Mystical Invocation (St. Symeon the New Theologian)

Around the Holy Spirit all the uncertainties, difficulties, and torments of our life are crystallized. And all our hopes are in the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray together for the appearance of the Holy Spirit. Together, let us invoke Him with the mystical invocation of Symeon the New Theologian:

“Come, true light. Come, eternal life. Come, hidden mystery. Come nameless treasure. Come, ineffable thing. Come, person who flees human comprehension. Come, ceaseless courage. Come, true hope of all who are being saved. Come, resurrection of the dead. Come, powerful one. You do everything always. You transform and change with a single gesture of the hand. Come, fully invisible, untouchable, impalpable. Come, you who always remain unmoving, though you hourly move and come to us, who lie in the underworld, though you yourself live above the heavens. Come, name most desired and encountered more than anything. But to say about you what you are or to know what you are, we are absolutely forbidden. Come, eternal joy. Come, unfading wreath. Come, purple of our great God and sovereign. Come, girdle, like a crystal transparent and studded with precious stones. Come, unapproachable refuge. Come, the king’s purple and the right hand of holy majesty. Come! My poor soul has needed and needs you. Come, alone to alone, for i am alone, as you see, Come! You have isolated me and made me alone on the earth. Come! You have become my need, and made it so that I have need of you, of you who are accessible to no one. Come, my breath and life. Come, the comfort of my contemptible soul. Come, my joy, glory and unceasing consolation. I give thanks to you because here, amid turbulence, change and dizzying motion, you have become a spirit one with me; and though you are God above all, you have become for me all in all.

Ineffable drink! You can never be taken away, and you ceaselessly pour yourself into the lips of my soul, and copiously flow in the source of my heart. Shining garment, which burns demons. Purifying sacrifice! You bathe me with unceasing holy tears, copiously shed from your presence among those to whom you come. I give thanks to you because for me you have become an unfading day and a sun on the side of its setting. You have nowhere to hide yourself, and with your glory you fill universes. You have never hidden yourself from anyone, but we ourselves always hide from you, until we wish to come to you. For where can you hide, if there is not place where you can rest? Or why would you hide yourself, you who do not despise anyone, do not fear anyone? Create now out of me a tabernacle for yourself, meek Lord, and live in me, and until my death do not leave, do not separate yourself from me, your servant, so that I too, at my death and after my death, will abide in you and reign with you, God Who reigns over everything.

Remain Lord and do not leave me alone, so that when my enemies come, who constantly seek to devour my soul, they will find you in me, and run away for good and not defeat me, because they will see you, stronger than all, inside, dwelling in the mansion of my humble soul. Truly, just as you remembered me, Lord, when I was in the world, and when without my knowledge you yourself chose me, and separated me from the world, and placed me before the face of your glory, so even now protect me through your unchanging, perfectly stable abiding in me, so the every day, contemplating you, I, mortal one, may live, so that, possessing you, I, poor one, may always be rich. This way, I would be more powerful than any king; and partaking of you and drinking you, and hourly being clothed in you, I would enjoy unutterable blessed delight. Since you are every good and every adornment and every delight, and to you belongs the glory of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, which is glorified in the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, and is known and honored by the whole community of the faithful now and always and for ever and ever. Amen”
Amen. Amen. Amen.

from:  ”The Pillar and Ground of Truth:  An Essay in Orhodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters” by Pavel Florensky.  Excerpt from letter six.

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