1. Jesus is linked
with the Holy Spirit from the first moment of his existence in time,
as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed recalls: “Et incarnatus est
de Spiritu Sancto exMaria Virgine”. The Church’s faith in this
mystery is based on the word of God: “The Holy Spirit”, the Angel
Gabriel announces to Mary, “will come upon you and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will
be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). And Joseph is told: “That
which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 1:20).
The Holy Spirit's direct intervention in the Incarnation brings
about the supreme grace, the “grace of union”, in which human nature
is united to the Person of the Word. This union is the source of
every other grace, as St Thomas explains (S. Th. III, q. 2, a.
10-12; q. 6, a. 6; q. 7, a. 13).
2. For a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit’s role in the
Incarnation event, it is important to return to what the word of God
tells us.
St Luke says that the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and overshadow
her as power from on high. From the Old Testament, we know that
every time God decides to bring forth life, he acts through the
“power” of his creative breath: “By the word of the Lord the heavens
were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps 33
[32]:6). This is true for every living being, to the point that if
God “should take back his spirit to himself, and gather to himself
his breath, all flesh [that is, every human being] would perish
together, and man would return to dust” (Jb 34:14-15). God has his
Spirit intervene especially at the moments when Israel feels
powerless to raise itself by its own strength alone. The prophet
Ezekiel suggests this in his dramatic vision of the immense valley
filled with skeletons: “The breath came into them, and they lived,
and stood upon their feet” (Ez 37:10).
The virginal conception of Jesus is “the greatest work accomplished
by the Holy Spirit in the history of creation and salvation” (Dominum
et Vivificantem, n. 50). In this event of grace, a virgin is made
fruitful; a woman, redeemed since her conception, conceives the
Redeemer. Thus a new creation is prepared, and the new and
everlasting Covenant initiated: a man who is the Son of God begins
to live. Never before this event had it been said that the Holy
Spirit descended directly upon a woman to make her a mother.
Whenever miraculous births occurred in Israel’s history, wherever
they are mentioned, the divine intervention is related to the
newborn child, not the mother.
3. If we ask ourselves what the Holy Spirit’s purpose was in
bringing about the Incarnation event, the word of God gives us a
succinct reply in the Second Letter of Peter, telling us that it
happened so that we might become “partakers of the divine nature” (2
Pt 1:4). “In fact”, St Irenaeus of Lyons explains, “this is the
reason why the Word became flesh and the Son of God became the Son
of Man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and
thus receiving divine shonship, might become a son of God” (Adv.
Haer. III, 19, 1). St Athanasius adopts the same line: “When the
Word came upon the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Spirit entered her
together with the Word; in the Spirit the Word formed a body for
himself and adapted it to himself, desiring to unite all creation
through himself and lead it to the Father” (Ad Serap. 1, 31). These
assertions are repeated by St Thomas: “The Only-begotten Son of God,
wanting us to be partakers of his divinity, assumed our human nature
so that, having become man, he might make men gods” (Opusc. 57 in
festo Corp. Christi, 1), that is, partakers through grace of the
divine nature.
The mystery of the Incarnation reveals God’s astonishing love, whose
highest personification is the Holy Spirit, since he is the Love of
God in person, the Person-Love: “In this the love of God was made
manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so
that we might live through him” (1 Jn 4:9). The glory of God is
revealed in the Incarnation more than in any other work.
Quite rightly we sing in the Gloria in excelsis: “We praise you, we
bless you ... we give you thanks for your great glory”. These
statements can be applied in a special way to the action of the Holy
Spirit who, in the First Letter of Peter, is called “the spirit of
glory” (1 Pt 4:14). This is a glory which is pure gratuitousness: it
does not consist of taking or receiving, but only of giving. In
giving us his Spirit, who is the source of life, the Father
manifests his glory, making it visible in our lives. In this regard
St Irenaeus says that “the glory of God is the living man” (Adv.
Haer. IV, 20, 7).
4. If now we try to look more closely at what the Incarnation event
reveals to us of the mystery of the Spirit, we can say that this
event shows us primarily that he is the gracious power of God who
brings forth life.
The power that “overshadows” Mary recalls the cloud of the Lord
which covered the tent in the desert (cf. Ex 40:34) or filled the
temple (cf. 1 Kgs 8:10). Thus it is the friendly presence, the
saving closeness of God who comes to make a covenant of love with
his children. It is power in the service of love, which is exercised
under the sign of humility: not only does it inspire the humility of
Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, but is almost hidden behind her, to
the point that no one in Nazareth can foresee that what “is
conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 1:20). St Ignatius of
Antioch marvellously describes this paradoxical mystery: “Mary’s
virginity and her birth were hidden from the prince of this world,
as was the death of the Lord. These are the three resounding
mysteries that were accomplished in the quiet stillness of God” (Ad
Eph., 19, 1).
5. The mystery of the Incarnation, seen from the perspective of the
Holy Spirit who brought it about, also sheds light on the mystery of
man.
If in fact the Spirit works in a unique way in the mystery of the
Incarnation, he is also present at the origin of every human being.
Our being is a “received being”, a reality thought of, loved and
given. Evolution does not suffice to explain the origin of the human
race, just as the biological causality of the parents alone cannot
explain a baby’s birth. Even in the transcendence of his action, God
is ever respectful of “secondary causes” and creates the spiritual
soul of a new human being by communicating the breath of life to him
(cf. Gn 2:7) through his Spirit who is “the giver of life”. Thus
every child should be seen and accepted as a gift of the Holy
Spirit.
The chastity of celibates and virgins is a unique reflection of that
love “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). The
Spirit, who gave the Virgin Mary a share in the divine fruitfulness,
also ensures that those who have chosen virginity for the kingdom of
heaven will have numerous descendants in the spiritual family formed
of all those who “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the
flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:13).
To the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors the Holy Father said:
I warmly welcome the group from the NATO Defense College: I
encourage you always to see your professional duties as an effective
service of the cause of peace. Upon all the English-speaking
pilgrims and visitors, especially those from England, Scotland,
Canada and the United States of America, I invoke the abundant
blessings of almighty God.
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