From HYMNS OF DIVINE LOVE by St. Symeon the New Theologian

Invocation to the Holy Spirit, by the one who already sees Him.

Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come, nameless treasure. Come, ineffable reality. Come, inconceivable person. Come, endless bliss. Come, non-setting sun. Come, infallible expectation of all those who must be saved. Come, awakening of those who are asleep. Come, resurrection of the dead. Come, O Powerful One, who always creates and recreates and transforms by Your will alone. Come, O invisible and totally intangible and impalpable. Come, You who always remain motionless and at each moment move completely and come to us, asleep in hell, O, You, above all the heavens. Come, O beloved Name and repeated everywhere, but of whom it is absolutely forbidden to express the existence or know the nature. Come, eternal joy. Come, non-tarnishing crown. Come, purple of the great king our God. Come crystalline cincture, studded with precious stones. Come, inaccessible sandal. Come, royal purple. Come, truly sovereign right hand. Come, You who my miserable soul has desired and desires. Come, You the Lonely, to the lonely, since You see I am lonely. Come, You who have separated me from everything and made me solitary in this world. Come, You who have become Yourself desire in me, who have made me desire You, You, the absolutely inaccessible one. Come, my breath and my life. Come, consolation of my poor soul. Come, my joy, my glory, my endless delight.


I give you thanks that You have become one spirit with me, without confusion, without mutation, without transformation, You the God above everything, and that You have become all for me, inexpressible and perfectly gratuitious nourishment, which without end inexhaustibly flows to the lips of my soul and gushes out into the fountain of my heart, dazzling garment which destroys the devils, purification which bathes me with these imperishable and holy tears, that Your presence brings to those whom You visit. I give You thanks that for me You have become non-setting light, non-declining sun; for You who fill the universe with Your glory have nowhere to hide Yourself!

No, You have never hidden Yourself from anyone, but we are the ones who always hide from You, by refusing to go to You; but then where would You hide, You who nowhere find the place of Your repose? Why would You hide, You who do not turn away from a single creature, who do not reject a single one? Today then, O Master come pitch Your tent within me; until the end, make Your home and live continually, inseparably, within me, You slave, O most kind One that I also may find myself again in You at my departure from this world and after my departure may I reign with You God who is above everything.

O Master, stay and do not leave me alone so that my enemies, arriving unexpectedly, they who are always seeking to destroy my soul, may find You living within me and that they may take flight, in defeat powerless against me, seeing You, You more powerful than everything, installed interiorly in the home of my poor soul. Yes, Master, just as You remembered me when I was in the world and that in the midst of my ignorance, it is You who chose me and separated me from the world and set me before Your glorious face, so, now, keep me interiorly by Your dwelling within me, forever upright, resolute; that by perpetually seeing You, I, the corpse, may live; that by possessing You, I the beggar may always be rich, richer than kings that by eating You and drinking You, by putting You on at each moment, I go from delight to delight in inexpressible blessings; for it is to You, holy, consubstantial and vivifying Trinity that the glory belongs, You whom the faithful venerate, confess, adore and serve in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Amen.