Pentecost with the Church Fathers: A Seven-Week Retreat on the Person and Presence of the Holy Spirit

In this Pentecostal retreat, 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 seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost Sunday, these seven chapters both explain the best of the Church’s theology on the Holy Spirit as well as provide a road map for an at-home retreat. Pentecost with the Church Fathers invites all readers into a deeper conversation with the Holy Spirit, who cleanses us of our sins and elevates us into the Trinity’s own life as adopted children of the Father, intimate companions of Jesus Christ, and consecrated temples of His own Spirit.

Whereas the Old and New Testaments teach the divinity of the Holy Spirit, it took the errors of early 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 poured 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 you approach each Person of the Trinity in prayer, worship, and day-to-day charity? These and other questions connect theological texts and offer the reader a fruitful and feasible way of growing in the holiness of God’s own Spirit.