{"id":152772,"date":"2015-11-06T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-should-we-pray-to-the-spirit-rather-than-to-jesus\/"},"modified":"2024-10-22T15:18:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T19:18:54","slug":"ask-a-priest-should-we-pray-to-the-spirit-rather-than-to-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/ask-a-priest-should-we-pray-to-the-spirit-rather-than-to-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAsk a Priest: Should We Pray to the Spirit Rather Than to Jesus?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Q: Before Jesus ascended to heaven he assured us that he would not leave us comfortless, but would send the Holy Spirit as Comforter. This being the case, why is it that we still pray predominantly to Jesus, and not to the Holy Spirit? Has the Holy Spirit not taken the place of Jesus here on earth, and hence all our prayers should be directed to him only? -M.W.<\/address>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC<\/p>\n

A: You raise good questions about the divine Person to whom we direct our prayers.<\/p>\n

It is good to remember that each Person of the Trinity \u2013 Father, Son and Holy Spirit \u2013 is God. So, in any case, our prayers are directed to the Almighty.<\/p>\n

Maybe a few clarifications would be helpful here. The highest form of prayer is the Mass, and the Mass is always directed toward the God the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. In that sense we can say that we pray predominantly to the Father. But even when we pray consciously to Jesus, we are still praying by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who helps us to pray.<\/p>\n

Even the Sign of the Cross which opens and closes our prayers is itself a prayer — and done through the Spirit. So we pray through the Spirit all the time.<\/p>\n

While Jesus promised at the last supper to send us the Spirit, he specifically mentioned that we should pray in his (Christ’s) name. “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do” (John 14:13<\/a><\/strong>). The Church took that to heart, and that is why we pray in Jesus’ name.<\/p>\n

The promised Spirit came in a dramatic way on Pentecost. But the Spirit was already active in the Gospels long before Pentecost. The angel at the Annunciation, for example, said that the Spirit would come over the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke 1:35<\/a><\/strong>). And the Spirit prompted Simeon to go the temple at the time of the Presentation (Luke 2:25-27<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

But back to Jesus\u2019 sending of the Spirit. The presence of the Spirit isn\u2019t meant to supplant Jesus in our lives but to enrich our relationship with him. The Spirit enables us to live Jesus’ commands, to give witness of our faith, to do our part to build the Church.<\/p>\n

And, as mentioned above, the Spirit helps us to pray. \u201cThe Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groaning\u201d (Romans 8:26<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Now, none of this means that we can\u2019t direct prayers to the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Church has long had prayers directed to the Spirit, notably the Veni Creator Spiritus, which dates to the ninth century. Even then, it is the Spirit himself who is helping us to pray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Edward McIlmail, LC","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/485147bd811c2a8642adf1f1806f85f0adef2b00ef8ccabc9b46f8420af19e16?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC"},"description":"Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC, ordained to the priesthood in 2001, taught theology and Scripture at the then Mater Ecclesiae College in Rhode Island and is now a part-time chaplain at Overbrook Academy in Greenville, R.I. He holds degrees from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Connecticut, the Regina Apostolorum Athenaeum in Rome, and Northwestern University in Illinois. He was an assistant publisher of the National Catholic Register and Faith & Family magazine and an editor of the Zenit news agency\u2019s English edition. He has written for\u00a0SpiritualDirection.com\u00a0and\u00a0ePriest. Fr. McIlmail also worked in spiritual retreats in the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, and the South\u00a0and assisted with mission work in Mexico. Born in Philadelphia, he worked in journalism and was active in the pro-life movement before entering the novitiate of the Legion of Christ in 1992. His contributions to RCSpirituality include responding to\u00a0Ask A Priest\u00a0questions and sharing his insights in our\u00a0Weekly Newsletter.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/emcilmail\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152772"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=152772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}