Book Review #5 – “Come, Creator Spirit” by Raniero Cantalamessa

Book Review #5 – “Come, Creator Spirit” by Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa; published 2003 by Liturgical Press.

[Full Title, “Come, Creator Spirit: Meditations on the Veni Creator” (416 pages).

Brief Bio of Author. Father R. Cantalamessa (RC) is a 92 year-old priest and theologian in the Roman Catholic Church who is a renowned scholar of Ancient Christian History and Classical Literature. He held the highly honored position in the Vatican of Preacher to the Papal Household for 44 years. So RC was literally Preacher to the Pope. He has authored 25 books on theology and spirituality, many of those books centered on the Holy Spirit. He once said, “If the Law was pregnant with Christ, then the Church is pregnant with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the ever-new song in the heart of the Church and rejuvenates all that He touches.” RC also championed the importance of recognizing the Jewish roots to the Christian faith… “The great original schism afflicting the Church and impoverishing it is not so much the schism between East and West or between Catholics and Protestants, as the more radical one between the Church and Israel.” Born in Italy, he continues to reside there in his retirement as a pastor and Bible teacher for a group of cloistered nuns.

Overview of Book. I am reviewing this particular book because it is the best one I have ever read on the Holy Spirit. RC wrote this book as a long-standing participant in what is known as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. He thought it would help reveal the true Person and ministry of the Spirit by studying in detail every line of a classic hymn of the Christian Church, beloved by every denomination, “Veni Creator,” which means “Come, Holy Spirit.” This ancient song was composed in the 9th century by an archbishop named Maurus, and adapted to a Gregorian chant. RC opens our eyes as to how the Holy Spirit has been experienced and understood down through Christian history right up to the present time. The book is organized by simply taking each line of the hymn, one after the other, and diving deep into its Biblical meaning and historical understanding. As RC puts it in his introduction, “This hymn is just the roadmap we will use as we move along exploring the Holy Spirit in ‘full immersion’ to learn the language of the Spirit, a foreign language to us who are flesh and speak the language of the flesh. The words of this hymn are like honeycombs full of honey. Our job will be like that of the beekeeper extracting the honey from the comb. This book is intended to be theology at prayer, sung in the key of praise, the only way in which we can adequately speak of the Holy Spirit.”  One of the deep joys of this book is that Cantalamessa closes every chapter with an ancient prayer to the Spirit. Soaking up these profound prayers is alone worth the price of the book.

Cantalamessa and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Cantalamessa has often been known to exclaim things like, “The Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a joyful experience of God’s grace!” But what led up to his triumphant claim? As an academic star in Christian scholarly circles in the 1960’s and early 70’s, RC was a deep skeptic of anything that sounded Charismatic or Pentecostal. He realized he didn’t fully understand this church movement very well, so in 1977 he studied and then taught a course in the Vatican named “Prophetic and Charismatic Movements in the Early Church.” During that time, an unexpected space opened up in a Christian conference in Kansas City, and since he wanted to improve his English language skills, he agreed to attend with some friends from Rome. The conference was attended by 40,000 Christians from every denomination, including about 20,000 Catholics. He was deeply struck when all the conference participants knelt and wept in prayer over the scandalous divisions in Christ’s Church. And then during a powerful time of full-throttled worship, RC sensed his long-held skepticisms shifting. As all 40,000 believers were singing a boisterous hymn about the fall of Jericho at the sound of Joshua’s trumpets, a person sitting nearby leaned toward RC and said, “Listen closely, because you are Jericho.” Cantalamessa then asked a Protestant worshipper to pray for him to experience more of the Holy Spirit. He reported later that he felt “a release, an untying” of the grace that he had received at his original infant baptism. He said that he was indeed baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that he felt the Spirit fill him, that he began to experience God’s love in a new and more personal way. He said that he profoundly realized that he was “a child of God” and that spiritual transformation had begun within him. He didn’t experience anything particularly emotional, he said, but he did begin speaking in “tongues,” which he had always rejected up to that point in his Christian walk. During this time, Cantalamessa had a strong spiritual sense that he was on a horse-driven carriage trying to figure out which direction to go in and at what speed. He then saw in his mind Jesus climb onto the carriage next to him and gently ask him, “Would you give me the reigns to your life?” And after a moment of panic, RC told Jesus, “Yes, Lord, take the reigns of my life.” Later in the conference, when all the Christians were united in praying an especially Trinitarian prayer, RC said that “The Father seemed impatient to speak to me of Jesus, and Jesus wanted to reveal the Father to me.” A believer sitting near him then prophetically prayed over RC and said to him, “You will experience a new joy in proclaiming My Word.” Sure enough, on the plane ride home, he opened up the Psalter, and the psalms jumped right out of the page directly to him. “They seemed brand new, written just for me the day before.” Later, he realized that “one of the first effects of the coming of the Holy Spirit is that the Bible becomes a living book. It is no longer a repository of doctrine, an object of study, but the living Word of God.” The Bible became alive in a new way for him, leading to a “fire-filled zeal for holiness in his preaching.” It was soon after this Holy Spirit experience that Pope John Paul 2 appointed him to be the Preacher to the Pope.

This classic hymn “Veni Creator” forms the powerful backbone of the book as Cantalamessa insightfully devotes a separate section to each line:

“Come, Creator Spirit,

Visit the minds of those who are Yours,

Fill with heavenly grace

The hearts that You have made.

 

You who are named the Paraclete,

Gift of God most high,

Living fountain, fire, love,

And anointing for the soul.

 

You are sevenfold in Your gifts,

You are finger of God’s right hand,

You, the Father’s solemn promise

Putting words upon our lips.

 

Kindle a light in our senses,

Pour love into our hearts,

Infirmities of this body of ours

Overcoming with strength secure.

 

The enemy drive from us away,

Peace then give without delay.

With You as guide to lead the way

We avoid all cause of harm.

 

Grant we may know the Father through You,

And come to know the Son as well,

And may we always cling in faith

To You, the Spirit of them both. Amen.