Book Review #5 – “Come, Creator Spirit” by Raniero Cantalamessa (this post is in process and incomplete at this time)
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.”
Cantalamessa and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.