The Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols has welcomed the Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative taking place this week and up until 23 May around the world.
The ecumenical event, now in its fifth year, in which Christians of all denominations are invited to offer prayers for the evangelisation of the world and the transformation of hearts by the Holy Spirit, lasts from the feast of the Ascension to Pentecost.
Cardinal Nichols said: “It’s the Holy Spirit that transformed what we call the ‘chaos’ into the ‘cosmos’ – the ordered world.
“In caring for the world, we care for each other. In caring for each other, we care for the Creator and show Him our respect, our deference, our service.
“May Thy Kingdom Come be a prayer from our hearts that the Holy Spirit transforms us into servants of the word and servants of the created world made through the word Himself.”
Started in 2016, the movement has proved extremely popular, perhaps because of its simplicity, and its association with a liturgical period that unites Protestants and Catholics – the time of anticipation between Christ’s ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit on his disciples. According to the Thy Kingdom Come website participants are asked to do only three things to join in: “Deepen their own relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray for five friends or family to come to faith in Jesus. Pray for the empowerment of the Spirit that we would be effective in our witness.”
Hundreds of thousands of Christians in more than 170 countries are expected to participate, and beyond the simple core requirements of prayer and reflection, a variety of events and resources are happening in the UK as part of the initiative. A number of Cathedrals opening specially for morning and evening prayer over the course of the two weeks, and an online series of daily prayers is being hosted by the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales.
“Thy Kingdom Come” partially coincides with the traditional Pentecost Novena, the nine days of prayer observed by Catholics before the feast of Pentecost.
Bishop Mark O'Toole, chair of the Bishops’ conference department for evangelisation and discipleship, also voiced his support for the initiative, and its liturgical significance: “I’ve often thought that this must have been something like the experience that the earliest apostles had – especially in the period between the Feast of the Ascension and that of Pentecost.
“We know that those earliest apostles had had an experience of the Risen Jesus and especially at Ascension, He had commissioned them to go forth to the ends of the Earth to proclaim His name and to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, they hadn’t been given that gift of the inner freedom which comes through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that was literally to fall upon them on the Feast of Pentecost and drive them out of that Upper Room onto the streets of Jerusalem to proclaim Jesus’s name in many languages and to communicate their encounter with Him to all and sundry.
“This is one of the reasons why the period between the Ascension and Pentecost has always been a most precious time for Christian believers. For Catholics, those nine days, we often pray the Novena of the Holy Spirit. Increasingly, Catholics are participating in the initiative called ‘Thy Kingdom Come’. I urge individuals, families, communities and Catholic parishes to look at the website. There are lots of resources there which give ideas Firstly to pray, during that period, for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”
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