Holy Spirit, descend upon me.

Dave Canovas

Matthew 18:20 reminds us: “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them.”

Witnessing my church community in praise and worship often reminds me of that upper room experience, where the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, igniting them with peace and courage.

Yet, there are times when I can only stand among them, feeling hollow—present in body but distant in spirit. The same thing happens at Mass: though my body is there, my mind drifts, preoccupied or restless, and my heart, troubled or worse, empty.

When nothing in me is moved nor something in me, roused; I long for The Spirit to descend upon me. To me, the invitation for the Holy Spirit to come is often a perilous journey, a difficult surrender. Sometimes, the struggle to receive the Spirit is the result of the numbing effects of sin or the complacency that dulls the soul.

I’ve noticed that when I struggle to invite the Spirit to move within me, it often gives way to a deep despair and longing. Yet even this emptiness becomes a sign—a quiet reminder from the Spirit that I am nothing without Him, and that life apart from His presence is an arduous and lonely path. The Holy Spirit does not wait for perfection, but longs to enter even the most desolate and the most broken of hearts.

When I begin to feel that transformative despair, I often retreat to myself and it is when the Helper gently changes me, breathing life into the places I had long kept hidden.

In my own moments of anguish, I turn to figures like David and Job, whose vulnerability before God was unshielded. They laid bare their deepest sorrows and confessed their wretched shame without hesitation, teaching me that even in the midst of brokenness, the Spirit also draws near in your aloneness.

David and Job did not hide their suffering; they placed their sorrow openly before God, trusting that even their cries and questions could be received by His mercy.

Psalm of David: How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

Job 3:25: “For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me.”

From David and Job, I draw hope, for their cries of despair became songs of praises and redemption.

Psalm 150: 1-6 “Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,  praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe,  praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”

Job 42:12: The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.

Come, Holy Spirit, and turn this hollowness into yearning. Transform this anxious stillness into a quiet longing, that I may open my heart and welcome You. Move within me, change me, and grant me the peace that only You can give. Amen.