Veni Sancte Spiritus

Come Holy Spirit

This is a large work, with text from an ancient medieval sequence preserved in a Roman Missal from 1570, although the sequence is likely to be from an earlier century. It was created May–July 2020 during the coronavirus lockdown and around the feast of Pentecost.

The burning of Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd affected me deeply. I grew up only a few blocks away from the violence and watched buildings that I knew go up in flames. Over the years I have also witnessed the toxic consequences of racism in that seemingly-kind culture of ‘good’ people, and am painfully aware of my own part in that injustice.

Part of my response is this work and prayer. It admits that we are not ‘good’ people and desperately asks for the Holy Spirit to come and cleanse, correct, and heal us. The flames represent both the fires of Minneapolis and the flaming tongues of the Holy Spirit that descended at Pentecost. They are a symbol of both destruction and cleansing.

Please do read through and reflect on the full text below. The translation is traditional with some of my own adjustments.