Pentacost with the Church Fathers

These selections from the ancient Church Fathers, classic prayers, spiritual exercises, and reflection questions have been gathered for serious Christians who desire to deepen the Holy Spirit’s indwelling in their souls. Corresponding to the 7 weeks between Easter and Pentecost Sunday, these 7 chapters both explain the best of the Church’s theology on the Holy Spirit as well as provide a roadmap for a do-it-home retreat. Pentecost with the Church Fathers invites all readers into a deeper conversation on who the Holy Spirit is and how he can not only cleanse us of our sins but elevate us into the Trinity’s own life as an adopted child of the Father, an intimate companion of Jesus Christ, and a consecrated Temple of his own Spirit.

Whereas the Old and New Testaments teach the divinity of the Holy Spirit, it took the early errors of anti-Spirit heretics for the Church to clarify and develop what is originally found throughout the Bible. Bishops and theologians like St. Irenaeus, Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, and St. Augustine prayed, pondered, and pored over what would become the Church’s official language on the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. With these Church Fathers, we today must recover the spiritual fruit of good theology, reflecting deeply on our own life stories before these great minds. Who is the Holy Spirit for you? What do you want the Holy Spirit to do for you and where do you still refuse his promptings? How do approach each person of the Trinity in prayer, worship, and day to day charity? These and other questions connect theological texts offering the do-it-at-home retreatant a fruitful and feasible way of growing in the holiness of God’s own Spirit.