CHAPTER III
Of the sending of the Holy Ghost upon the disciples of Christ at the Feast of Pentecost
I BLESS Thee, and give thanks to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, kind Comforter of the sorrowful, most sweet Visitor of the sick, most powerful Helper of those in trouble, for Thy true and faithful promise of Divine gifts to be sent down from Thy Home in Heaven, and from the Father of Lights. I thank Thee for Thy inestimable bounty, and for the wondrous outpouring of the multiform grace of the Holy Spirit upon Thy disciples gathered together in Jerusalem. They were assembled in the Upper Room, praying and waiting anxiously for the consolation of the Holy Ghost from Heaven: they were not thinking about the things of this life; but, like devout monks dwelling apart from the tumult of the world, in quietude and silence, they had cast all earthly cares out of their minds, and with their hearts fixed upon those joys which last for ever, they were preparing themselves by fervent prayer for receiving yet fuller gifts of grace.
I praise and glorify Thee, O most glorious Jesus Christ, King of the Holy Angels, for the right joyous festival of this day, and for the benediction and hallowing year by year by the Priest (in the power of the Holy Ghost) of the sacred Font, in which those who are baptized in the Name of the Holy Trinity are cleansed from all their sins, become partakers of everlasting life, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit are made meet to be
