people who seemed to be trapped in darkness (because they didn’t seem to see things the way I thought they should).  Some of this might be reasonable and laudable, but I sense that there is also an admisture of wrongheadedness: the Holy Spirit has better things to do! Maybe we should be more inclined to handle those  worldly matters ourselves.

More specifically, I now prefer to think of the Holy Spirit as being concerned almost exclusively with pointing out and reminding us of the place of God in our lives, the need to stop ignoring and brushing Him off, and to, shall I say,  ’get our holiness on,’ becoming conscious of and appreciating  spiritual and moral aspects of  the people, surroundings and developments making up our chaotic lives. 

 So when we pray “Come Holy Spirit” it shouldn’t be out of frustration with a banal problem, as one might call a room clerk, but rather a call for that holy enlightenment which helps us to see the matter in the perspective of eternity.