"For every high priest, chosen from among men, is appointed to act on behalf of
men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins."
Hebrews 5:1






“Veni, Creator Spiritus!”

I can still remember myself in that chapel during the singing of the Veni, Creator Spiritus and the Litany of the
Saints, lying prostrate on the floor with arms outstretched in the form of a cross, awaiting the moment of the
imposition of hands.  It was a very moving experience!  Subsequently I have presided many times over this same
rite as Bishop and as Pope.  There is something very impressive about the prostration of the ordinands,
symbolizing as it does their total submission before the majesty of God and their complete openness to the action
of the Holy Spirit who will descend upon them and consecrate them.  Veni, Creator Spiritus, mentes Tuorum
visita, imple superna gratia quae Tu creatis pectora.
Ordination Memories of Pope John Paul II
Just as in the Mass the Holy Spirit brings about the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, so also in the
Sacrament of Holy Orders he effects the priestly or episcopal consecration.  The Bishop who confers the Sacrament of Holy Orders is the
human dispenser of this divine mystery.  The imposition of hands is the continuation of the gesture used by the early Church to signify that
the Holy Spirit is being given for a specific mission (cf Acts 6:6, 8:17; 13:3).  Paul imposed hands on the disciple Timothy (cf 2 Tim 1:6; 1
Tim 4:14), and the gesture has remained in the Church (cf 1 Tim 5:22) as the efficacious sign of the Holy Spirit’s active presence in the
Sacrament of Holy Orders.

“The Floor”

The one about to receive Holy Orders prostrates himself completely and rests his forehead on the church floor, indicating in this way his
complete willingness to undertake the ministry being entrusted to him.  That rite has deeply marked my priestly life.  Years later, in St. Peter’s
Basilica (this was at the very beginning of the Council), I was thinking back on that moment of ordination to priesthood and I wrote a poem.  
I would like to share a few lines of that poem here:













When I wrote these words I was thinking of Peter and of the whole reality of the ministerial priesthood, and trying to bring out the profound
significance of this liturgical prostration.  In lying prostrate on the floor in the form of a cross before one’s ordination, in accepting in one’s
own life – like Peter – the cross of Christ and becoming with the Apostle a “floor” for our brothers and sisters, one finds the ultimate meaning
of all priestly spirituality.
Peter, you are the floor, that others /
may walk over you … not knowing/
where they go.  You guide their steps/
…

you want to serve their feet that pass/
as rock serves the hooves of sheep./
The rock is a gigantic temple floor,/
the cross a pasture.

(The Church:  Shepherds and Springs, Autumn 1962)
Gift and Mystery
Chapter IV
“Veni, Creator Spiritus!,” and “The Floor”
pgs. 43-46