1. “If Christ is
the Head of the Church, the Holy Spirit is her soul”. So said my
venerable Predecessor Leo XIII in the Encyclical Divinum illud munus
(1897: DS 3328). After him, Pius XII explained that in the Mystical
Body of Christ the Holy Spirit is “the principle of every vital and
truly salvific action in each of the Body’s various members”
(Encyclical Mystici Corporis, 1943: DS 3808).
Today we would like to reflect on the mystery of Christ’s Body which
is the Church, inasmuch as she is enlivened and animated by the Holy
Spirit.
After the Pentecost event, the group that gave rise to the Church
profoundly changes: at first it was a closed, static group of “about
a hundred and twenty” (Acts 1:15); later it was an open, dynamic
group to which, after Peter’s address, “were added about three
thousand souls” (Acts 2:41). The true newness did not consist so
much in this numerical growth, however extraordinary, but in the
presence of the Holy Spirit. A group of people is not enough to form
a Christian community. The Holy Spirit brings the Church to birth.
She appears — to use a happy phrase of the late Cardinal Congar —
“entirely suspended from heaven” (La Pentecoste, Italian trans.,
Brescia, 1986, p. 60).
2. This birth in the Spirit, which occurred for the whole Church on
Pentecost, is renewed for every believer at Baptism, when we are
immersed “in one Spirit” to become members of “one body” (1 Cor
12:13). We read in St Irenaeus: “Just as flour cannot become one
loaf without water, so we who are many cannot become one in Christ
Jesus without the water that comes from heaven” (Adv. Haer., III,
17, 1). The water that comes from heaven and transforms the water of
Baptism is the Holy Spirit.
St Augustine states: “What our spirit, i.e., our soul, is for our
members, the Holy Spirit is for Christ’s members, for the Body of
Christ which is the Church” (Serm. 267, 4).
In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council returns to this image, develops it and explains
it: Christ “has shared with us his Spirit who, being one and the
same in head and members, gives life to, unifies and moves the whole
body. Consequently, his work could be compared by the Fathers to the
function that the principle of life, the soul, fulfils in the human
body” (Lumen gentium, n. 7).
This relationship between the Spirit and the Church guides us in
understanding her, without falling into the two opposite errors
already pointed out by Mystici Corporis: ecclesiological naturalism,
which is limited to the visible aspect and so regards the Church as
a merely human institution; or the opposite error of ecclesiological
mysticism, which emphasizes the Church’s unity with Christ to the
point of considering Christ and the Church as a sort of physical
person. These two errors are analogous — as Leo XIII had already
stressed in the Encyclical Satis cognitum — to two Christological
heresies: Nestorianism, which separated the two natures in Christ,
and Monophysitism, which confused them. The Second Vatican Council
offered us a synthesis which helps us grasp the true meaning of the
Church’s mystical unity by presenting her as “one complex reality
which comes together from a human and divine element” (Lumen gentium,
n. 8).
3. The Holy Spirit’s presence in the Church enables her, despite
being marked by the sin of her members, to be preserved from defect.
Holiness not only replaces sin, but overcomes it. In this sense,
too, we can say with St Paul that where sin abounds, grace even more
abounds (cf. Rom 5:20).
The Holy Spirit dwells in the Church not as a guest who still
remains an outsider, but as the soul that transforms the community
into “God’s holy temple” (1 Cor 3:17; cf. 6:19; Eph 2:21) and makes
it more and more like himself through his specific gift, which is
love (cf. Rom 5:5; Gal 5:22). Love — the Second Vatican Council
teaches in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church — “governs, gives
meaning to and perfects all the means of sanctification” (Lumen
gentium, n. 42). Love is the “heart” of Christ’s Mystical Body, as
we read in a beautiful autobiographical passage of St Thérèse of the
Child Jesus: “I understood that if the Church had a body composed of
different members, the most necessary and noble of all could not be
lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a heart and
that this heart was burning with Love. I understood that it was Love
alone that made the Church’s members act, that if Love were ever
extinguished, apostles would not proclaim the Gospel and martyrs
would refuse to shed their blood.... I understood that Love included
all vocations, that Love was everything, that it embraced all times
and places ... in a word, that it was eternal!” (Autobiographical
Manuscript B, 3vº).
4. The Spirit who dwells in the Church also abides in the heart of
every member of the faithful: he is the dulcis hospes animae.
Following a path of conversion and personal sanctification, then,
means allowing ourselves to be “led” by the Spirit (cf. Rom 8:14),
letting him act, pray and love in us. “Becoming holy” is possible if
we allow ourselves to be made holy by him who is the Holy One, by
docilely co-operating with his transforming action. For this reason,
since the primary objective of the Jubilee is to strengthen the
faith and witness of Christians, “it is necessary to inspire in all
the faithful a true longing for holiness, a deep desire for
conversion and personal renewal in a context of ever more intense
prayer and of solidarity with one’s neighbour, especially the most
needy” (Tertio millennio adveniente, n. 42).
We can think of the Holy Spirit as the soul of our soul, and thus
the secret of our sanctification. Let us dwell in his powerful and
discreet, intimate and transforming presence!
5. St Paul teaches us that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within
us is closely connected with Jesus’ Resurrection and is also the
basis of our final resurrection: “If the Spirit of him who raised
Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from
the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his
Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11).
In eternal happiness we will live in the joyful fellowship that is
now prefigured and anticipated by the Eucharist. Then the Spirit
will bring to full maturity all the seeds of communion, love and
brotherhood that have blossomed during our earthly pilgrimage. As St
Gregory of Nyssa says, “surrounded by the unity of the Holy Spirit
as the bond of peace, all will be one Body and one Spirit” (Hom. 15
in Cant.).
To the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors the Holy Father said:
I welcome the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, especially
those from Latvia, Japan, Scotland, Canada and the United States of
America. Upon all of you I cordially invoke God’s blessings of joy
and peace.
Return to General Audiences on
the Holy Spirit...
