dominum
et vivificantem
Encyclical Letter of John Paul II
May 18, 1986
INTRODUCTION
Venerable Brothers, Beloved Sons and
Daughters,
Health and the Apostolic Blessing!
1. The Church professes her faith in the Holy Spirit as "the Lord,
the giver of life." She professes this in the Creed which is called
Nicene- Constantinopolitan from the name of the two Councils-of
Nicaea (A.D. 325) and Constantinople (A.D. 381)-at which it was
formulated or promulgated. It also contains the statement that the
Holy Spirit "has spoken through the Prophets."
These are words which the Church receives from the very source of
her faith, Jesus Christ. In fact, according to the Gospel of John,
the Holy Spirit is given to us with the new life, as Jesus foretells
and promises on the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles: "If any
one thirst let him come to me and drink. He who believeth in me as
the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of
living water.'"1 And the Evangelist explains: "This he said about
the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive."2 It is
the same simile of water which Jesus uses in his conversation with
the Samaritan woman, when he speaks of "a spring of water welling up
to eternal life,"3 and in his conversation with Nicodemus when he
speaks of the need for a new birth "of water and the Holy Spirit" in
order to "enter the kingdom of God."4
The Church, therefore, instructed by the words of Christ, and
drawing on the experience of Pentecost and her own apostolic
history, has proclaimed since the earliest centuries her faith in
the Holy Spirit, as the giver of life, the one in whom the
inscrutable Triune God communicates himself to human beings,
constituting in them the source of eternal life.
2. This faith, uninterruptedly professed by the Church, needs to be
constantly reawakened and deepened in the consciousness of the
People of God. In the course of the last hundred years this has been
done several times: by Leo XIII, who published the Encyclical
Epistle Divinum Illud Munus (1897) entirely devoted to the Holy
Spirit; by Pius XII, who in the Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis
(1943) spoke of the Holy Spirit as the vital principle of the
Church, in which he works in union with the Head of the Mystical
Body, Christ5; at the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council which
brought out the need for a new study of the doctrine on the Holy
Spirit, as Paul VI emphasized: "The Christology and particularly the
ecclesiology of the Council must be succeeded by a new study of and
devotion to the Holy Spirit, precisely as the indispensable
complement to the teaching of the Council."6
In our own age, then, we are called anew by the ever ancient and
ever new faith of the Church, to draw near to the Holy Spirit as the
giver of life. In this we are helped and stimulated also by the
heritage we share with the Oriental Churches, which have jealously
guarded the extraordinary riches of the teachings of the Fathers on
the Holy Spirit. For this reason too we can say that one of the most
important ecclesial events of recent years has been the Sixteenth
Centenary of the First Council of Constantinople, celebrated
simultaneously in Constantinople and Rome on the Solemnity of
Pentecost in 1981. The Holy Spirit was then better seen, through a
meditation on the mystery of the Church, as the one who points out
the ways leading to the union of Christians, indeed as the supreme
source of this unity, which comes from God himself and to which St.
Paul gave a particular expression in the words which are frequently
used to begin the Eucharistic liturgy: "The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all."7
In a certain sense, my previous Encyclicals Redemptor Hominis and
Dives in Misericordia took their origin and inspiration from this
exhortation, celebrating as they do the event of our salvation
accomplished in the Son, sent by the Father into the world "that the
world might be saved through him"8 and "every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."9 From this
exhortation now comes the present Encyclical on the Holy Spirit, who
proceeds from the Father and the Son; with the Father and the Son he
is adored and glorified: a divine Person, he is at the center of the
Christian faith and is the source and dynamic power of the Church's
renewal.10 The Encyclical has been drawn from the heart of the
heritage of the Council. For the Conciliar texts, thanks to their
teaching on the Church in herself and the Church in the world, move
us to penetrate ever deeper into the Trinitarian mystery of God
himself, through the Gospels, the Fathers and the liturgy: to the
Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit.
In this way the Church is also responding to certain deep desires
which she believes she can discern in people's hearts today: a fresh
discovery of God in his transcendent reality as the infinite Spirit,
just as Jesus presents him to the Samaritan woman; the need to adore
him "in spirit and truth"11; the hope of finding in him the secret
of love and the power of a "new creation"12: yes, precisely the
giver of life.
The Church feels herself called to this mission of proclaiming the
Spirit, while together with the human family she approaches the end
of the second Millennium after Christ. Against the background of a
heaven and earth which will "pass away," she knows well that "the
words which will not pass away"13 acquire a particular eloquence.
They are the words of Christ about the Holy Spirit, the
inexhaustible source of the "water welling up to eternal life,"14 as
truth and saving grace. Upon these words she wishes to reflect, to
these words she wishes to call the attention of believers and of all
people, as she prepares to celebrate- as will be said later on-the
great Jubilee which will mark the passage from the second to the
third Christian Millennium.
Naturally, the considerations that follow do not aim to explore
exhaustively the extremely rich doctrine on the Holy Spirit, nor to
favor any particular solution of questions which are still open.
Their main purpose is to develop in the Church the awareness that
"she is compelled by the Holy Spirit to do her part towards the full
realization of the will of God, who has established Christ as the
source of salvation for the whole world."15
PART I - THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON, GIVEN TO
THE CHURCH
1. Jesus' Promise and Revelation at the Last Supper
3. When the time for Jesus to leave this world had almost come, he
told the Apostles of "another Counselor."16 The evangelist John, who
was present, writes that, during the Last Supper before the day of
his Passion and Death, Jesus addressed the Apostles with these
words: "Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father
may be glorified in the Son.... I will pray the Father, and he will
give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit
of truth."17
It is precisely this Spirit of truth whom Jesus calls the Paraclete-and
parakletos means "counselor," and also "intercessor," or "advocate."
And he says that the Paraclete is "another" Counselor, the second
one, since he, Jesus himself, is the first Counselor,18 being the
first bearer and giver of the Good News. The Holy Spirit comes after
him and because of him, in order to continue in the world, through
the Church, the work of the Good News of salvation. Concerning this
continuation of his own work by the Holy Spirit Jesus speaks more
than once during the same farewell discourse, preparing the Apostles
gathered in the Upper Room for his departure, namely for his Passion
and Death on the Cross.
The words to which we will make reference here are found in the
Gospel of John. Each one adds a new element to that prediction and
promise. And at the same time they are intimately interwoven, not
only from the viewpoint of the events themselves but also from the
viewpoint of the mystery of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which
perhaps in no passage of Sacred Scripture finds so emphatic an
expression as here.
4. A little while after the prediction just mentioned Jesus adds:
"But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you."19 The Holy Spirit will be the
Counselor of the Apostles and the Church, always present in their
midst-even though invisible-as the teacher of the same Good News
that Christ proclaimed. The words "he will teach" and "bring to
remembrance" mean not only that he, in his own particular way, will
continue to inspire the spreading of the Gospel of salvation but
also that he will help people to understand the correct meaning of
the content of Christ's message; they mean that he will ensure
continuity and identity of understanding in the midst of changing
conditions and circumstances. The Holy Spirit, then, will ensure
that in the Church there will always continue the same truth which
the Apostles heard from their Master.
5. In transmitting the Good News, the Apostles will be in a special
way associated with the Holy Spirit. This is how Jesus goes on:
"When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear
witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been
with me from the beginning."20
Apostles were the direct eyewitnesses. They "have heard" and "have
seen with their own eyes," "have looked upon" and even "touched with
their hands" Christ, as the evangelist John says in another
passage.21 This human, first-hand and "historical" witness to Christ
is linked to the witness of the Holy Spirit: "He will bear witness
to me." In the witness of the Spirit of truth, the human testimony
of the Apostles will find its strongest support. And subsequently it
will also find therein the hidden foundation of its continuation
among the generations of Christ's disciples and believers who
succeed one another down through the ages.
The supreme and most complete revelation of God to humanity is Jesus
Christ himself, and the witness of the Spirit inspires, guarantees
and convalidates the faithful transmission of this revelation in the
preaching and writing of the Apostles,22 while the witness of the
Apostles ensures its human expression in the Church and in the
history of humanity.
6. This is also seen from the strict correlation of content and
intention with the just-mentioned prediction and promise, a
correlation found in the next words of the text of John: "I have yet
many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the
Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he
will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will
speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."23
In his previous words Jesus presents the; Counselor, the Spirit of
truth, as the one who "will teach" and "bring to remembrance," as
the one who "will bear witness" to him. Now he says: "He will guide
you into all the truth." This "guiding into all the truth,"
referring to what the Apostles "cannot bear now," is necessarily
connected with Christ's self-emptying through his Passion and Death
on the Cross, which, when he spoke these words, was just about to
happen.
Later however it becomes clear that this "guiding into all the
truth" is connected not only with the scandal of the Cross, but also
with everything that Christ "did and taught."24 For the mystery of
Christ taken as a whole demands faith, since it is faith that
adequately introduces man into the reality of the revealed mystery.
The guiding into all the truth" is therefore achieved in faith and
through faith: and this is the work of the Spirit of truth and the
result of his action in man. Here the Holy Spirit is to be man's
supreme guide and the light of the human spirit. This holds true for
the Apostles, the eyewitnesses, who must now bring to all people the
proclamation of what Christ did and taught, and especially the
proclamation of his Cross and Resurrection. Taking a longer view,
this also holds true for all the generations of disciples and
confessors of the Master. Since they will have to accept with faith
and confess with candor the mystery of God at work in human history,
the revealed mystery which explains the definitive meaning of that
history.
7. Between the Holy Spirit and Christ there thus subsists, in the
economy of salvation, an intimate bond, whereby the Spirit works in
human history as "another Counselor," permanently ensuring the
transmission and spreading of the Good News revealed by Jesus of
Nazareth. Thus, in the Holy Spirit-Paraclete, who in the mystery and
action of the Church unceasingly continues the historical presence
on earth of the Redeemer and his saving work, the glory of Christ
shines forth, as the following words of John attest: "He [the Spirit
of truth] will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare
it to you."25 By these words all the preceding statements are once
again confirmed: "He will teach..., will bring to your
remembrance..., will bear witness." The supreme and complete
self-revelation of God, accomplished in Christ and witnessed to by
the preaching of the Apostles, continues to be manifested in the
Church through the mission of the invisible Counselor, the Spirit of
truth. How intimately this mission is linked with the mission of
Christ, how fully it draws from this mission of Christ,
consolidating and developing in history its salvific results, is
expressed by the verb "take": "He will take what is mine and declare
it to you." As if to explain the words "he will take" by clearly
expressing the divine and Trinitarian unity of the source, Jesus
adds: "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he
will take what is mine and declare it to you."26 By the very fact of
taking what is "mine," he will draw from "what is the Father's."
In the light of these words "he will take," one can therefore also
explain the other significant words about the Holy Spirit spoken by
Jesus in the Upper Room before the Passover: "It is to your
advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor
will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when
he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and
righteousness and judgment."27 It will be necessary to return to
these words in a separate reflection.
2. Father, Son and Holy Spirit
8. It is a characteristic of the text of John that the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit are clearly called Persons, the first
distinct from the second and the third, and each of them from one
another. Jesus speaks of the Spirit-Counselor, using several times
the personal pronoun "he"; and at the same time, throughout the
farewell discourse, he reveals the bonds which unite the Father, the
Son and the Paraclete to one another. Thus "the Holy Spirit . .
.proceeds from the Father"28 and the Father "gives" the Spirit.29
The Father "sends" the Spirit in the name of the Son,30 the Spirit
"bears witness" to the Son.31 The Son asks the Father to send the
Spirit-Counselor,32 but likewise affirms and promises, in relation
to his own "departure" through the Cross: "If I go, I will send him
to you,"33 Thus, the Father sends the Holy Spirit in the power of
his Fatherhood, as he has sent the Son34; but at the same time he
sends him in the power of the Redemption accomplished by Christ-and
in this sense Holy Spirit is sent also by the Son: "I will send him
to you."
Here it should be noted that, while all the other promises made in
the Upper Room foretold the coming of the Holy Spirit after Christ's
departure, the one contained in the text of John 16:7f. also
includes and clearly emphasizes the relationship of interdependence
which could be called causal between the manifestation of each: "If
I go, I will send him to you." The Holy Spirit will come insofar as
Christ will depart through the Cross: he will come not only
afterwards, but because of the Redemption accomplished by Christ,
through the will and action of the Father.
9. Thus in the farewell discourse at the Last Supper, we can say
that the highest point of the revelation of the Trinity is reached
At the same time, we are on the threshold of definitive events and
final words which in the end will be translated into the great
missionary mandate addressed to the Apostles and through them to the
Church: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations," a mandate
which contains, in a certain sense, the Trinitarian formula of
baptism: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit."35 The formula reflects the intimate mystery
of God, of the divine life, which is the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, the divine unity of the Trinity. The farewell discourse
can be read as a special preparation for this Trinitarian formula,
in which is expressed the life-giving power of the Sacrament which
brings about sharing in the life of the Triune God, for it gives
sanctifying grace as a supernatural gift to man. Through grace, man
is called and made "capable" of sharing in the inscrutable life of
God.
10. In his intimate life, God "is love,"36 the essential love shared
by the three divine Persons: personal love is the Holy Spirit as the
Spirit of the Father and the Son. Therefore he "searches even the
depths of God,"37 as uncreated Love-Gift. It can be said that in the
Holy Spirit the intimate life of the Triune God becomes totally
gift, an exchange of mutual love between the divine Persons and that
through the Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift. It is the
Holy Spirit who is the personal expression of this self-giving, of
this being-love.38 He is Person- Love. He is Person-Gift Here we
have an inexhaustible treasure of the reality and an inexpressible
deepening of the concept of person in God, which only divine
Revelation makes known to us.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit, being consubstantial with the
Father and the Son in divinity, is love and uncreated gift from
which derives as from its source (fons vivus) all giving of gifts
vis-a-vis creatures (created gift): the gift of existence to all
things through creation; the gift of grace to human beings through
the whole economy of salvation. As the Apostle Paul writes: "God's
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which
has been given to US."39
3. The Salvific Self-Giving of God in the Holy Spirit
11. Christ's farewell discourse at
the Last Supper stands in particular reference to this "giving" and
"self-giving" of the Holy Spirit. In John's Gospel we have as it
were the revelation of the most profound "logic" of the saving
mystery contained in God's eternal plan, as an extension of the
ineffable communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the
divine "logic" which from the mystery of the Trinity leads to the
mystery of the Redemption of the world in Jesus Christ. The
Redemption accomplished by the Son in the dimensions of the earthly
history of humanity- accomplished in his "departure" through the
Cross and Resurrection-is at the same time, in its entire salvific
power, transmitted to the Holy Spirit: the one who "will take what
is mine."40 The words of the text of John indicate that, according
to the divine plan, Christ's "departure" is an indispensable
condition for the "sending" and the coming of the Holy Spirit, but
these words also say that what begins now is the new salvific
self-giving of God, in the Holy Spirit.
12. It is a new beginning in relation to the first, original
beginning of God's salvific self-giving, which is identified with
the mystery of creation itself. Here is what we read in the very
first words of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth..., and the Spirit of God (ruah Elohim)
was moving over the face of the waters."41 This biblical concept of
creation includes not only the call to existence of the very being
of the cosmos, that is to say the giving of existence, but also the
presence of the Spirit of God in creation, that is to say the
beginning of God's salvific self-communication to the things he
creates. This is true first of all concerning man, who has been
created in the image and likeness of God: "Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness."42 "Let us make": can one hold that the
plural which the Creator uses here in speaking of himself already in
some way suggests the Trinitarian mystery, the presence of the
Trinity in the work of the creation of man? The Christian reader,
who already knows the revelation of this mystery, can discern a
reflection of it also in these words. At any rate, the context of
the Book of Genesis enables us to see in the creation of man the
first beginning of God's salvific self-giving commensurate with the
"image and likeness" of himself which he has granted to man.
13. It seems then that even the words spoken by Jesus in the
farewell discourse should be read again in the light of that
"beginning," so long ago yet fundamental, which we know from
Genesis. "If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you;
but if I go, I will send him to you." Describing his "departure" as
a condition for the "coming" of the Counselor, Christ links the new
beginning of God's salvific self-communication in the Holy Spirit
with the mystery of the Redemption. It is a new beginning, first of
all because between the first beginning and the whole of human
history-from the original fall onwards-sin has intervened, sin which
is in contradiction to the presence of the Spirit of God in
creation, and which is above all in contradiction to God's salvific
self- communication to man. St. Paul writes that, precisely because
of sin, "creation...was subjected to futility..., has been groaning
in travail together until now" and "waits with eager longing for the
revealing of the sons of God."43
14. Therefore Jesus Christ says in the Upper Room "It is to your
advantage I go away; ...if I go, I will send him to you."44 The
"departure" of Christ through the Cross has the power of the
Redemption-and this also means a new presence of the Spirit of God
in creation: the new beginning of God's self-communication to man in
the Holy Spirit. "And that you are children is proven by the fact
that God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son who cries:
Abba, Father!" As the Apostle Paul writes in the Letter to the
Galatians.45 The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father, as the
words of the farewell discourse in the Upper Room bear witness. At
the same time he is the Spirit of the Son: he is the Spirit of Jesus
Christ, as the Apostles and particularly Paul of Tarsus will
testify.46 With the sending of this Spirit "into our hearts," there
begins the fulfillment of that for which "creation waits with eager
longing," as we read in the Letter to the Romans.
The Holy Spirit comes at the price of Christ's "departure." While
this "departure" caused the Apostles to be sorrowful,47 and this
sorrow was to reach its culmination in the Passion and Death on Good
Friday, "this sorrow will turn into joy."48 For Christ will add to
this redemptive "departure" the glory of his Resurrection and
Ascension to the Father. Thus the sorrow with its underlying joy is,
for the Apostles in the context of their Master's "departure," an
"advantageous" departure, for thanks to it another "Counselor" will
come.49 At the price of the Cross which brings about the Redemption,
in the power of the whole Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, the Holy
Spirit comes in order to remain from the day of Pentecost onwards
with the Apostles, to remain with the Church and in the Church, and
through her in the world.
In this way there is definitively brought about that new beginning
of the self-communication of the Triune God in the Holy Spirit
through the work of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of man and of the
world.
4. The Messiah, Anointed with the Holy Spirit
15. There is also accomplished in
its entirety the mission of the Messiah, that is to say of the One
who has received the fullness of the Holy Spirit for the Chosen
People of God and for the whole of humanity. "Messiah" literally
means "Christ," that is, "Anointed One," and in the history of
salvation it means "the one anointed with the Holy Spirit." This was
the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament. Following this
tradition, Simon Peter will say in the house of Cornelius: "You must
have heard about the recent happenings in Judea...after the baptism
which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the
Holy Spirit and with power."50
From these words of Peter and from many similar ones,51 one must
first go back to the prophecy of Isaiah, sometimes called "the Fifth
Gospel" or "the Gospel of the Old Testament." Alluding to the coming
of a mysterious personage, which the New Testament revelation will
identify with Jesus, Isaiah connects his person and mission with a
particular action of the Spirit of God-the Spirit of the Lord. These
are the words of the Prophet: "There shall come forth a shoot from
the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be the
fear of the Lord."52
This text is important for the whole pneumatology of the Old
Testament, because it constitutes a kind of bridge between the
ancient biblical concept of "spirit," understood primarily as a
"charismatic breath of wind," and the "Spirit" as a person and as a
gift, a gift for the person. The Messiah of the lineage of David
("from the stump of Jesse") is precisely that person upon whom the
Spirit of the Lord "shall rest." It is obvious that in this case one
cannot yet speak of a revelation of the Paraclete. However, with
this veiled reference to the figure of the future Messiah there
begins, so to speak, the path towards the full revelation of the
Holy Spirit in the unity of the Trinitarian mystery, a mystery which
will finally be manifested in the New Covenant.
16. It is precisely the Messiah himself who is this path. In the Old
Covenant, anointing had become the external symbol of the gift of
the Spirit. The Messiah (more than any other anointed personage in
the Old Covenant) is that single great personage anointed by God
himself He is the Anointed One in the sense that he possesses the
fullness of the Spirit of God. He himself will also be the mediator
in granting this Spirit to the whole People. Here in fact are other
words of the Prophet: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the
afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who
are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."53
The Anointed One is also sent "with
the Spirit of the Lord ": "Now the Lord God has sent me and his
Spirit."54
According to the Book of Isaiah, the Anointed One and the One sent
together with the Spirit of the Lord is also the chosen Servant of
the Lord upon whom the Spirit of God comes down: "Behold my servant,
whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my
Spirit upon him."55
We know that the Servant of the Lord is revealed in the Book of
Isaiah as the true Man of Sorrows: the Messiah who suffers for the
sins of the world.56 And at the same time it is precisely he whose
mission will bear for all humanity the true fruits of salvation:
"He will bring forth justice to the nations..."57; and he will
become "a covenant to the people, a light to the nations..."58;
"that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."59
For: "My spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in
your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth
of your children's children, says the Lord, from this time forth and
for evermore."60
The prophetic texts quoted here are to be read in the light of the
Gospel- just as, in its turn, the New Testament draws a particular
clarification from the marvelous light contained in these Old
Testament texts. The Prophet presents the Messiah as the one who
comes in the Holy Spirit, the one who possesses the fullness of this
Spirit in himself and at the same time for others, for Israel, for
all the nations, for all humanity. The fullness of the Spirit of God
is accompanied by many different gifts, the treasures of salvation,
destined in a particular way for the poor and suffering, for all
those who open their hearts to these gifts-sometimes through the
painful experience of their own existence-but first of all through
that interior availability which comes from faith. The aged Simeon,
the "righteous and devout man" upon whom "rested the Holy Spirit,"
sensed this at the moment of Jesus' presentation in the Temple, when
he perceived in him the "salvation...prepared in the presence of all
peoples" at the price of the great suffering-the Cross- which he
would have to embrace together with his Mother.61 The Virgin Mary,
who "had conceived by the Holy Spirit,"62 sensed this even more
clearly, when she pondered in her heart the "mysteries" of the
Messiah, with whom she was associated.63
17. Here it must be emphasized that clearly the "spirit of the Lord"
who rests upon the future Messiah is above all a gift of God for the
person of that Servant of the Lord. But the latter is not an
isolated and independent person, because he acts in accordance with
the will of the Lord, by virtue of the Lord's decision or choice.
Even though in the light of the texts of Isaiah the salvific work of
the Messiah, the Servant of the Lord, includes the action of the
Spirit which is carried out through himself, nevertheless in the Old
Testament context there is no suggestion of a distinction of
subjects, or of the Divine Persons as they subsist in the mystery of
the Trinity, and as they are later revealed in the New Testament.
Both in Isaiah and in the whole of the Old Testament the personality
of the Holy Spirit is completely hidden: in the revelation of the
one God, as also in the foretelling of the future Messiah.
18. Jesus Christ will make reference to this prediction contained in
the words of Isaiah at the beginning of his messianic activity. This
will happen in the same Nazareth where he had lived for thirty years
in the house of Joseph the carpenter, with Mary, his Virgin Mother.
When he had occasion to speak in the Synagogue, he opened the Book
of Isaiah and found the passage where it was written: "The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me"; and having read
this passage he said to those present: "Today this scripture has
been fulfilled in your hearing."64 In this way he confessed and
proclaimed that he was the Messiah, the one in whom the Holy Spirit
dwells as the gift of God himself, the one who possesses the
fullness of this Spirit, the one who marks the "new beginning" of
the gift which God makes to humanity in the Spirit.
5. Jesus of Nazareth, "Exalted" in the Holy Spirit
19. Even though in his hometown of Nazareth Jesus is not accepted as
the Messiah, nonetheless, at the beginning of his public activity,
his messianic mission in the Holy Spirit is revealed to the people
by John the Baptist. The latter, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth,
foretells at the Jordan the coming of the Messiah and administers
the baptism of repentance. He says: "I baptize you with water; he
who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am
not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
with fire."65 John the Baptist foretells the Messiah-Christ not only
as the one who "is coming" in the Holy Spirit but also as the one
who "brings" the Holy Spirit, as Jesus will reveal more clearly in
the Upper Room. Here John faithfully echoes the words of Isaiah,
words which in the ancient Prophet concerned the future, while in
John's teaching on the banks of the Jordan they are the immediate
introduction to the new messianic reality. John is not only a
prophet but also a messenger: he is the precursor of Christ. What he
foretells is accomplished before the eyes of all. Jesus of Nazareth
too comes to the Jordan to receive the baptism of repentance. At the
sight of him arriving, John proclaims: "Behold, the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world."66 He says this through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit,67 bearing witness to the fulfillment
of the prophecy of Isaiah. At the same time he confesses his faith
in the redeeming mission of Jesus of Nazareth. On the lips of John
the Baptist, "Lamb of God" is an expression of truth about the
Redeemer no less significant than the one used by Isaiah: "Servant
of the Lord."
Thus, by the testimony of John at the Jordan, Jesus of Nazareth,
rejected by his own fellow-citizens, is exalted before the eyes of
Israel as the Messiah, that is to say the "One Anointed" with the
Holy Spirit. And this testimony is corroborated by another testimony
of a higher order, mentioned by the three Synoptics. For when all
the people were baptized and as Jesus, having received baptism, was
praying, "the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon
him in bodily form, as a dove"68 and at the same time "a voice from
heaven said 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well
pleased.'"69
This is a Trinitarian theophany which bears witness to the
exaltation of Christ on the occasion of his baptism in the Jordan.
It not only confirms the testimony of John the Baptist but also
reveals another more profound dimension of the truth about Jesus of
Nazareth as Messiah. It is this: the Messiah is the beloved Son of
the Father. His solemn exaltation cannot be reduced to the messianic
mission of the "Servant of the Lord." In the light of the theophany
at the Jordan, this exaltation touches the mystery of the very
person of the Messiah. He has been raised up because he is the
beloved Son in whom God is well pleased. The voice from on high
says: "my Son."
20. The theophany at the Jordan clarifies only in a fleeting way the
mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, whose entire activity will be carried
out in the active presence of the Holy Spirit.70 This mystery would
be gradually revealed and confirmed by Jesus himself by means of
everything that he "did and taught."71 In the course of this
teaching and of the messianic signs which Jesus performed before he
came to the farewell discourse in the Upper Room, we find events and
words which constitute particularly important stages of this
progressive revelation. Thus the evangelist Luke, who has already
presented Jesus as "full of the Holy Spirit" and "led by the
Spirit...in the wilderness,"72 tells us that, after the return of
the seventy-two disciples from the mission entrusted to them by the
Master,73 while they were joyfully recounting the fruits of their
labors, "in that same hour [Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and
said: 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have
hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed
them to babes; yea, Father, for such was your gracious will.'"74
Jesus rejoices at the fatherhood of God: he rejoices because it has
been given to him to reveal this fatherhood; he rejoices, finally,
as at a particular outpouring of this divine fatherhood on the
"little ones." And the evangelist describes all this as "rejoicing
in the Holy Spirit."
This "rejoicing" in a certain sense prompts Jesus to say still more.
We hear: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no
one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is
except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."75
21. That which during the theophany at the Jordan came so to speak
"from outside," from on high, here comes "from within," that is to
say from the depths of who Jesus is. It is another revelation of the
Father and the Son, united in the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks only of
the fatherhood of God and of his own sonship-he does not speak
directly of the Spirit, who is Love and thereby the union of the
Father and the Son. Nonetheless what he says of the Father and of
himself-the Son-flows from that fullness of the Spirit which is in
him, which fills his heart, pervades his own "I," inspires and
enlivens his action from the depths. Hence that "rejoicing in the
Holy Spirit." The union of Christ with the Holy Spirit, a union of
which he is perfectly aware, is expressed in that "rejoicing," which
in a certain way renders "perceptible" its hidden source. Thus there
is a particular manifestation and rejoicing which is proper to the
Son of Man, the Christ-Messiah, whose humanity belongs to the person
of the Son of God, substantially one with the Holy Spirit in
divinity.
In the magnificent confession of the fatherhood of God, Jesus of
Nazareth also manifests himself, his divine "I"- for he is the Son
"of the same substance," and therefore "no one knows who the Son is
except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son," that Son
who "for us and for our salvation" became man by the power of the
Holy Spirit and was born of a virgin whose name was Mary.
6. The Risen Christ Says: "Receive the Holy Spirit"
22. It is thanks to Luke's narrative that we are brought closest to
the truth contained in the discourse in the Upper Room. Jesus of
Nazareth, "raised up" in the Holy Spirit, during this discourse and
conversation presents himself as the one who brings the Spirit, as
the one who is to bring him and "give" him to the Apostles and to
the Church at the price of his own "departure" through the Cross.
The verb "bring" is here used to mean first of all "reveal." In the
Old Testament, from the Book of Genesis onwards, the Spirit of God
was in some way made known, in the first place as a "breath" of God
which gives life, as a supernatural "living breath." In the Book of
Isaiah, he is presented as a "gift" for the person of the Messiah,
as the one who comes down and rests upon him, in order to guide from
within all the salvific activity of the "Anointed One." At the
Jordan, Isaiah's proclamation is given a concrete form: Jesus of
Nazareth is the one who comes in the Holy Spirit and who brings the
Spirit as the gift proper to his own Person, in order to distribute
that gift by means of this humanity: "He will baptize you with the
Holy Spirit."76 In the Gospel of Luke, this revelation of the Holy
Spirit is confirmed and added to, as the intimate source of the life
and messianic activity of Jesus Christ. In the light of what Jesus
says in the farewell discourse in the Upper Room, the Holy Spirit is
revealed in a new and fuller way. He is not only the gift to the
person (the person of the Messiah), but is a Person-gift. Jesus
foretells his coming as that of "another Counselor" who, being the
Spirit of truth, will lead the Apostles and the Church "into all the
truth."77 This will be accomplished by reason of the particular
communion between the Holy Spirit and Christ: "He will take what is
mine and declare it to you."78 This communion has its original
source in the Father: "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I
said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."79 Coming
from the Father the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father.80 The Holy
Spirit is first sent as a gift for the Son who was made man, in
order to fulfill the messianic prophecies. After the "departure" of
Christ the Son, the Johannine text says that the Holy Spirit "will
come" directly (it is his new mission), to complete the work of the
Son. Thus it will be he who brings to fulfillment the new era of the
history of salvation.
23. We find ourselves on the threshold of the Paschal events. The
new, definitive revelation of the Holy Spirit as a Person who is the
gift is accomplished at this precise moment. The Paschal events-the
Passion, Death and Resurrection- of Christ-are also the time of the
new coming of the Holy Spirit, as the Paraclete and the Spirit of
truth. They are the time of the "new beginning" of the self-
communication of the Triune God to humanity in the Holy Spirit
through the work of Christ the Redeemer. This new beginning is the
Redemption of the world: "God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son."81 Already the "giving" of the Son, the gift of the Son,
expresses the most profound essence of God who, as Love, is the
inexhaustible source of the giving of gifts. The gift made by the
Son completes the revelation and giving of the eternal love: the
Holy Spirit, who in the inscrutable depths of the divinity is a
Person-Gift, through the work of the Son, that is to say by means of
the Paschal Mystery, is given to the Apostles and to the Church in a
new way, and through them is given to humanity and the whole world.
24. The definitive expression of this
mystery is had on the day of the Resurrection. On this day Jesus of
Nazareth "descended from David according to the flesh," as the
Apostle Paul writes, is "designated Son of God in power according to
the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead."82 It can
be said therefore that the messianic "raising up" of Christ in the
Holy Spirit reaches its zenith in the Resurrection, in which he
reveals himself also as the Son of God, "full of power." And this
power, the sources of which gush forth in the inscrutable
Trinitarian communion, is manifested, first of all, in the fact that
the Risen Christ does two things: on the one hand he fulfills God's
promise already expressed through the Prophet's words: "A new heart
I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you,...my
spirit"83; and on the other hand he fulfills his own promise made to
the Apostles with the words: "If I go, I will send him to you."84 It
is he: the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete sent by the Risen Christ
to transform us into his own risen image.85
"On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors
being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus
came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then
the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them
again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send
you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to
them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"86
All the details of this key-text of John's Gospel have their own
eloquence, especially if we read them in reference to the words
spoken in the same Upper Room at the beginning of the Paschal event.
And now these events-the Triduum Sacrum of Jesus whom the Father
consecrated with the anointing and sent into the world-reach their
fulfillment. Christ, who "gave up his spirit" on the Cross87 as the
Son of Man and the Lamb of God, once risen goes to the Apostles 'to
breathe on them" with that power spoken of in the Letter to the
Romans.88 The Lord's coming fills those present with joy: "Your
sorrow will turn into joy,"89 as he had already promised them before
his Passion. And above all there is fulfilled the principal
prediction of the farewell discourse: the Risen Christ, as it were
beginning a new creation, "brings" to the Apostles the Holy Spirit.
He brings him at the price of his own "departure": he gives them
this Spirit as it were through the wounds of his crucifixion: "He
showed them his hands and his side." It is in the power of this
crucifixion that he says to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit."
Thus there is established a close link between the sending of the
Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit. There is no sending of the
Holy Spirit (after original sin) without the Cross and the
Resurrection: "If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to
you."90 There is also established a close link between the mission
of the Holy Spirit and that of the Son in the Redemption. The
mission of the Son, in a certain sense, finds its "fulfillment" in
the Redemption. The mission of the Holy Spirit "draws from" the
Redemption: "He will take what is mine and declare it to you."91 The
Redemption is totally carried out by the Son as the Anointed One,
who came and acted in the power of the Holy Spirit, offering himself
finally in sacrifice on the wood of the Cross. And this Redemption
is, at the same time, constantly carried out in human hearts and
minds-in the history of the world-by the Holy Spirit, who is the
"other Counselor. "
7. The Holy Spirit and the Era of the Church
25. "Having accomplished the work that the Father had entrusted to
the Son on earth (cf. Jn 17:4), on the day of Pentecost the Holy
Spirit was sent to sanctify the Church forever, so that believers
might have access to the Father through Christ in one Spirit (cf.
Eph 2:18). He is the Spirit of life, the fountain of water springing
up to eternal life (cf. Jn 4:14; 7:38ff.), the One through whom the
Father restores life to those who are dead through sin, until one
day he will raise in Christ their mortal bodies" (cf. Rom 8:10f.).92
In this way the Second Vatican Council speaks of the Church's birth
on the day of Pentecost. This event constitutes the definitive
manifestation of what had already been accomplished in the same
Upper Room on Easter Sunday. The Risen Christ came and "brought" to
the Apostles the Holy Spirit. He gave him to them, saying "Receive
the Holy Spirit." What had then taken place inside the Upper Room,
"the doors being shut," later, on the day of Pentecost is manifested
also outside, in public. The doors of the Upper Room are opened and
the Apostles go to the inhabitants and the pilgrims who had gathered
in Jerusalem on the occasion of the feast, in order to bear witness
to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. In this way the
prediction is fulfilled: "He will bear witness to me: and you also
are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning."93
We read in another document of the Second Vatican Council:
"Doubtless, the Holy Spirit was already at work in the world before
Christ was glorified. Yet on the day of Pentecost, he came down upon
the disciples to remain with them for ever. On that day the Church
was publicly revealed to the multitude, and the Gospel began to
spread among the nations by means of preaching."94
The era of the Church began with the "coming," that is to say with
the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered in the Upper
Room in Jerusalem, together with Mary, the Lord's Mother.95 The time
of the Church began at the moment when the promises and predictions
that so explicitly referred to the Counselor, the Spirit of truth,
began to be fulfilled in complete power and clarity upon the
Apostles, thus determining the birth of the Church. The Acts of the
Apostles speak of this at length and in many passages, which state
that in the mind of the first community, whose convictions Luke
expresses, the Holy Spirit assumed the invisible-but in a certain
way "perceptible"-guidance of those who after the departure of the
Lord Jesus felt profoundly that they had been left orphans. With the
coming of the Spirit they felt capable of fulfilling the mission
entrusted to them. They felt full of strength. It is precisely this
that the Holy Spirit worked in them and this is continually at work
in the Church, through their successors. For the grace of the Holy
Spirit which the Apostles gave to their collaborators through the
imposition of hands continues to be transmitted in Episcopal
Ordination. The bishops in turn by the Sacrament of Orders render
the sacred ministers sharers in this spiritual gift and, through the
Sacrament of Confirmation, ensure that all who are reborn of water
and the Holy Spirit are strengthened by this gift. And thus, in a
certain way, the grace of Pentecost is perpetuated in the Church.
As the Council writes, "the Spirit dwells in the Church and in the
hearts of the faithful as in a temple (cf. 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19). In
them he prays and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted
sons (cf. Gal 4:6; Rom 8:15-16:26). The Spirit guides the Church
into the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 16:13) and gives her a unity of
fellowship and service. He furnishes and directs her with various
gifts, both hierarchical and charismatic, and adorns her with the
fruits of his grace (cf Eph 4:11-12; 1 Cor 12:4; Gal 5:22). By the
power of the Gospel he makes the Church grow, perpetually renews her
and leads her to perfect union with her Spouse."96
26. These passages quoted from the Conciliar Constitution Lumen
Gentium tell us that the era of the Church began with the coming of
the Holy Spirit. They also tell us that this era, the era of the
Church, continues. It continues down the centuries and generations.
In our own century, when humanity is already close to the end of the
second Millennium after Christ, this era of the Church expressed
itself in a special way through the Second Vatican Council, as the
Council of our century. For we know that it was in a special way an
"ecclesiological" Council: a Council on the theme of the Church. At
the same time, the teaching of this Council is essentially "pneumatological":
it is permeated by the truth about the Holy Spirit, as the soul of
the Church. We can say that in its rich variety of teaching the
Second Vatican Council contains precisely all that "the Spirit says
to the Churches"97 with regard to the present phase of the history
of salvation.
Following the guidance of the Spirit of truth and bearing witness
together with him, the Council has given a special confirmation of
the presence of the Holy Spirit-the Counselor. In a certain sense,
the Council has made the Spirit newly "present" in our difficult
age. In the light of this conviction one grasps more clearly the
great importance of all the initiatives aimed at implementing the
Second Vatican Council, its teaching and its pastoral and ecumenical
thrust. In this sense also the subsequent Assemblies of the Synod of
Bishops are to be carefully studied and evaluated, aiming as they do
to ensure that the fruits of truth and love-the authentic fruits of
the Holy Spirit-become a lasting treasure for the People of God in
its earthly pilgrimage down the centuries. This work being done by
the Church for the testing and bringing together of the salvific
fruits of the Spirit bestowed in the Council is something
indispensable. For this purpose one must learn how to "discern" them
carefully from everything that may instead come originally from the
"prince of this world."98 This discernment in implementing the
Council's work is especially necessary in view of the fact that the
Council opened itself widely to the contemporary world, as is
clearly seen from the important Conciliar Constitutions Gaudium et
Spes and Lumen Gentium.
We read in the Pastoral Constitution: "For theirs (i.e., of the
disciples of Christ) is a community composed of men. United in
Christ, they are led by the Holy Spirit in their journey to the
kingdom of their Father and they have welcomed the news of salvation
which is meant for every man. That is why this community realizes
that it is truly and intimately linked with mankind and its
history."99 "The Church truly knows that only God, whom she serves,
meets the deepest longings of the human heart, which is never fully
satisfied by what the world has to offer."100 "God 's Spirit. . .
with a marvelous providence directs the unfolding of time and renews
the face of the earth."101
PART II - THE SPIRIT WHO CONVINCES THE WORLD CONCERNING SIN
1. Sin, Righteousness and Judgment
27. When Jesus during the discourse in the Upper Room foretells the
coming of the Holy Spirit "at the price of" his own departure, and
promises "I will send him to you," in the very same context he adds:
"And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and
righteousness and judgment."102 The same Counselor and Spirit of
truth who has been promised as the one who "will teach" and "bring
to remembrance, " who "will bear witness," and "guide into all the
truth," in the words just quoted is foretold as the one who "will
convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement."
The context too seems significant. Jesus links this foretelling of
the Holy Spirit to the words indicating his "departure" through the
Cross, and indeed emphasizes the need for this departure: "It is to
your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the
Counselor will not come to you."103
But what counts more is the explanation that Jesus himself adds to
these three words: sin, righteousness, judgment. For he says this:
"He Will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and
judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will
see me no more; concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world
is judged."104 In the mind of Jesus, sin, righteousness and judgment
have a very precise meaning, different from the meaning that one
might be inclined to attribute to these words independently of the
speaker's explanation. This explanation also indicates how one is to
understand the "convincing the world" which is proper to the action
of the Holy Spirit. Both the meaning of the individual words and the
fact that Jesus linked them together in the same phrase are
important here.
"Sin," in this passage, means the incredulity that Jesus encountered
among "his own," beginning with the people of his own town of
Nazareth. Sin means the rejection of his mission, a rejection that
will cause people to condemn him to death. When he speaks next of
"righteousness," Jesus seems to have in mind that definitive
justice, which the Father will restore to him when he grants him the
glory of the Resurrection and Ascension into heaven: "I go to the
Father." In its turn, and in the context of "sin" and
"righteousness" thus understood, "judgment" means that the Spirit of
truth will show the guilt cf the "world" in condemning Jesus to
death on the Cross. Nevertheless, Christ did not come into the world
only to judge it and condemn it: he came to save it.105 Convincing
about sin and righteousness has as its purpose the salvation of the
world, the salvation of men. Precisely this truth seems to be
emphasized by the assertion that "judgment" concerns only the prince
of this world," Satan, the one who from the beginning has been
exploiting the work of creation against salvation, against the
covenant and the union of man with God: he is "already judged" from
the start. If the Spirit-Counselor is to convince the world
precisely concerning judgment, it is in order to continue in the
world the salvific work of Christ.
28. Here we wish to concentrate our attention principally on this
mission of the Holy Spirit, which is "to convince the world
concerning sin," but at the same time respecting the general context
of Jesus' words in the Upper Room. The Holy Spirit, who takes from
the Son the work of the Redemption of the world, by this very fact
takes the task of the salvific "convincing of sin." This convincing
is in permanent reference to "righteousness": that is to say to
definitive salvation in God, to the fulfillment of the economy that
has as its center the crucified and glorified Christ. And this
salvific economy of God in a certain sense removes man from
"judgment," that is from the damnation which has been inflicted on
the Sill or Satan, "the prince of this world," the one who because
of his sin has become "the ruler of this world of darkness."106 And
here we see that, through this reference to "judgment," vast
horizons open up for understanding "sin" and also "righteousness."
The Holy Spirit, by showing sin against the background of Christ's
Cross in the economy of salvation (one could say "sin saved"),
enables us to understand how his mission is also "to convince" of
the sin that has already been definitively judged ("sin condemned").
29. All the words uttered by the Redeemer in the Upper Room on the
eve of his Passion become part of the era of the Church: first of
all, the words about the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete and Spirit of
truth. The words become part of it in an ever new way, in every
generation, in every age. This is confirmed, as far as our own age
is concerned, by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council as a
whole, and especially in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes.
Many passages of this document indicate clearly that the Council, by
opening itself to the light of the Spirit of truth, is seen to be
the authentic depositary of the predictions and promises made by
Christ to the Apostles and to the Church in the farewell discourse:
in a particular way as the depositary of the predictions that the
Holy Spirit would "convince the world concerning sin and
righteousness and judgment."
This is already indicated by the text in which the Council explains
how it understands the "world": "The Council focuses its attention
on the world of men, the whole human family along with the sum of
those realities in the midst of which that family lives. It gazes
upon the world which is the theater of man's history, and carries
the marks of his energies, his tragedies, and his triumphs; that
world which the Christian sees as created and sustained by its
Maker's love, fallen indeed into the bondage of sin, yet emancipated
now by Christ. He was crucified and rose again to break the
stranglehold of personified Evil, so that this world might be
fashioned anew according to God's design and reach its
fulfillment."107 This very rich text needs to be read in conjunction
with the other passages in the Constitution that seek to show with
all the realism of faith the situation of sin in the contemporary
world and that also seek to explain its essence, beginning from
different points of view.108
When on the eve of the Passover Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as
the one who "will convince the world concerning sin," on the one
hand this statement must be given the widest possible meaning,
insofar as it includes all the sin in the history of humanity. But
on the other hand, when Jesus explains that this sin consists in the
fact that "they do not believe in him," this meaning seems to apply
only to those who rejected the messianic mission of the Son of Man
and condemned him to death on the Cross. But one can hardly fail to
notice that this more "limited" and historically specified meaning
of sin expands, until it assumes a universal dimension by reason of
the universality of the Redemption, accomplished through the Cross.
The revelation of the mystery of the Redemption opens the way to an
understanding in which every sin wherever and whenever committed has
a reference to the Cross of Christ-and therefore indirectly also to
the sin of those who "have not believed in him," and who condemned
Jesus Christ to death on the Cross.
From this point of view we must return to the event of Pentecost.
2. The Testimony of the Day of Pentecost
30. Christ's prophecies in the farewell discourse found their most
exact and direct confirmation on the day of Pentecost, in particular
the prediction which we are dealing with: "The Counselor...will
convince the world concerning sin." On that day, the promised Holy
Spirit came down upon the Apostles gathered in prayer together with
Mary the Mother of Jesus, in the same Upper Room, as we read in the
Acts of the Apostles: "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance,"109 "thus bringing back to unity the scattered races and
offering to the Father the first-fruits of all the nations."110
The connection between Christ's prediction and this event is clear.
We perceive here the first and fundamental fulfillment of the
promise of the Paraclete. He comes, sent by the Father, "after" the
departure of Christ, "at the price of" that departure. This is first
a departure through the Cross, and later, forty days after the
Resurrection, through his Ascension into heaven. Once more, at the
moment of the Ascension, Jesus orders the Apostles "not to depart
from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father"; "but
before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit"; "but
you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and
you shall be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and
to the end of the earth."111
These last words contain an echo or reminder of the prediction made
in the Upper Room. And on the day of Pentecost this prediction is
fulfilled with total accuracy. Acting under the influence of the
Holy Spirit, who had been received by the Apostles while they were
praying in the Upper Room, Peter comes forward and speaks before a
multitude of people of different languages, gathered for the feast.
He proclaims what he certainly would not have had the courage to say
before: Men of Israel,...Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by
God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through
him in your midst...this Jesus, delivered up according to the
definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by
the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the
pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by
it."112
Jesus had foretold and promised: "He will bear witness to me,...and
you also are my witnesses." In the first discourse of Peter in
Jerusalem this "witness" finds its clear beginning: it is the
witness to Christ crucified and risen. The witness of the Spirit-
Paraclete and of the Apostles. And in the very content of that first
witness, the Spirit of truth, through the lips of Peter, "convinces
the world concerning sin": first of all, concerning the sin which is
the rejection of Christ even to his condemnation to death, to death
on the Cross on Golgotha. Similar proclamations will be repeated,
according to the text of the Acts of the Apostles, on other
occasions and in various places.113
31. Beginning from this initial witness at Pentecost and for all
future time the action of the Spirit of truth who "convinces the
world concerning the sin" of the rejection of Christ is linked
inseparably with the witness to be borne to the Paschal Mystery: the
mystery of the Crucified and Risen One. And in this link the same
"convincing concerning sin" reveals its own salvific dimension. For
it is a "convincing" that has as its purpose not merely the
accusation of the world and still less its condemnation. Jesus
Christ did not come into the world to judge it and condemn it but to
save it.114 This is emphasized in this first discourse, when Peter
exclaims: "Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that
God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you
crucified."115 And then, when those present ask Peter and the
Apostles: "Brethren, what shall we do?" this is Peter's answer:
"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit."116
In this way "convincing concerning sin" becomes at the same time a
convincing concerning the remission of sins, in the power of the
Holy Spirit. Peter in his discourse in Jerusalem calls people to
conversion, as Jesus called his listeners to conversion at the
beginning of his messianic activity.117 Conversion requires
convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of the
conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of
truth in man's inmost being, becomes at the same time a new
beginning of the bestowal of grace and love: "Receive the Holy
Spirit."118 Thus in this "convincing concerning sin" we discover a
double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the
certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Counselor.
The convincing concerning sin, through the ministry of the apostolic
kerygma in the early Church, is referred-under the impulse of the
Spirit poured out at Pentecost-to the redemptive power of Christ
crucified and risen. Thus the promise concerning the Holy Spirit
made before Easter is fulfilled: "He will take what is mine and
declare it to you." When therefore, during the Pentecost event,
Peter speaks of the sin of those who "have not believed"119 and have
sent Jesus of Nazareth to an ignominious death, he bears witness to
victory over sin: a victory achieved, in a certain sense, through
the greatest sin that man could commit: the killing of Jesus, the
Son of God, consubstantial with the Father! Similarly, the death of
the Son of God conquers human death: "I will be your death, O
death,"120 as the sin of having crucified the Son of God "conquers"
human sin! That sin which was committed in Jerusalem on Good
Friday-and also every human sin. For the greatest sin on man's part
is matched, in the heart of the Redeemer, by the oblation of supreme
love that conquers the evil of all the sins of man. On the basis of
this certainty the Church in the Roman liturgy does not hesitate to
repeat every year, at the Easter Vigil, "O happy fault!" in the
deacon's proclamation of the Resurrection when he sings the "Exsultet.
"
32. However, no one but he himself, the Spirit of truth, can
"convince the world," man or the human conscience of this ineffable
truth. He is the Spirit who "searches even the depths of God."121
Faced with the mystery of sin, we have to search "the depths of God"
to their very depth. It is not enough to search the human
conscience, the intimate mystery of man, but we have to penetrate
the inner mystery of God, those "depths of God" that are summarized
thus: to the Father-in the Son- through the Holy Spirit. It is
precisely the Holy Spirit who "searches" the "depths of God," and
from them draws God's response to man's sin. With this response
there closes the process of "convincing concerning sin," as the
event of Pentecost shows.
By convincing the "world" concerning the sin of Golgotha, concerning
the death of the innocent Lamb, as happens on the day of Pentecost,
the Holy Spirit also convinces of every sin, committed in any place
and at any moment in human history: for he demonstrates its
relationship with the Cross of Christ. The "convincing" is the
demonstration of the evil of sin, of every sin, in relation to the
Cross of Christ. Sin, shown in this relationship, is recognized in
the entire dimension of evil proper to it, through the "mysterium
iniquitatis"122 which is hidden within it. Man does not know this
dimension-he is absolutely ignorant of it apart from the Cross of
Christ. So he cannot be "convinced" of it except by the Holy Spirit:
the Spirit of truth but who is also the Counselor.
For sin, shown in relation to the cross of Christ, is at the same
time identified in the full dimension of the "mysterium pietatis,"123
as indicated by the Post- Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Reconciliatio et Paenitentia.124 Man is also absolutely ignorant of
this dimension of sin apart from the Cross Christ. And he cannot be
"convinced" of this dimension either, except by the Holy Spirit: the
one who "searches the depths of God."
3. The Witness Concerning the Beginning: the Original
Reality of Sin
33. This is the dimension of sin that we find in the witness
concerning the beginning, commented on in the Book of Genesis.125 It
is the sin that according to the revealed Word of God constitutes
the principle and root of all the others. We find ourselves faced
with the original reality of sin in human history and at the same
time in the whole of the economy of salvation. It can be said that
in this sin the "mysterium iniquitatis" has its beginning, but it
can also be said that this is the sin concerning which the
redemptive power of the "mysterium pietatis" becomes particularly
clear and efficacious. This is expressed by St. Paul, when he
contrasts the "disobedience" of the first Adam with the "obedience"
of Christ, the second Adam: "Obedience unto death."126
According to the witness concerning the beginning, sin in its
original reality takes place in man's will-and conscience-first of
all as "disobedience," that is, as opposition of the will of man to
the will of God. This original disobedience presupposes a rejection,
or at least a turning away from the truth contained in the Word of
God, who creates the world. This Word is the same Word who was "in
the beginning with God," who "was God," and without whom "nothing
has been made of all that is," since "the world was made through
him."127 He is the Word who is also the eternal law, the source of
every law which regulates the world and especially human acts. When
therefore on the eve of his Passion Jesus Christ speaks of the sin
of those who "do not believe in him," in these words of his, full of
sorrow, there is as it were a distant echo of that sin which in its
original form is obscurely inscribed in the mystery of creation. For
the one who is speaking is not only the Son of Man but the one who
is also "the first-born of all creation," "for in him all things
were created ...through him and for him."128 In the light of this
truth we can understand that the "disobedience" in the mystery of
the beginning presupposes in a certain sense the same "non-faith,"
that same "they have not believed" which will be repeated in the
Paschal Mystery. As we have said, it is a matter of a rejection or
at least a turning away from the truth contained in the Word of the
Father. The rejection expresses itself in practice as
"disobedience," in an act committed as an effect of the temptation
which comes from the "father of lies."129 Therefore, at the root of
human sin is the lie which is a radical rejection of the truth
contained in the Word of the Father, through whom is expressed the
loving omnipotence of the Creator: the omnipotence and also the love
"of God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth."
34. "The Spirit of God," who according to the biblical description
of creation "was moving over the face of the water,"130 signifies
the same "Spirit who searches the depths of God": "searches the
depths of the Father and of the Word-Son in the mystery of creation.
Not only is he the direct witness of their mutual love from which
creation derives, but he himself is this love. He himself, as love,
is the eternal uncreated gift. In him is the source and the
beginning of every giving of gifts to creatures. The witness
concerning the beginning, which we find in the whole of Revelation,
beginning with the Book of Genesis, is unanimous on this point. To
create means to call into existence from nothing: therefore, to
create means to give existence. And if the visible world is created
for man, therefore the world is given to man.131 And at the same
time that same man in his own humanity receives as a gift a special
"image and likeness" to God. This means not only rationality and
freedom as constitutive properties of human nature, but also, from
the very beginning, the capacity of having a personal relationship
with God, as "I" and "you," and therefore the capacity of having a
covenant, which will take place in God's salvific communication with
man. Against the background of the "image and likeness" of God, "the
gift of the Spirit" ultimately means a call to friendship, in which
the transcendent "depths of God" become in some way opened to
participation on the part of man. The Second Vatican Council
teaches; "The invisible God out of the abundance of his love speaks
to men as friends and lives among them, so that he may invite and
take them into fellowship with himself."132
35. The Spirit, therefore, who "searches everything, even the depths
of God," knows from the beginning "the secrets of man."133 For this
reason he alone can fully "convince concerning the sin" that
happened at the beginning, that sin which is the root of all other
sins and the source of man's sinfulness on earth, a source which
never ceases to be active. The Spirit of truth knows the original
reality of the sin caused in the will of man by the "father of
lies," he who already "has been judged."134 The Holy Spirit
therefore convinces the world of sin in connection with this
"judgment," but by constantly guiding toward the "righteousness"
that has been revealed to man together with the Cross of Christ:
through "obedience unto death."135
Only the Holy Spirit can convince concerning the sin of the human
beginning, precisely he who is the love of the Father and of the
Son, he who is gift, whereas the sin of the human beginning consists
in untruthfulness and in the rejection of the gift and the love
which determine the beginning of the world and of man.
36. According to the witness concerning the beginning which we find
in the Scriptures and in Tradition, after the first (and also more
complete) description in the Book of Genesis, sin in its original
form is understood as "disobedience," and this means simply and
directly transgression of a prohibition laid down by God.136 But in
the light of the whole context it is also obvious that the ultimate
roots of this disobedience are to be sought in the whole real
situation of man. Having been called into existence, the human
being-man and woman-is a creature. The "image of God," consisting in
rationality and freedom, expresses the greatness and dignity of the
human subject, who is a person. But this personal subject is also
always a creature: in his existence and essence he depends on the
Creator. According to the Book of Genesis, "the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil" was to express and constantly remind man
of the "limit" impassable for a created being. God's prohibition is
to be understood in this sense: the Creator forbids man and woman to
eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The
words of the enticement, that is to say the temptation, as
formulated in the sacred text, are an inducement to transgress this
prohibition-that is to say, to go beyond that "limit": "When you eat
of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God ["like
gods"], knowing good and evil."137
"Disobedience" means precisely going beyond that limit, which
remains impassable to the will and the freedom of man as a created
being. For God the Creator is the one definitive source of the moral
order in the world created by him. Man cannot decide by himself what
is good and what is evil-cannot "know good and evil, like God." In
the created world God indeed remains the first and sovereign source
for deciding about good and evil, through the intimate truth of
being, which is the reflection of the Word, the eternal Son,
consubstantial with the Father. To man, created to the image of God,
the Holy Spirit gives the gift of conscience, so that in this
conscience the image may faithfully reflect its model, which is both
Wisdom and eternal Law, the source of the moral order in man and in
the world. "Disobedience," as the original dimension of sin, means
the rejection of this source, through man's claim to become an
independent and exclusive source for deciding about good and evil
The Spirit who "searches the depths of God," and who at the same
time is for man the light of conscience and the source of the moral
order, knows in all its fullness this dimension of the sin inscribed
in the mystery of man's beginning. And the Spirit does not cease
"convincing the world of it" in connection with the Cross of Christ
on Golgotha.
37. According to the witness of the beginning, God in creation has
revealed himself as omnipotence, which is love. At the same time he
has revealed to man that, as the "image and likeness" of his
Creator, he is called to participate in truth and love. This
participation means a life in union with God, who is "eternal
life."138 But man, under the influence of the "father of lies," has
separated himself from this participation. To what degree? Certainly
not to the degree of the sin of a pure spirit, to the degree of the
sin of Satan. The human spirit is incapable of reaching such a
degree.139 In the very description given in Genesis it is easy to
see the difference of degree between the "breath of evil" on the
part of the one who "has sinned (or remains in sin) from the
beginning"140 and already "has been judged,"141 and the evil of
disobedience on the part of man.
Man's disobedience, nevertheless, always means a turning away from
God, and in a certain sense the closing up of human freedom in his
regard. It also means a certain opening of this freedom-of the human
mind and will-to the one who is the "father of lies." This act of
conscious choice is not only "disobedience" but also involves a
certain consent to the motivation which was contained in the first
temptation to sin and which is unceasingly renewed during the whole
history of man on earth: "For God knows that when you eat of it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil."
Here we find ourselves at the very center of what could be called
the "anti-Word," that is to say the '"anti-truth:" For the truth
about man becomes falsified: who man is and what are the impassable
limits of his being and freedom. This "anti-truth" is possible
because at the same time there is a complete falsification of the
truth about who God is. God the Creator is placed in a state of
suspicion, indeed of accusation, in the mind of the creature. For
the first time in human history there appears the perverse "genius
of suspicion." He seeks to "falsify'' Good itself; the absolute
Good, which precisely in the work of creation has manifested itself
as the Good which gives in an inexpressible way: as bonum diffusivum
sui, as creative love. Who can completely "convince concerning sin,"
or concerning this motivation of man's original disobedience, except
the one who alone is the gift and the source of all giving of gifts,
except the Spirit, who "searches the depths of God" and is the love
of the Father and the Son?
38. For in spite of all the witness of creation and of the salvific
economy inherent in it, the spirit of darkness142 is capable of
showing God as an enemy of his own creature, and in the first place
as an enemy of man, as a source of danger and threat to man. In this
way Satan manages to sow in man's soul the seed of opposition to the
one who "from the beginning" would be considered as man's enemy-and
not as Father. Man is challenged to become the adversary of God!
The analysis of sin in its original dimension indicates that,
through the influence of the "father of lies," throughout the
history of humanity there will be a constant pressure on man to
reject God, even to the point of hating him: "Love of self to the
point of contempt for God," as St. Augustine puts it.143 Man will be
inclined to see in God primarily a limitation of himself, and not
the source of his own freedom and the fullness of good. We see this
confirmed in the modern age, when the atheistic ideologies seek to
root out religion on the grounds that religion causes the radical
"alienation" of man, as if man were dispossessed of his own humanity
when, accepting the idea of God, he attributes to God what belongs
to man, and exclusively to man! Hence a process of thought and
historico-sociological practice in which the rejection of God has
reached the point of declaring his "death." An absurdity, both in
concept and expression! But the ideology of the "death of God" is
more a threat to man, as the Second Vatican Council indicates when
it analyzes the question of the "independence of earthly affairs"
and writes: "For without the Creator the creature would
disappear...when God is forgotten the creature itself grows
unintelligible."144 The ideology of the "death of God" easily
demonstrates in its effects that on the "theoretical and practical"
levels it is the ideology of the "death of man."
4. The Spirit Who Transforms Suffering into Salvific Love
39. The Spirit who searches the
depths of God was called by Jesus in his discourse in the Upper Room
the Paraclete. For from the beginning the Spirit "is invoked"145 in
order to "convince the world concerning sin." He is invoked in a
definitive way through the Cross of Christ. Convincing concerning
sin means showing the evil that sin contains, and this is equivalent
to revealing the mystery of iniquity. It is not possible to grasp
the evil of sin in all its sad reality without "searching the depths
of God." From the very beginning, the obscure mystery of sin has
appeared in the world against the background of a reference to the
Creator of human freedom. Sin has appeared as an act of the will of
the creature-man contrary to the will of God, to the salvific will
of God; indeed, sin has appeared in opposition to the truth, on the
basis of the lie which has now been definitively "judged": the lie
that has placed in a state of accusation, a state of permanent
suspicion, creative and salvific love itself. Man has followed the
"father of lies," setting himself up in opposition to the Father of
life and the Spirit of truth.
Therefore, will not "convincing concerning sin" also have to mean
revealing suffering? Revealing the pain, unimaginable and
inexpressible, which on account of sin the Book of Genesis in its
anthropomorphic vision seems to glimpse in the "depths of God" and
in a certain sense in the very heart of the ineffable Trinity? The
Church, taking her inspiration from Revelation, believes and
professes that sin is an offense against God. What corresponds, in
the inscrutable intimacy of the Father, the Word and the Holy
Spirit, to this "offense," this rejection of the Spirit who is love
and gift? The concept of God as the necessarily most perfect being
certainly excludes from God any pain deriving from deficiencies or
wounds; but in the "depths of God" there is a Father's love that,
faced with man's sin, in the language of the Bible reacts so deeply
as to say: "I am sorry that I have made him."146 "The Lord saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth.... And the Lord was
sorry that he had made man on the earth.... The Lord said: 'I am
sorry that I have made them.'"147 But more often the Sacred Book
speaks to us of a Father who feels compassion for man, as though
sharing his pain. In a word, this inscrutable and indescribable
fatherly "pain" will bring about above all the wonderful economy of
redemptive love in Jesus Christ, so that through the mysterium
pietatis love can reveal itself in the history of man as stronger
than sin. So that the "gift" may prevail!
The Holy Spirit, who in the words of Jesus "convinces concerning
sin," is the love of the Father and the Son, and as such is the
Trinitarian gift, and at the same time the eternal source of every
divine giving of gifts to creatures. Precisely in him we can picture
as personified and actualized in a transcendent way that mercy which
the patristic and theological tradition following the line of the
Old and New Testaments, attributes to God. In man, mercy includes
sorrow and compassion for the misfortunes of one's neighbor. In God,
the Spirit- Love expresses the consideration of human sin in a fresh
outpouring of salvific love. From God, in the unity of the Father
with the Son, the economy of salvation is born, the economy which
fills the history of man with the gifts of the Redemption. Whereas
sin, by rejecting love, has caused the "suffering" of man which in
some way has affected the whole of creation,148 the Holy Spirit will
enter into human and cosmic suffering with a new outpouring of love,
which will redeem the world. And on the lips of Jesus the Redeemer,
in whose humanity the "suffering" of God is concretized, there will
be heard a word which manifests the eternal love full of mercy: "Misereor."
149 Thus, on the part of the Holy Spirit, "convincing of sin"
becomes a manifestation before creation, which is "subjected to
futility," and above all in the depth of human consciences, that sin
is conquered through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who has become
even "unto death" the obedient servant who, by making up for man's
disobedience, accomplishes the redemption of the world. In this way
the spirit of truth, the Paraclete, "convinces concerning sin."
40. The redemptive value of Christ's sacrifice is expressed in very
significant words by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, who
after recalling the sacrifices of the Old Covenant in which "the
blood of goats and bulls..." purifies in "the flesh," adds: "How
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit
offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from
dead works to serve the living God?"150 Though we are aware of other
possible interpretations, our considerations on the presence of the
Holy Spirit in the whole of Christ's life lead us to see this text
as an invitation to reflect on the presence of the same Spirit also
in the redemptive sacrifice of the Incarnate Word.
To begin with we reflect on the first words dealing with this
sacrifice, and then separately on the "purification of conscience"
which it accomplishes. For it is a sacrifice offered "through the
eternal Spirit," that "derives" from it the power to "convince
concerning sin." It is the same Holy Spirit, whom, according to the
promise made in the Upper Room, Jesus Christ "will bring" to the
Apostles on the day of his Resurrection, when he presents himself to
them with the wounds of the crucifixion, and whom "he will give"
them "for the remission of sins": "Receive the Holy Spirit; if you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven."151
We know that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit
and with power," as Simon Peter said in the house of the centurion
Cornelius.152 We know of the Paschal Mystery of his "departure,"
from the Gospel of John. The words of the Letter to the Hebrews now
explain to us how Christ "offered himself without blemish to God,"
and how he did this "with an eternal Spirit." In the sacrifice of
the Son of Man the Holy Spirit is present and active just as he
acted in Jesus' conception, in his coming into the world, in his
hidden life and in his public ministry. According to the Letter to
the Hebrews, on the way to his "departure" through Gethsemani and
Golgotha, the same Christ Jesus in his own humanity opened himself
totally to this action of the Spirit-Paraclete, who from suffering
enables eternal salvific love to spring forth. Therefore he "was
heard for his godly fear. Although he was a Son, he learned
obedience through what he suffered."153 In this way this Letter
shows how humanity, subjected to sin, in the descendants of the
first Adam, in Jesus Christ became perfectly subjected to God and
united to him, and at the same time full of compassion towards men.
Thus there is a new humanity, which in Jesus Christ through the
suffering of the Cross has returned to the love which was betrayed
by Adam through sin. This new humanity is discovered precisely in
the divine source of the original outpouring of gifts: in the
Spirit, who "searches...the depths of God" and is himself love and
gift.
The Son of God Jesus Christ, as man, in the ardent prayer of his
Passion, enabled the Holy Spirit, who had already penetrated the
inmost depths of his humanity, to transform that humanity into a
perfect sacrifice through the act of his death as the victim of love
on the Cross. He made this offering by himself. As the one priest,
"he offered himself without blemish to God:154 In his humanity he
was worthy to become this sacrifice, for he alone was "without
blemish." But he offered it "through the eternal Spirit," which
means that the Holy Spirit acted in a special way in this absolute
self-giving of the Son of Man, in order to transform this suffering
into redemptive love.
41. The Old Testament on several occasions speaks of "fire from
heaven" which burnt the oblations presented by men.155 By analogy
one can say that the Holy Spirit is the "fire from heaven" which
works in the depth of the mystery of the Cross. Proceeding from the
Father, he directs toward the Father the sacrifice of the Son,
bringing it into the divine reality of the Trinitarian communion. if
sin caused suffering, now the pain of God in Christ crucified
acquires through the Holy Spirit its full human expression. Thus
there is a paradoxical mystery of love: in Christ there suffers a
God who has been rejected by his own creature: "They do not believe
in me!"; but at the same time, from the depth of this suffering-and
indirectly from the depth of the very sin "of not having
believed"-the Spirit draws a new measure of the gift made to man and
to creation from the beginning. In the depth of the mystery of the
Cross, love is at work, that love which brings man back again to
share in the life that is in God himself.
The Holy Spirit as Love and Gift comes down, in a certain sense,
into the very heart of the sacrifice which is offered on the Cross.
Referring here to the biblical tradition, we can say: He consumes
this sacrifice with the fire of the love which unites the Son with
the Father in the Trinitarian communion. And since the sacrifice of
the Cross is an act proper to Christ, also in this sacrifice he
"receives" the Holy Spirit. He receives the Holy Spirit in such a
way that afterwards-and he alone with God the Father- can "give him"
to the Apostles, to the Church, to humanity. He alone "sends" the
Spirit from the Father.156 He alone presents himself before the
Apostles in the Upper Room, "breathes upon them" and says: "Receive
the Holy Spirit; if you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven,"157 as John the Baptist had foretold: "He will baptize you
with the Holy Spirit and with fire."158 With those words of Jesus,
the holy Spirit is revealed and at the same time made present as the
Love that works in the depths of the Paschal Mystery, as the source
of the salvific power of the Cross of Christ, and as the gift of new
and eternal life.
This truth about the Holy Spirit finds daily expression in the Roman
liturgy, when before Communion the priest pronounces those
significant words; "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, by the
will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit your death
brought life to the world...." And in the Third Eucharistic Prayer,
referring to the same salvific plan, the priest asks God that the
Holy Spirit may "make us an everlasting gift to you."
5. The Blood that Purifies the Conscience
42. We have said that, at the
climax of the Paschal Mystery, the Holy Spirit is definitively
revealed and made present in a new way. The Risen Christ says to the
Apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit." Thus the Holy Spirit is
revealed, for the words of Christ constitute the confirmation of
what he had promised and foretold during the discourse in the Upper
Room. And with this the Paraclete is also made present in a new way.
In fact, he was already at work from the beginning in the mystery of
creation and throughout the history of the Old Covenant of God with
man. His action was fully confirmed by the sending of the Son of Man
as the Messiah, who came in the power of the Holy Spirit. At the
climax of Jesus' messianic mission, the Holy Spirit becomes present
in the Paschal Mystery in all his divine subjectivity: as the one
who is now to continue the salvific work rooted in the sacrifice of
the Cross. Of course Jesus entrusts this work to humanity: to the
Apostles, to the Church. Nevertheless, in these men and through them
the Holy Spirit remains the transcendent principal agent of the
accomplishment of this work in the human spirit and in the history
of the world: the invisible and at the same time omnipresent
Paraclete! The Spirit who "blows where he wills."159
The words of the Risen Christ on the "first day of the week" give
particular emphasis to the presence of the Paraclete-Counselor as
the one who "convinces the world concerning sin, righteousness and
judgment." For it is only in this relationship that it is possible
to explain the words which Jesus directly relates to the "gift" of
the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. He says: "Receive the Holy Spirit.
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the
sins of any, they are retained." 160 Jesus confers on the Apostles
the power to forgive sins, so that they may pass it on to their
successors in the Church But this power granted to men presupposes
and includes the saving action of the Holy Spirit. By becoming "the
light of hearts,"161 that is to say the light of consciences, the
Holy Spirit "convinces concerning sin," which is to say, he makes
man realize his own evil and at the same time directs him toward
what is good. Thanks to the multiplicity of the Spirit's gifts, by
reason of which he is invoked as the "sevenfold one," every kind of
human sin can be reached by God's saving power. In reality-as St.
Bonaventure says-"by virtue of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
all evils are destroyed and all good things are produced.162
Thus the conversion of the human heart, which is an indispensable
condition for the forgiveness of sins, is brought about by the
influence of the Counselor. Without a true conversion, which implies
inner contrition, and without a sincere and firm purpose of
amendment, sins remain "unforgiven," in the words of Jesus, and with
him in the Tradition of the Old and New Covenants. For the first
words uttered by Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, according
to the Gospel of Mark, are these: "Repent, and believe in the
Gospel. "163 A confirmation of this exhortation is the "convincing
concerning sin" that the Holy Spirit undertakes in a new way by
virtue of the Redemption accomplished by the Blood of the Son of
Man. Hence the Letter to the Hebrews says that this "blood purifies
the conscience."164 It therefore, so to speak, opens to the Holy
Spirit the door into man's inmost being, namely into the sanctuary
of human consciences.
43. The Second Vatican Council mentioned the Catholic teaching on
conscience when it spoke about man's vocation and in particular
about the dignity of the human person. It is precisely the
conscience in particular which determines this dignity. For the
conscience is "the most secret core and sanctuary of a man, where he
is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths." It "can
...speak to his heart more specifically: do this, shun that." This
capacity to command what is good and to forbid evil, placed in man
by the Creator, is the main characteristic of the personal subject.
But at the same time, "in the depths of his conscience, man detects
a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to
obedience."165 The conscience therefore is not an independent and
exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil. Rather
there is profoundly imprinted upon it a principle of obedience
vis-a-vis the objective norm which establishes and conditions the
correspondence of its decisions with the commands and prohibitions
which are at the basis of human behavior, as from the passage of the
Book of Genesis which we have already considered. 166 Precisely in
this sense the conscience is the "secret sanctuary" in which "God's
voice echoes." The conscience is "the voice of God," even when man
recognizes in it nothing more than the principle of the moral order
which it is not humanly possible to doubt, even without any direct
reference to the Creator. It is precisely in reference to this that
the conscience always finds its foundation and justification.
The Gospel's "convincing concerning sin" under the influence of the
Spirit of truth can be accomplished in man in no other way except
through the conscience. If the conscience is upright, it serves "to
resolve according to truth the moral problems which arise both in
the life of individuals and from social relationships"; then
"persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be
guided by the objective standards of moral conduct."167
A result of an upright conscience is, first of all, to call good and
evil by their proper name, as we read in the same Pastoral
Constitution: "whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type
of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful
self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human
person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind,
attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity,
such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment,
deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and
children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people
are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and
responsible persons"; and having called by name the many different
sins that are so frequent and widespread in our time, the
Constitution adds: "All these things and others of their kind are
infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to
those who practice them than to those who suffer from the injury.
Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator"168
By calling by their proper name the sins that most dishonor man, and
by showing that they are a moral evil that weighs negatively on any
balance- sheet of human progress, the Council also describes all
this as a stage in "a dramatic struggle between good and evil,
between light and darkness," which characterizes "all of human life,
whether individual or collective."169 The 1983 Assembly of the Synod
of Bishops on reconciliation and penance specified even more clearly
the personal and social significance of human sin.170
44. In the Upper Room, on the eve of his Passion and again on the
evening of Easter Day, Jesus Christ spoke of the Holy Spirit as the
one who bears witness that in human history sin continues to exist.
Yet sin has been subjected to the saving power of the Redemption.
"Convincing the world concerning sin" does not end with the fact
that sin is called by its right name and identified for what it is
throughout its entire range. In convincing the world concerning sin
the Spirit of truth comes into contact with the voice of human
consciences. By following this path we come to a demonstration of
the roots of sin, which are to be found in man's inmost being, as
described by the same Pastoral Constitution: "The truth is that the
imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that
more basic imbalance rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself
many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as a
creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways. On
the other, he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and
summoned to a higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions, he is
constantly forced to choose among them and to renounce some. Indeed,
as a weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not, and
fails to do what he would."171 The Conciliar text is here referring
to the well-known words of St. Paul.172 The "convincing concerning
sin" which accompanies the human conscience in every careful
reflection upon itself thus leads to the discovery of sin's roots in
man, as also to the discovery of the way in which the conscience has
been conditioned in the course of history. In this way we discover
that original reality of sin of which we have already spoken. The
Holy Spirit "convinces concerning sin" in relation to the mystery of
man's origins, showing the fact that man is a created being, and
therefore in complete ontological and ethical dependence upon the
Creator. The Holy Spirit reminds us, at the same time, of the
hereditary sinfulness of human nature. But the Holy Spirit the
Counselor "convinces concerning sin" always in relation to the Cross
of Christ. In the context of this relationship Christianity rejects
any "fatalism" regarding sin. As the Council teaches: "A monumental
struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history
of man. The battle was joined from the very origins of the world and
will continue until the last day, as the Lord has attested."173 "But
the Lord himself came to free and strengthen man."174 Man,
therefore, far from allowing himself to be "ensnared" in his sinful
condition, by relying upon the voice of his own conscience "is
obliged to wrestle constantly if he is to cling to what is good. Nor
can he achieve his own interior integrity without valiant efforts
and the help of God s grace."175 The Council rightly sees sin as a
factor of alienation which weighs heavily on man's personal and
social life. But at the same time it never tires of reminding us of
the possibility of victory.
45. The Spirit of truth, who "convinces the world concerning sin,"
comes into contact with that laborious effort on the part of the
human conscience which the Conciliar texts speak of so graphically.
This laborious effort of conscience also determines the paths of
human conversion: turning one's back on sin, in order to restore
truth and love in man's very heart. We know that recognizing evil in
ourselves sometimes demands a great effort. We know that conscience
not only commands and forbids but also Judges in the light of
interior dictates and prohibitions. It is also the source of
remorse: man suffers interiorly because f the evil he has committed.
Is not this suffering, as it were, a distant echo of that
"repentance at having created man" which in anthropomorphic language
the Sacred Book attributes to God? Is it not an echo of that
"reprobation" which is interiorized in the "heart" of the Trinity
and by virtue of the eternal love is translated into the suffering
of the Cross, into Christ's obedience unto death? When the Spirit of
truth permits the human conscience to share in that suffering, the
suffering of the conscience becomes particularly profound, but also
particularly salvific. Then, by means of an act of perfect
contrition, the authentic conversion of the heart is accomplished:
this is the evangelical "metanoia."
The laborious effort of the human heart, the laborious effort of the
conscience in which this "metanoia," or conversion, takes place, is
a reflection of that process whereby reprobation is transformed into
salvific love, a love which is capable of suffering. The hidden
giver of this saving power is the Holy Spirit: he whom the Church
calls "the light of consciences" penetrates and fills "the depths of
the human heart."176 Through just such a conversion in the Holy
Spirit a person becomes open to forgiveness, to the remission of
sins. And in all this wonderful dynamism of conversion-forgiveness
there is confirmed the truth of what St. Augustine writes concerning
the mystery of man, when he comments on the words of the Psalm: "The
abyss calls to the abyss."177 Precisely with regard to these
"unfathomable depths" of man, of the human conscience, the mission
of the Son and the Holy Spirit is accomplished. The Holy Spirit
"comes" by virtue of Christ's "departure" in the Paschal Mystery: he
comes in each concrete case of conversion- forgiveness, by virtue of
the sacrifice of the Cross. For in this sacrifice "the blood of
Christ...purifies your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God."178 Thus there are continuously fulfilled the words
about the Holy Spirit as "another Counselor," the words spoken in
the Upper Room to the Apostles and indirectly spoken to everyone:
"You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."179
6. The Sin Against the Holy Spirit
46. Against the background of
what has been said so far, certain other words of Jesus, shocking
and disturbing ones, become easier to understand. We might call them
the words of "unforgiveness." They are reported for us by the
Synoptics in connection with a particular sin which is called
"blasphemy against the Holy Spirit." This is how they are reported
in their three versions:
Matthew: "Whoever says a word against the Son of Man will be
forgiven but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."180
Mark: "All sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever
blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy
Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."181
Luke: "Every one who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be
forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven."182
Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? How should
this blasphemy be understood ? St. Thomas Aquinas replies that it is
a question of a sin that is "unforgivable by its very nature,
insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of
sin takes place."183
According to such an exegesis, "blasphemy" does not properly consist
in offending against the Holy Spirit in words; it consists rather in
the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through
the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Cross. If man
rejects the "convincing concerning sin" which comes from the Holy
Spirit and which has the power to save, he also rejects the "coming"
of the Counselor-that "coming" which was accomplished in the Paschal
Mystery, in union with the redemptive power of Christ's Blood: the
Blood which "purifies the conscience from dead works."
We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of
sins. Therefore, whoever rejects the Spirit and the Blood remains in
"dead works," in sin. And the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit
consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept this
forgiveness, of which he is the intimate giver and which presupposes
the genuine conversion which he brings about in the conscience. If
Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven
either in this life or in the next, it is because this
"non-forgiveness" is linked, as to its cause, to "non-repentance,"
in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. This means
the refusal to come to the sources of Redemption, which nevertheless
remain "always" open in the economy of salvation in which the
mission of the Holy Spirit is accomplished. The Spirit has infinite
power to draw from these sources: "he will take what is mine," Jesus
said. In this way he brings to completion in human souls the work of
the Redemption accomplished by Christ, and distributes its fruits.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the
person who claims to have a "right" to persist in evil-in any sin at
all-and who thus rejects Redemption. One closes oneself up in sin,
thus making impossible one's conversion, and consequently the
remission of sins, which one considers not essential or not
important for one's life. This is a state of spiritual ruin, because
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from
one's self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine
sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of
sins.
47. The action of the Spirit of truth, which works toward salvific
"convincing concerning sin," encounters in a person in this
condition an interior resistance, as it were an impenetrability of
conscience, a state of mind which could be described as fixed by
reason of a free choice. This is what Sacred Scripture usually calls
"hardness of heart."184 In our own time this attitude of mind and
heart is perhaps reflected in the loss of the sense of sin, to which
the Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia devotes many
pages.185 Pope Pius XII had already declared that "the sin of the
century is the loss of the sense of sin,"186 and this loss goes hand
in hand with the "loss of the sense of God." In the Exhortation just
mentioned we read: "In fact, God is the origin and the supreme end
of man, and man carries in himself a divine seed. Hence it is the
reality of God that reveals and illustrates the mystery of man. It
is therefore vain to hope that there will take root a sense of sin
against man and against human values, if there is no sense of
offense against God, namely the true sense of sin."187
Hence the Church constantly implores from God the grace that
integrity of human consciences will not be lost, that their healthy
sensitivity with regard to good and evil will not be blunted. This
integrity and sensitivity are profoundly linked to the intimate
action of the Spirit of truth. In this light the exhortations of St.
Paul assume particular eloquence: "Do not quench the Spirit"; "Do
not grieve the Holy Spirit."188 But above all the Church constantly
implores with the greatest fervor that there will be no increase in
the world of the sin that the Gospel calls "blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit." Rather, she prays that it will decrease in human
souls-and consequently in the forms and structures of society
itself-and that it will make room for that openness of conscience
necessary for the saving action of the Holy Spirit. The Church prays
that the dangerous sin against the Spirit will give way to a holy
readiness to accept his mission as the Counselor, when he comes to
"convince the world concerning sin, and righteousness and judgment."
48. In his farewell discourse Jesus linked these three areas of
"convincing" as elements of the mission of the Paraclete: sin,
righteousness and judgment. They mark out the area of that mysterium
pietatis that in human history is opposed to sin, to the mystery of
iniquity.189 On the one hand, as St. Augustine says, there is "love
of self to the point of contempt of God"; on the other, "love-of God
to the point of contempt of self."190 The Church constantly lifts up
her prayer and renders her service in order that the history of
consciences and the history of societies in the great human family
will not descend toward the pole of sin, by the rejection of God's
commandments "to the point of contempt of God," but rather will rise
toward the love in which the Spirit that gives life is revealed.
Those who let themselves be "convinced concerning sin" by the Holy
Spirit, also allow themselves to be convinced "concerning
righteousness and judgment." The Spirit of truth who helps human
beings, human consciences, to know the truth concerning sin, at the
same time enables them to know the truth about that righteousness
which entered human history in Jesus Christ. In this way, those who
are "convinced concerning sin" and who are converted through the
action of the Counselor are, in a sense, led out of the range of the
"judgment" that "judgment" by which "the ruler of this world is
judged."191 In the depths of its divine-human mystery, conversion
means the breaking of every fetter by which sin binds man to the
whole of the mystery of iniquity.
Those who are converted, therefore, are led by the Holy Spirit out
of the range of the "judgment," and introduced into that
righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, and is in him precisely
because he receives it from the Father,192 as a reflection of the
holiness of the Trinity. This is the righteousness of the Gospel and
of the Redemption, the righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount and
of the Cross, which effects the purifying of the conscience through
the Blood of the Lamb. It is the righteousness which the Father
gives to the Son and to all those united with him in truth and in
love.
In this righteousness the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and
the Son, who "convinces the world concerning sin," reveals himself
and makes himself present in man as the Spirit of eternal life.
PART III - THE SPIRIT WHO GIVES LIFE
1. Reason for the Jubilee of the Year 2000: Christ Who Was
Conceived of the Holy Spirit
49. The Church's mind and heart
turn to the Holy Spirit as this twentieth century draws to a close
and the third Millennium since the coming of Jesus Christ into the
world approaches, and as we look toward the great Jubilee with which
the Church will celebrate the event. For according to the
computation of time this coming is measured as an event belonging to
the history of man on earth. The measurement of time in common use
defines years, centuries and millennia according to whether they
come before or after the birth of Christ. But it must also be
remembered that for us Christians this event indicates, as St. Paul
says, the "fullness of time,"193 because in it human history has
been wholly permeated by the "measurement" of God himself: a
transcendent presence of the "eternal now." He "who is, who was, and
who is to come"; he who is "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and
the last, the beginning and the end."194 "For God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life."195 "When the time had finally come,
God sent forth his Son, born of a woman...so that we might receive
adoption as sons."196 And this Incarnation of the Son-Word came
about "by the power of the Holy Spirit."
The two Evangelists to whom we owe the narrative of the birth and
infancy of Jesus of Nazareth express themselves on this matter in an
identical way. According to Luke, at the Annunciation of the birth
of Jesus, Mary asks: "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"
and she receives this answer: "The Holy Spirit 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."197
Matthew narrates directly: "Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place
in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph,
before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy
Spirit."198 Disturbed by this turn of events, Joseph receives the
following explanation in a dream: "Do not fear to take Mary your
wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she
will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save
his people from their sins."199
Thus from the beginning the Church confesses the mystery of the
Incarnation, this key-mystery of the faith, by making reference to
the Holy Spirit. The Apostles' Creed says: "He was conceived by the
power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary." Similarly,
the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed professed: "By the power of the
Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made
man."
"By the power of the Holy Spirit" there became man he whom the
Church, in the words of the same Creed, professes to be the Son, of
the same substance as the Father: "God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God; begotten, not made." He was made man by
becoming "incarnate from the Virgin Mary." This is what happened
when "the fullness of time had come."
50. The great Jubilee at the close of the second Millennium, for
which the Church is already preparing, has a directly Christological
aspect: for it is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. At the
same time it has a pneumatological aspect, since the mystery of the
Incarnation was accomplished "by the power of the Holy Spirit." It
was "brought about" by that Spirit-consubstantial with the Father
and the Son-who, in the absolute mystery of the Triune God, is the
Person-love, the uncreated gift, who is the eternal source of every
gift that comes from God in the order of creation, the direct
principle and, in a certain sense, the subject of God's self-
communication in the order of grace. The mystery of the Incarnation
constitutes the climax of this giving, this divine
self-communication.
The conception and birth of Jesus Christ are in fact the greatest
work accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the history of creation and
salvation: the supreme grace "the grace of union," source of every
other grace, as St. Thomas explains.200 The great Jubilee refer to
this work and also-if we penetrate its depths-to the author of this
work, to the person of the Holy Spirit.
For the "fullness of time" is matched by a particular fullness of
the self- communication of the Triune God in the Holy Spirit. "By
the power of the Holy Spirit" the mystery of the "hypostatic union"
is brought about-that is, the union of the divine nature and the
human nature, of the divinity and the humanity in the one Person of
the Word-Son. When at the moment of the Annunciation Mary utters her
"fiat": "Be it done unto me according to your word,"201 she
conceives in a virginal way a man, the Son of Man, who is the Son of
God. By means of this "humanization" of the Word-Son the
self-communication of God reaches its definitive fullness in the
history of creation and salvation. This fullness acquires a special
wealth and expressiveness in the text of John's Gospel: ''The Word
became flesh."202 The Incarnation of God the Son signifies the
taking up into unity with God not only of human nature, but in this
human nature, in a sense, of everything that is "flesh": the whole
of humanity, the entire visible and material world. The Incarnation,
then, also has a cosmic significance, a cosmic dimension. The
"first-born of all creation,"203 becoming incarnate in the
individual humanity of Christ, unites himself in some way with the
entire reality of man, which is also "flesh" 204-and in this reality
with all "flesh," with the whole of creation.
51. All this is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, and so
is part of the great Jubilee to come. The Church cannot prepare for
the Jubilee in any other way than in the Holy Spirit. What was
accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit "in the fullness of
time" can only through the Spirit's power now emerge from the memory
of the Church. By his power it can be made present in the new phase
of man's history on earth: the year 2000 from the birth of Christ.
The Holy Spirit, who with his power overshadowed the virginal body
of Mary, bringing about in her the beginning of her divine
Motherhood, at the same time made her heart perfectly obedient to
that self-communication of God which surpassed every human idea and
faculty. "Blessed is she who believed!"205: thus Mary is greeted by
her cousin Elizabeth, herself "full of the Holy Spirit."206 In the
words of greeting addressed to her "who believed" we seem to detect
a distant (but in fact very close) contrast with all those about
whom Christ will say that "they do not believe."207 Mary entered the
history of the salvation of the world through the obedience of
faith. And faith, in its deepest essence, is the openness of the
human heart to the gift: to God's self- communication in the Holy
Spirit. St. Paul write: "The Lord is the Spirit, and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."208 When the Triune; God
opens himself to man in the Holy Spirit, this opening of God reveals
and also gives to the human creature the fullness of freedom. This
fullness was manifested in a sublime way precisely through the faith
of Mary, through the "obedience of faith"209: truly, "Blessed is she
who believed!"
2. Reason for the Jubilee: Grace Has Been Made Manifest
52. In the mystery of the
Incarnation the work of the Spirit "who gives life" reaches its
highest point. It is not possible to give life, which in its fullest
form is in God, except by making it the life of a Man, as Christ is
in his humanity endowed with personhood by the Word in the
hypostatic union. And at the same time, with the mystery of the
Incarnation there opens in a new way the source of this divine life
in the history of mankind: the Holy Spirit. The Word, "the
first-born of all creation," becomes "the first-born of many
brethren."210 And thus he also becomes the head of the Body which is
the Church, which will be born on the Cross and revealed on the day
of Pentecost-and in the Church, he becomes the head of humanity: of
the people of every nation, every race, every country and culture,
every language and continent, all called to salvation. "The Word
became flesh, (that Word in whom) was life and the life was the
light of men...to all who received him he gave the power to become
the children of God."211 But all this was accomplished and is
unceasingly accomplished "by the power of the Holy Spirit."
For as St. Paul teaches, "all who are led by the Spirit of God" are
"children of God."212 The filiation of divine adoption is born in
man on the basis of the mystery of the Incarnation, therefore
through Christ the eternal Son. But the birth, or rebirth. happens
when God the Father "sends the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts."213 Then "we receive a spirit of adopted sons by which we
cry 'Abba, Father!'"214 Hence the divine filiation planted in the
human soul through sanctifying grace is the work of the Holy Spirit.
"It is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we
are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ."215 Sanctifying grace is the principle and
source of man's new life: divine, supernatural life
The giving of this new life is as it were God's definitive answer to
the Psalmist's words, which in a way echo the voice of all
creatures: "When you send forth your Spirit, they shall be created;
and you shall renew the face of the earth."216 He who in the mystery
of creation gives life to man and the cosmos in its many different
forms, visible and invisible, again renews this life through the
mystery of the Incarnation. Creation is thus completed by the
Incarnation and since that moment is permeated by the powers of the
Redemption, powers which fill humanity and all creation. This is
what we are told by St. Paul, whose cosmic and theological vision
seems to repeat the words of the ancient Psalm: creation "waits with
eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God,"217 that is,
those whom God has "foreknown" and whom he "has predestined to be
conformed to the image of his Son."218 Thus there is a supernatural
"adoption," of which the source is the Holy Spirit, love and gift.
As such he is given to man. And in the superabundance of the
uncreated gift there begins in the heart of all human beings that
particular created gift whereby they "become partakers of the divine
nature."219 Thus human life becomes permeated, through
participation, by the divine life, and itself acquires a divine,
supernatural dimension. There is granted the new life, in which as a
sharer in the mystery of Incarnation "man has access to the Father
in the Holy Spirit."220 Thus there is a close relationship between
the Spirit who gives life and sanctifying grace and the manifold
supernatural vitality which derives from it in man: between the
uncreated Spirit and the created human spirit.
53. All this may be said to fall within the scope of the great
Jubilee mentioned above. For we must go beyond the historical
dimension of the event considered in its surface value. Through the
Christological content of the event we have to reach the
pneumatological dimension, seeing with the eyes of faith the two
thousand years of the action of the Spirit of truth, who down the
centuries has drawn from the treasures of the Redemption achieved by
Christ and given new life to human beings, bringing about in them
adoption in the only-begotten Son, sanctifying them, so that they
can repeat with St. Paul: "We have received ...the Spirit which is
from God."221
But as we follow this reason for the Jubilee, we cannot limit
ourselves to the two thousand years which have passed since the
birth of Christ. We need to go further back, to embrace the whole of
the action of the Holy Spirit even before Christ-from the beginning,
throughout the world, and especially in the economy of the Old
Covenant. For this action has been exercised, in every place and at
every time, indeed in every individual, according to the eternal
plan of salvation, whereby this action was to be closely linked with
the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption, which in its turn
exercised its influence on those who believed in the future coming
of Christ. This is attested to especially in the Letter to the
Ephesians.222 Grace, therefore, bears within iitself both a
Christological aspect and a pneumatological one, which becomes
evident above all in those who expressly accept Christ: "In him [in
Christ] you...were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is
the guarantee of our inheritance, until we acquire possession of
it."223
But, still within the perspective of the great Jubilee, we need to
look further and go further afield, knowing that "the wind blows
where it wills," according to the image used by Jesus in his
conversation with Nicodemus.224 The Second Vatican Council, centered
primarily on the theme of the Church, reminds us of the Holy
Spirit's activity also "outside the visible body of the Church." The
council speaks precisely of "all people of good will in whose hearts
grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all, and
since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we
ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God
offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this
Paschal Mystery."225
54. "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit
and truth."226 These words were spoken by Jesus in another
conversation, the one with the Samaritan woman. The great Jubilee to
be celebrated at the end of this Millennium and at the beginning of
the next ought to constitute a powerful call to all those who
"worship God in spirit and truth." It should be for everyone a
special occasion for meditating on the mystery of the Triune God,
who in himself is wholly transcendent with regard to the world,
especially the visible world. For he is absolute Spirit, "God is
spirit"227; and also, in such a marvelous way, he is not only close
to this world but present in it, and in a sense immanent,
penetrating it and giving it life from within. This is especially
true in relation to man: God is present in the intimacy of man's
being, in his mind, conscience and heart: an ontological and
psychological reality, in considering which St. Augustine said of
God that he was "closer than my inmost being."228 These words help
us to understand better the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman:
"God is spirit." Only the Spirit can be "closer than my spiritual
experience. Only the spirit can be so permanent in man and in the
world, while remaining inviolable and immutable in his absolute
transcendence.
But in Jesus Christ the divine presence in the world and in man has
been made manifest in a new way and in visible form. In him "the
grace of God has appeared indeed."229 The love of God the Father, as
a gift, infinite grace, source of life, has been made visible in
Christ, and in his humanity that love has become "part" of the
universe, the human family and history. This appearing of grace in
human history, through Jesus Christ, has been accomplished through
the power of the Holy Spirit, who is the source of all God's
salvific activity in the world: he, the "hidden God,"230 who as love
and gift "fills the universe."231 The Church's entire life, as will
appear in the great Jubilee, means going to meet the invisible God,
the hidden God: a meeting with the Spirit "who gives life."
3. The Holy Spirit in Man's Inner Conflict: "For the
desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the
Spirit are against the flesh"
55. Unfortunately, the history of salvation shows that God's coming
close and making himself present to man and the world, that
marvelous "condescension" of the Spirit, meets with resistance and
opposition in our human reality. How eloquent from this point of
view are the prophetic words of the old man Simeon who, inspired by
the Spirit, came to the Temple in Jerusalem, in order to foretell in
the presence of the new-born Babe of Bethlehem that he "is set for
the fall and rising of many in Israel, for a sign of
contradiction."232 Opposition to God, who is an invisible Spirit, to
a certain degree originates in the very fact of the radical
difference of the world from God, that is to say in the world's
"visibility" and "materiality" in contrast to him who is "invisible"
and "absolute Spirit"; from the world's essential and inevitable
imperfection in contrast to him, the perfect being. But this
opposition becomes conflict and rebellion on the ethical plane by
reason of that sin which takes possession of the human heart,
wherein "the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the
desires of the Spirit are against the flesh."233 Concerning this
sin, the Holy Spirit must "convince the world," as we have already
said.
It is St. Paul who describes in a
particularly eloquent way the tension and struggle that trouble the
human heart. We read in the Letter to the Galatians: "But I say,
walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For
the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of
the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each
other, to prevent you from doing what you would."234 There already
exists in man, as a being made up of body and spirit, a certain
tension, a certain struggle of tendencies between the "spirit" and
the "flesh." But this struggle in fact belongs to the heritage of
sin, is a consequence of sin and at the same time a confirmation of
it. This is part of everyday experience. As the Apostle writes: "Now
the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity,
licentiousness... drunkenness, carousing and the like." These are
the sins that could be called "carnal." But he also adds others:
"enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party
spirit, envy."235 All of this constitutes the "works of the flesh."
But with these works, which are undoubtedly evil, Paul contrasts
"the fruit of the Spirit," such as "love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."236 From
the context it is clear that for the Apostle it is not a question of
discriminating against and condemning the body, which with the
spiritual soul constitutes man's nature and personal subjectivity.
Rather, he is concerned with the morally good or bad works, or
better the permanent dispositions-virtues and vices-which are the
fruit of submission to (in the first case) or of resistance to (in
the second case) the saving action of the Holy Spirit. Consequently
the Apostle writes: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by
the Spirit."237 And in other passages: "For those who live according
to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those
who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of
the Spirit"; "You are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God
dwells in you."238 The contrast that St. Paul makes between life
"according to the Spirit" and life "according to the flesh" gives
rise to a further contrast: that between "life" and "death." "To set
the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is
life and peace"; hence the warning: "For if you live according to
the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the
deeds of the body you will live."239
Properly understood, this is an
exhortation to live in the truth, that is, according to the dictates
of an upright conscience, and at the same time it is a profession of
faith in the Spirit of truth as the one who gives life. For the body
is "dead because of sin, but your spirits are alive because of
righteousness." "So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the
flesh, to live according to the flesh."240 Rather we are debtors to
Christ, who in the Paschal Mystery has effected our justification,
obtaining for us the Holy Spirit: "Indeed, we have been bought at a
great price."241
In the texts of St. Paul there is a superimposing- and a mutual
compenetration-of the ontological dimension (the flesh and the
spirit), the ethical (moral good and evil), and the pneumatological
(the action of the Holy Spirit in the order of grace). His words
(especially in the Letters to the Romans and Galatians) enable us to
know and feel vividly the strength of the tension and struggle going
on in man between openness to the action of the Holy Spirit and
resistance and opposition to him, to his saving gift. The terms or
poles of contrast are, on man's part, his limitation and sinfulness,
which are essential elements of his psychological and ethical
reality; and on God's part, the mystery of the gift, that unceasing
self-giving of divine life in the Holy Spirit.- Who will win? The
one who welcomes the gift.
56. Unfortunately, the resistance to the Holy Spirit which St. Paul
emphasizes in the interior and subjective dimension as tension,
struggle and rebellion taking place in the human heart, finds in
every period of history and especially in the modern era its
external dimension, which takes concrete form as the content of
culture and civilization, as a philosophical system, an ideology, a
program for action and for the shaping of human behavior. It reaches
its clearest expression in materialism, both in its theoretical
form: as a system of thought, and in its practical form: as a method
of interpreting and evaluating facts, and likewise as a program of
corresponding conduct. The system which has developed most and
carried to its extreme practical consequences this form of thought,
ideology and praxis is dialectical and historical materialism, which
is still recognized as the essential core of Marxism.
In principle and in fact, materialism radically excludes the
presence and action of God, who is spirit, in the world and above
all in man. Fundamentally this is because it does not accept God's
existence, being a system that is essentially and systematically
atheistic. This is the striking phenomenon of our time: atheism, to
which the Second Vatican Council devoted some significant pages.242
Even though it is not possible to speak of atheism in a univocal way
or to limit it exclusively to the philosophy of materialism, since
there exist numerous forms of atheism and the word is perhaps often
used in a wrong sense, nevertheless it is certain that a true and
proper materialism, understood as a theory which explains reality
and accepted as the key-principle of personal and social action, is
characteristically atheistic. The order of values and the aims of
action which it describes are strictly bound to a reading of the
whole of reality as "matter." Though it sometimes also speaks of the
"spirit" and of "questions of the spirit," as for example in the
fields of culture or morality, it does so only insofar as it
considers certain facts as derived from matter (epiphenomena), since
according to this system matter is the one and only form of being.
It follows, according to this interpretation, that religion can only
be understood as a kind of "idealistic illusion," to be fought with
the most suitable means and methods according to circumstances of
time and place, in order to eliminate it from society and from man's
very heart.
It can be said therefore that
materialism is the systematic and logical development of that
resistance" and opposition condemned by St. Paul with the words:
"The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit." But, as St. Paul
emphasizes in the second part of his aphorism, this antagonism is
mutual: "The desires of the Spirit are against the flesh." Those who
wish to live by the Spirit, accepting and corresponding to his
salvific activity, cannot but reject the internal and external
tendencies and claims of the "flesh," also in its ideological and
historical expression as anti-religious "materialism." Against this
background so characteristic of our time, in preparing for the great
Jubilee we must emphasize the "desires of the spirit," as
exhortations echoing in the night of a new time of advent. at the
end of which, like two thousand years ago, "every man will see the
salvation of God."243 This is a possibility and a hope that the
Church entrusts to the men and women of today. She knows that the
meeting or collision between the "desires against the spirit" which
mark so many aspects of contemporary civilization, especially in
some of its spheres, and "the desires against the flesh," with God's
approach to us, his Incarnation, his constantly renewed
communication of the Holy Spirit-this meeting or collision may in
many cases be of a tragic nature and may perhaps lead to fresh
defeats for humanity. But the Church firmly believes that on God's
part there is always a salvific self-giving, a salvific coming and,
in some way or other, a salvific "convincing concerning sin" by the
power of the Spirit.
57. The Pauline contrast between the "Spirit" and the "flesh" also
includes the contrast between "life" and "death." This is a serious
problem, and concerning it one must say at once that materialism, as
a system of thought, in all its forms, means the acceptance of death
as the definitive end of human existence. Everything that is
material is corruptible, and therefore the human body (insofar as it
is "animal") is mortal. If man in his essence is only "flesh," death
remains for him an impassable frontier and limit. Hence one can
understand how it can be said that human life is nothing but an
"existence in order to die."
It must be added that on the horizon of contemporary
civilization-especially in the form that is most developed in the
technical and scientific sense-the signs and symptoms of death have
become particularly present and frequent. One has only to think of
the arms race and of its inherent danger of nuclear
self-destruction. Moreover, everyone has become more and more aware
of the grave situation of vast areas of our planet marked by
death-dealing poverty and famine. It is a question of problems that
are not only economic but also and above all ethical. But on the
horizon of our era there are gathering ever darker "signs of death":
a custom has become widely established- in some places it threatens
to become almost an institution-of taking the lives of human beings
even before they are born, or before they reach the natural point of
death. Furthermore, despite many noble efforts for peace, new wars
have broken out and are taking place, wars which destroy the lives
or the health of hundreds of thousands of people. And how can one
fail to mention the attacks against human life by terrorism,
organized even on an international scale?
Unfortunately, this is only a partial and in complete sketch of the
picture of death being composed in our age as we come ever closer to
the end of the second Millennium of the Christian era. Does there
not rise up a new and more or less conscious plea to the life-giving
Spirit from the dark shades of materialistic civilization, and
especially from those increasing signs of death in the sociological
and historical picture in which that civilization has been
constructed? At any rate, even independently of the measure of human
hopes or despairs, and of the illusions or deceptions deriving from
the development of materialistic systems of thought and life, there
remains the Christian certainty that the Spirit blows where he wills
and that we possess "the first fruits of the Spirit," and that
therefore even though we may be subjected to the sufferings of time
that passes away, "we groan inwardly as we wait for...the redemption
of our bodies,"244 or of all our human essence, which is bodily and
spiritual. Yes, we groan, but in an expectation filled with
unflagging hope, because it is precisely this human being that God
has drawn near to, God who is Spirit. God the Father, "sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned
sin in the flesh."245 At the culmination of the Paschal Mystery, the
Son of God, made man and crucified for the sins of the world,
appeared in the midst of his Apostles after the Resurrection,
breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." This "breath"
continues forever, for "the Spirit helps us in our weakness."246
4. The Holy Spirit Strengthens the "Inner Man"
58. The mystery of the
resurrection and of Pentecost is proclaimed and lived by the Church,
which has inherited and which carries on the witness of the Apostles
about the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. She is the perennial witness
to this victory over death which revealed the power of the Holy
Spirit and determined his new coming, his new presence in people and
in the world. For in Christ's Resurrection the Holy Spirit-Paraclete
revealed himself especially as he who gives life: "He who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit which dwells in you."247 In the name of the
Resurrection of Christ the Church proclaims life, which manifested
itself beyond the limits of death, the life which is stronger than
death. At the same time, she proclaims him who gives this life: the
Spirit, the Giver of Life; she proclaims him and cooperates with him
in giving life. For "although your bodies are dead because of sin,
your spirits are alive because of righteousness,"248 the
righteousness accomplished by the Crucified and Risen Christ. And in
the name of Christ's Resurrection the Church serves the life that
comes from God himself, in close union with and humble service to
the Spirit.
Precisely through this service man becomes in an ever new manner the
"way of the Church," as I said in the Encyclical on Christ the
Redeemer249 and as I now repeat in this present one on the Holy
Spirit. United with the Spirit, the Church is supremely aware of the
reality of the inner man, of what is deepest and most essential in
man, because it is spiritual and incorruptible. At this level the
Spirit grafts the "root of immortality,"250 from which the new life
springs. This is man's life in God, which, as a fruit of God's
salvific self- communication in the Holy Spirit, can develop and
flourish only by the Spirit's action. Therefore St. Paul speaks to
God on behalf of believers, to whom he declares "I bow my knees
before the Father..., that he may grant you...to be strengthened
with might through his Spirit in the inner man."251
Under the influence of the Holy Spirit this inner, "spiritual," man
matures and grows strong. Thanks to the divine self- communication,
the human spirit which "knows the secrets of man" meets the "Spirit
who searches everything, even the depths of God."252 In this Spirit,
who is the eternal gift, the Triune God opens himself to man, to the
human spirit. The hidden breath of the divine Spirit enables the
human spirit to open in its turn before the saving and sanctifying
self-opening of God. Through the gift of grace, which comes from the
Holy Spirit, man enters a "new life," is brought into the
supernatural reality of the divine life itself and becomes a
"dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit," a living temple of God.253 For
through the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son come to him and take
up their abode with him.254 In the communion of grace with the
Trinity, man's "living area" is broadened and raised up to the
supernatural level of divine life. Man lives in God and by God: he
lives "according to the Spirit," and "sets his mind on the things of
the Spirit."
59. Man's intimate relationship with God in the Holy Spirit also
enables him to understand himself, his own humanity, in a new way.
Thus that image and likeness of God which man is from his very
beginning is fully realized.255 This intimate truth of the human
being has to be continually rediscovered in the light of Christ who
is the prototype of the relationship with God. There also has to be
rediscovered in Christ the reason for "full self-discovery through a
sincere gift of himself" to others, as the Second Vatican Council
writes: precisely by reason of this divine likeness which "shows
that on earth man...is the only creature that God wishes for
himself" in his dignity as a person, but as one open to integration
and social communion.256 The effective knowledge and full
implementation of this truth of his being come about only by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Man learns this truth from Jesus Christ
and puts it into practice in his own life by the power of the
Spirit, whom Jesus himself has given to us.
Along this path-the path of such an inner maturity, which includes
the full discovery of the meaning of humanity-God comes close to
man, and permeates more and more completely the whole human world.
The Triune God, who "exists" in himself as a transcendent reality of
interpersonal gift, giving himself in the Holy Spirit as gift to
man, transforms the human world from within, from inside hearts and
minds. Along this path the world, made to share in the divine gift,
becomes-as the Council teaches-"ever more human, ever more
profoundly human," 257 while within the world, through people's
hearts and minds, the Kingdom develops in which God will be
definitively "all in all"258: as gift and love. Gift and love: this
is the eternal power of the opening of the Triune God to an and the
world, in the Holy Spirit.
As the year 2000 since the birth of Christ draws near, it is a
question of ensuring that an ever greater number of people "may
fully find themselves...through a sincere gift of self," according
to the expression of the Council already quoted. Through the action
of the Spirit-Paraclete, may there be accomplished in our world a
process of true growth in humanity, in both individual and community
life. In this regard Jesus himself "when he prayed to the Father,
'that all may be one...as we are one' (Jn 17:21-22)...implied a
certain likeness between the union of the divine persons and the
union of the children of God in truth and charity."259 The Council
repeats this truth about man, and the Church sees in it a
particularly strong and conclusive indication of her own apostolic
tasks. For if man is the way of the Church, this way passes through
the whole mystery of Christ, as man's divine model. Along this way
the Holy Spirit, strengthening in each of us "the inner man,"
enables man ever more "fully to find himself through a sincere gift
of self." These words of the Pastoral Constitution of the Council
can be said to sum up the whole of Christian anthropology: that
theory and practice, based on the Gospel, in which man discovers
himself as belonging to Christ and discovers that in Christ he is
raised to the status of a child of God, and so understands better
his own dignity as man, precisely because he is the subject of God's
approach and presence, the subject of the divine condescension,
which contains the prospect and the very root of definitive
glorification. Thus it can truly be said that "the glory of God is
the living man, yet man's life is the vision of God" 260: man,
living a divine life, is the glory of God, and the Holy Spirit is
the hidden dispenser of this life and this glory. The Holy
Spirit-says the great Basil- "while simple in essence and manifold
in his virtues...extends himself without undergoing any diminishing,
is present in each subject capable of receiving him as if he were
the only one, and gives grace which is sufficient for all."261
60. When, under the influence of the Paraclete, people discover this
divine dimension of their being and life, both as individuals and as
a community, they are able to free themselves from the various
determinisms which derive mainly from the materialistic bases of
thought, practice and related modes of action. In our age these
factors have succeeded in penetrating into man's inmost being, into
that sanctuary of the conscience where the Holy Spirit continuously
radiates the light and strength of new life in the "freedom of the
children of God." Man's growth in this life is hindered by the
conditionings and pressures exerted upon him by dominating
structures and mechanisms in the various spheres of society. It can
be said that in many cases social factors, instead of fostering the
development and expansion of the human spirit, ultimately deprive
the human spirit of the genuine truth of its being and life-over
which the Holy Spirit keeps vigil-in order to subject it to the
"prince of this world."
The great Jubilee of the year 2000 thus contains a message of
liberation by the power of the Spirit, who alone can help
individuals and communities to free themselves from the old and new
determinisms, by guiding them with the "law of the Spirit, which
gives life in Christ Jesus,"262 and thereby discovering and
accomplishing the full measure of man's true freedom. For, as St.
Paul writes, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."263
This revelation of freedom and hence of man's true dignity acquires
a particular eloquence for Christians and for the Church in a state
of persecution-both in ancient times and in the present-because the
witnesses to divine Truth then become a living proof of the action
of the Spirit of truth present in the hearts and minds of the
faithful, and they often mark with their own death by martyrdom the
supreme glorification of human dignity.
Also in the ordinary conditions of society, Christians, as witnesses
to man's authentic dignity, by their obedience to the Holy Spirit
contribute to the manifold "renewal of the face of the earth,"
working together with their brothers and sisters in order to achieve
and put to good use everything that is good, noble and beautiful in
the modern progress of civilization, culture, science, technology
and the other areas of thought and human activity.264 They do this
as disciples of Christ who-as the Council writes-"appointed Lord by
his Resurrection...is now at work in the hearts of men through the
power of his Spirit. He arouses not only a desire for the age to
come but by that very fact, he animates, purifies and strengthens
those noble longings too by which the human family strives to make
its life more humane and to render the earth submissive to this
goal."265 Thus they affirm still more strongly the greatness of man,
made in the image and likeness of God, a greatness shown by the
mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, who "in the fullness
of time," by the power of the Holy Spirit, entered into history and
manifested himself as true man, he who was begotten before every
creature, "through whom are all things and through whom we exist"266
5. The Church as the Sacrament of Intimate Union with God
61. As the end of the second
Millennium approaches, an event which should recall to everyone and
as it were make present anew the coming of the Word in the fullness
of time, the Church once more means to ponder the very essence of
her divine-human constitution and of that mission which enables her
to share in the messianic mission of Christ, according to the
teaching and the ever valid plan of the Second Vatican Council.
Following this line, we can go back to the Upper Room, where Jesus
Christ reveals the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete, the Spirit of
truth, and where he speaks of his own "departure" through the Cross
as the necessary condition for the Spirit's "coming": "It is to your
advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor
will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you."267 We
have seen that this prediction first came true the evening of Easter
day and then during the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem, and
we have seen that ever since then it is being fulfilled in human
history through the Church.
In the light of that prediction, we also grasp the full meaning of
what Jesus says, also at the Last Supper, about his new "coming."
For it is significant that in the same farewell discourse Jesus
foretells not only his "departure" but also his new "coming." His
exact words are: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to
you."268 And at the moment of his final farewell before he ascends
into heaven, he will repeat even more explicitly: "Lo, I am with
you," and this "always, to the close of the age."269 This new
"coming" of Christ, this continuous coming of his, in order to be
with his Apostles, with the Church, this "I am with you always, to
the close of the age," does not of course change the fact of his
"departure." It follows that departure, after the close of Christ's
messianic activity on earth, and it occurs in the context of the
predicted sending of the Holy Spirit and in a certain sense forms
part of his own mission. And yet it occurs by the power of the Holy
Spirit, who makes it possible for Christ, who has gone away, to come
now and for ever in a new way. This new coming of Christ by the
power of the Holy Spirit, and his constant presence and action in
the spiritual life are accomplished in the sacramental reality. In
this reality, Christ, who has gone away in his visible humanity,
comes, is present and acts in the Church in such an intimate way as
to make it his own Body. As such, the Church lives, works and grows
"to the close of the age." All this happens through the power of the
Holy Spirit.
62. The most complete sacramental expression of the "departure" of
Christ through the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection is the
Eucharist. In every celebration of the Eucharist his coming, his
salvific presence, is sacramentally realized: in the Sacrifice and
in Communion. It is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, as
part of his own mission.270 Through the Eucharist the Holy Spirit
accomplishes that "strengthening of the inner man" spoken of in the
Letter to the Ephesians.271 Through the Eucharist, individuals and
communities, by the action of the Paraclete- Counselor, learn to
discover the divine sense of human life, as spoken of by the
Council: that sense whereby Jesus Christ "fully reveals man to man
himself," suggesting "a certain likeness between the union of the
divine persons, and the union of God's children in truth and
charity."272 This union is expressed and made real especially
through the Eucharist, in which man shares in the sacrifice of
Christ which this celebration actualizes, and he also learns to
"find himself...through a...gift of himself,"273 through communion
with God and with others, his brothers and sisters.
For this reason the early Christians, right from the days
immediately following the coming down of the Holy Spirit, "devoted
themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers," and in this
way they formed a community united by the teaching of the
Apostles.274 Thus "they recognized" that their Risen Lord, who had
ascended into heaven, came into their midst anew in that
Eucharisticcommunity of the Church and by means of it. Guided by the
Holy Spirit, the Church from the beginning expressed and confirmed
her identity through the Eucharist. And so it has always been, in
every Christian generation, down to our own time, down to this
present period when we await the end of the second Christian
Millennium. Of course, we unfortunately have to acknowledge the fact
that the Millennium which is about to end is the one in which there
have occurred the great separations between Christians. All
believers in Christ, therefore, following the example of the
Apostles, must fervently strive to conform their thinking and action
to the will of the Holy Spirit, "the principle of the Church's
unity,"275 so that all who have been baptized in the one Spirit in
order to make up one body may be brethren joined in the celebration
of the same Eucharist, "a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond
of charity!"276
63. Christ's Eucharistic presence, his sacramental "I am with you,"
enables the Church to discover ever more deeply her own mystery, as
shown by the whole ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,
whereby "the Church is in Christ as a sacrament or sign and
instrument of the intimate union with God and of the unity of the
whole human race."277 As a sacrament, the Church is a development
from the Paschal Mystery of Christ's "departure," living by his ever
new "coming" by the power of the Holy Spirit, within the same
mission of the Paraclete- Spirit of truth. Precisely this is the
essential mystery of the Church, as the Council professes.
While it is through creation that God is he in whom we all "live and
move and have our being, "278 in its turn the power of the
Redemption endures and develops in the history of man and the world
in a double "rhythm" as it were, the source of which is found in the
Eternal Father. On the one hand there is the rhythm of the mission
of the Son, who came into the world and was born of the Virgin Mary
by the power of the Holy Spirit; and on the other hand there is also
the rhythm of the mission of the Holy Spirit, as he was revealed
definitively by Christ. Through the "departure" of the Son, the Holy
Spirit came and continues to come as Counselor and Spirit of truth.
And in the context of his mission, as it were within the indivisible
presence of the Holy Spirit, the Son, who "had gone away" in the
Paschal Mystery, "comes" and is continuously present in the mystery
of the Church, at times concealing himself and at times revealing
himself in her history, and always directing her steps. All of this
happens in a sacramental way, through the power of the Holy Spirit,
who, "drawing from the wealth of Christ's Redemption," constantly
gives life. As the Church becomes ever more aware of this mystery,
she sees herself more clearly, above all as a sacrament.
This also happens because, by the will of her Lord, through the
individual sacraments the Church fulfills her salvific ministry to
man. This sacramental ministry, every time it is accomplished,
brings with it the mystery of the "departure" of Christ through the
Cross and the Resurrection, by virtue of which the Holy Spirit
comes. He comes and works: "He gives life." For the sacraments
signify grace and confer grace: they signify life and give life. The
Church is the visible dispenser of the sacred signs, while the Holy
Spirit acts in them as the invisible dispenser of the life which
they signify. Together with the Spirit, Christ Jesus is present and
acting.
64. If the Church is the sacrament of intimate union with God, she
is such in Jesus Christ, in whom this same union is accomplished as
a salvific reality. She is such in Jesus Christ, through the power
of the Holy Spirit. The fullness of the salvific reality, which is
Christ in history, extends in a sacramental way in the power of the
Spirit Paraclete. In this way the Holy Spirit is "another
Counselor," or new Counselor, because through his action the Good
News takes shape in human minds and hearts and extends through
history. In all this it is the Holy Spirit who gives life.
When we use the word "sacrament" in reference to the Church, we must
bear in mind that in the texts of the Council the sacramentality of
the Church appears as distinct from the sacramentality that is
proper, in the strict sense, to the Sacraments. Thus we read: "The
Church is...in the nature of a sacrament-a sign and instrument of
communion with God." But what matters and what emerges from the
analogical sense in which the word is used in the two cases is the
relationship which the Church has with the power of the Holy Spirit,
who alone gives life: the Church is the sign and instrument of the
presence and action of the life-giving Spirit.
Vatican II adds that the Church is "a sacrament. . . of the unity of
all mankind. "Obviously it is a question of the unity which the
human race which in itself is differentiated in various ways-has
from God and in God. This unity has its roots in the mystery of
creation and acquires a new dimension in the mystery of the
Redemption, which is ordered to universal salvation. Since God
"wishes all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth,"279 the Redemption includes all humanity and in a certain way
all of creation. In the same universal dimension of Redemption the
Holy Spirit is acting, by virtue of the "departure of Christ."
Therefore the Church, rooted through her own mystery in the
Trinitarian plan of salvation with good reason regards herself as
the "sacrament of the unity of the whole human race." She knows that
she is such through the power of the Holy Spirit, of which power she
is a sign and instrument in the fulfillment of God's salvific plan.
In this way the "condescension" of the infinite Trinitarian Love is
brought about: God, who is infinite Spirit, comes close to the
visible world. The Triune God communicates himself to man in the
Holy Spirit from the beginning through his "image and likeness."
Under the action of the same Spirit, man, and through him the
created world, which has been redeemed by Christ, draw near to their
ultimate destinies in God. The Church is "a sacrament, that is sign
and instrument" of this coming together of the two poles of creation
and redemption, God and man. She strives to restore and strengthen
the unity at the very roots of the human race: in the relationship
of communion that man has with God as his Creator, Lord and
Redeemer. This is a truth which on the basis of the Council's
teaching we can meditate on, explain and apply in all the fullness
of its meaning in this phase of transition from the second to the
third Christian Millennium. And we rejoice to realize ever more
clearly that within the work carried out by the Church in the
history of salvation. which is part of the history of humanity, the
Holy Spirit is present and at work-he who with the breath of divine
life permeates man's earthly pilgrimage and causes all creation, all
history, to flow together to its ultimate end, in the infinite ocean
of God.
6. The Spirit and the Bride Say: "Come!''
65. The breath of the divine
life, the Holy Spirit, in its simplest and most common manner,
expresses itself and makes itself felt in prayer. It is a beautiful
and salutary thought that, wherever people are praying in the world,
there the Holy Spirit is, the living breath of prayer. It is a
beautiful and salutary thought to recognize that, if prayer is
offered throughout the world, in the past, in the present and in the
future, equally widespread is the presence and action of the Holy
Spirit, who "breathes" prayer in the heart of man in all the endless
range of the most varied situations and conditions, sometimes
favorable and sometimes unfavorable to the spiritual and religious
life. Many times, through the influence of the Spirit, prayer rises
from the human heart in spite of prohibitions and persecutions and
even official proclamations regarding the non-religious or even
atheistic character of public life. Prayer always remains the voice
of all those who apparently have no voice-and in this voice there
always echoes that "loud cry" attributed to Christ by the Letter to
the Hebrews.280 Prayer is also the revelation of that abyss which is
the heart of man: a depth which comes from God and which only God
can fill, precisely with the Holy Spirit. We read in Luke: "If you
then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those
who ask him."281
The Holy Spirit is the gift that
comes into man's heart together with prayer. In prayer he manifests
himself first of all and above all as the gift that "helps us in our
weakness." This is the magnificent thought developed by St. Paul in
the Letter to the Romans, when he writes: "For we do not know how to
pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with
sighs too deep for words."282 Therefore, the Holy Spirit not only
enables us to pray, but guides us "from within" in prayer: he is
present in our prayer and gives it a divine dimension.283 Thus "he
who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will
of God." 284 Prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit becomes the
ever more mature expression of the new man, who by means of this
prayer participates in the divine life.
Our difficult age has a special need
of prayer. In the course of history-both in the past and in the
present-many men and women have borne witness to the importance of
prayer by consecrating themselves to the praise of God and to the
life of prayer, especially in monasteries and convents. So, too,
recent years have been seeing a growth in the number of people who,
in ever more widespread movements and groups, are giving first place
to prayer and seeking in prayer a renewal of their spiritual life.
This is a significant and comforting sign, for from this experience
there is coming a real contribution to the revival of prayer among
the faithful, who have been helped to gain a clearer idea of the
Holy Spirit as he who inspires in hearts a profound yearning for
holiness. In many individuals and many communities there is a
growing awareness that, even with all the rapid progress of
technological and scientific civilization, and despite the real
conquests and goals attained, man is threatened, humanity is
threatened. In the face of this danger, and indeed already
experiencing the frightful reality of man's spiritual decadence,
individuals and whole communities, guided as it were by an inner
sense of faith, are seeking the strength to raise man up again, to
save him from himself, from his own errors and mistakes that often
make harmful his very conquests. And thus they are discovering
prayer, in which the "Spirit who helps us in our weakness"manifests
himself. In this way the times in which we are living are bringing
the Holy Spirit closer to the many who are returning to prayer. And
I trust that all will find in the teaching of this Encyclical
nourishment for their interior life, and that they will succeed in
strengthening, under the action of the Spirit, their commitment to
prayer in harmony with the Church and her Magisterium.
66. In the midst of the problems,
disappointments and hopes, desertions and returns of these times of
ours, the Church remains faithful to the mystery of her birth. While
it is an historical fact that the Church came forth from the Upper
Room on the day of Pentecost, in a certain sense one can say that
she has never left it. Spiritually the event of Pentecost does not
belong only to the past: the Church is always in the Upper Room that
she bears in her heart. The Church perseveres in preserves, like the
Apostles together with Mary, the Mother of Christ, and with those
who in Jerusalem were the first seed of the Christian community and
who awaited in prayer the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The Church perseveres in prayer with
Mary. This union of the praying Church with the Mother of Christ has
been part of the mystery of the Church from the beginning: we see
her present in this mystery as she is present in the mystery of her
Son. It is the Council that says to us: "The Blessed
Virgin...overshadowed by the Holy Spirit... brought forth...the
Son..., he whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren
(cf. Rom 8:29), namely the faithful. In their birth and development
she cooperates with a maternal love"; she is through "his singular
graces and offices...intimately united with the Church.... [She] is
a model of the Church."285 "The Church, moreover, contemplating
Mary's mysterious sanctity, imitating her charity,...becomes herself
a mother" and "herself is a virgin, who keeps...the fidelity she has
pledged to her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of The Lord, and by the
power of the Holy Spirit, she preserves with virginal purity an
integral faith, a firm hope, and a sincere charity."286
Thus one can understand the profound
reason why the Church, united with the Virgin Mother, prays
unceasingly as the Bride to her divine Spouse, as the words of the
Book of Revelation, quoted by the Council, attest: "The Spirit and
the bride say to the Lord Jesus Christ: Come!"287 The Church's
prayer is this unceasing invocation, in which "the Spirit himself
intercedes for us": in a certain sense, the Spirit himself utters it
with the Church and in the Church. For the Spirit is given to the
Church in order that through his power the whole community of the
People of God, however widely scattered and diverse, may persevere
in hope: that hope in which "we have been saved."288 It is the
eschatological hope, the hope of definitive fulfillment in God, the
hope of the eternal Kingdom, that is brought about by participation
in the life of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit, given to the Apostles
as the Counselor, is the guardian and animator of this hope in the
heart of the Church.
In the time leading up to the third
Millennium after Christ, while "the Spirit and the bride say to the
Lord Jesus: Come!" this prayer of theirs is filled, as always, with
an eschatological significance, which is also destined to give
fullness of meaning to the celebration of the great Jubilee. It is a
prayer concerned with the salvific destinies toward which the Holy
Spirit by his action opens hearts throughout the history of man on
earth. But at the same time this prayer is directed toward a precise
moment of history which highlights the "fullness of time" marked by
the year 2000. The Church wishes to prepare for this Jubilee in the
Holy Spirit, just as the Virgin of Nazareth in whom the Word was
made flesh was prepared by the Holy Spirit.
CONCLUSION
67. We wish to bring to a close these
considerations in the heart of the Church and in the heart of man.
The way of the Church passes through the heart of man, because here
is the hidden place of the salvific encounter with the Holy Spirit,
with the hidden God, and precisely here the Holy Spirit becomes "a
spring of water welling up to eternal life."289 He comes here as the
Spirit of truth and as the Paraclete, as he was promised by Christ.
From here he acts as Counselor, Intercessor, Advocate, especially
when man, when humanity find themselves before the judgment of
condemnation by that "accuser" about whom the Book of Revelation
says that "he accuses them day and night before our God."290 "The
Holy Spirit does not cease to be the guardian of hope in the human
heart: the hope of all human creatures, and especially of those who
"have the first fruits of the Spirit'' and "wait for the redemption
of their bodies."291
The Holy Spirit, in his mysterious bond of divine communion with the
Redeemer of man, is the one who brings about the continuity of his
work: he takes from Christ and transmits to all, unceasingly
entering into the history of the world through the heart of man.
Here he becomes-as the liturgical Sequence of the Solemnity of
Pentecost proclaims-the true "father of the poor, giver of gifts,
light of hearts"; he becomes the "sweet guest of the soul," whom the
Church unceasingly greets on the threshold of the inmost sanctuary
of every human being. For he brings "rest and relief" in the midst
of toil, in the midst of the work of human hands and minds; he
brings "rest" and "ease" in the midst of the heat of the day, in the
midst of the anxieties, struggles and perils of every age; he brings
"consolation," when the human heart grieves and is tempted to
despair.
And therefore the same Sequence
exclaims: "without your aid nothing is in man, nothing is without
fault." For only the Holy Spirit "convinces concerning sin,"
concerning evil, in order to restore what is good in man and in the
world: in order to "renew the face of the earth." Therefore, he
purifies from everything that "disfigures" man, from "what is
unclean"; he heals even the deepest wounds of human existence; he
changes the interior dryness of souls, transforming them into the
fertile fields of grace and holiness. What is "hard he softens,"
what is "frozen he warms," what is "wayward he sets anew" on the
paths of salvation.292
Praying thus, the Church unceasingly
professes her faith that there exists in our created world a Spirit
who is an uncreated gift. He is the Spirit of the Father and of the
Son: like the Father and the Son he is uncreated, without limit,
eternal, omnipotent, God, Lord.293 This Spirit of God "fills the
universe," and all that is created recognizes in him the source of
its own identity, finds in him its own transcendent expression,
turns to him and awaits him, invokes him with its own being. Man
turns to him, as to the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth and of love,
man who lives by truth and by love, and who without the source of
truth and of love cannot live. To him turns the Church, which is the
heart of humanity, to implore for all and dispense to all those
gifts of the love which through him "has been poured into our
hearts."294 To him turns the Church, along the intricate paths of
man's pilgrimage on earth: she implores, she unceasingly implores
uprightness of human acts, as the Spirit's work; she implores the
joy and consolation that only he, the true Counselor, can bring by
coming down into people's inmost hearts295; the Church implores the
grace of the virtues that merit heavenly glory, implores eternal
salvation, in the full communication of the divine life, to which
the Father has eternally "predestined" human beings, created through
love in the image and likeness of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Church with her heart which
embraces all human hearts implores from the Holy Spirit that
happiness which only in God has its complete realization: the joy
"that no one will be able to take away,"296 the joy which is the
fruit of love, and therefore of God who is love; she implores "the
righteousness, the peace and the joy of the Holy Spirit" in which,
in the words of St. Paul, consists the Kingdom of God.297
Peace too is the fruit of love: that
interior peace, which weary man seeks in his inmost being; that
peace besought by humanity, the human family, peoples, nations,
continents, anxiously hoping to obtain it in the prospect of the
transition from the second to the third Christian Millennium. Since
the way of peace passes in the last analysis through love and seeks
to create the civilization of love, the Church fixes her eyes on him
who is the love of the Father and the Son, and in spite of
increasing dangers she does not cease to trust, she does not cease
to invoke and to serve the peace of man on earth. Her trust is based
on him who, being the Spirit-love, is also the Spirit of peace and
does not cease to be present in our human world, on the horizon of
minds and hearts, in order to "fill the universe" with love and
peace.
Before him I kneel at the end of
these considerations, and implore him, as the Spirit of the Father
and the Son, to grant to all of us the blessing and grace which I
desire to pass on, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, to the sons
and daughters of the Church and to the whole human family.
Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on May 18, the Solemnity of
Pentecost, in the year 1986, the eighth of my Pontificate.
1. Jn 7:37f.
2. Jn 7:39.
3. Jn 4:14; cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 4.
4. Cf. Jn 3:5.
5. Cf. Leo XIII, Encyclical Divinum Illud Munus (May 9, 1897): Acta
Leonis, 17 (1898), pp. 125-148; Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici
Corporis (June 29, 1943): AAS 35 (1943), pp. 193-248.
6. General Audience of June 6, 1973: Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XI
(1973), 477.
7. Roman Missal; cf. 2 Cor 13:13.
8. Jn 3:17.
9. Phil 2:11.
10. Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium, n. 4; John Paul II, Address to Those Taking Part in
the International Congress on Pneumatology (March 26, 1982), I:
Insegnamenti V/1 (1982), p. 1004.
11. Cf. Jn 4:24.
12. Cf. Rom 8:22; Gal 6:15.
13. Cf. Mt 24:35.
14. Jn 4:14.
15. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium, n. 17.
16. Allon parakleton: Jn 14:16.
17. Jn 14:13, 16f.
18. Cf. 1 Jn 2:1.
19. Jn 14:26.
20. Jn 15:26f.
21. Cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3; 4:14.
22. "The divinely revealed truths, which are contained and expressed
in the books of the Sacred Scripture, were written through the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit," and thus the same Sacred Scripture
must be "read and interpreted with the help of the same Spirit by
means of whom it was written": Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, nn. 11, 12.
23. Jn 16:12f.
24. Acts 1:1.
25. Jn 16:14.
26. Jn 16:15.
27. Jn 16:7f.
28. Jn 15:26.
29. Jn 14:16.
30. Jn 14:26.
31. Jn 15:26.
32. Jn 14:16.
33. Jn 16:7.
34. Cf. Jn 3:16f., 34; 6:57; 17:3, 18, 23.
35. Mt 28:19.
36. Cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16.
37. Cf. I Cor 2:10.
38. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo. Ia, qq. 37-38.
39. Rom 5:5.
40. Jn 16:14.
41. Gen l:lf.
42. Gen 1:26.
43. Rom 8:19-22.
44. Jn 16:7.
45. Gal 4:6; cf. Rom 8:15.
46. Cf. Gal 4:6; Phil 1:19; Rom 8:11.
47. Cf. Jn 16:6.
48. Cf. Jn 16:20.
49. Cf. Jn 16:7.
50. Acts 10:37f.
51. Cf Lk 4:16-21; 3:16; 4:14; Mk 1:10.
52. 11:1-3.
53. 61:lf.
54. 48:16.
55. Is 42:1.
56. Cf. Is 53:5-6, 8.
57. Is 42:1.
58. Is 42:6.
59. Is 49:6.
60. Is 59:21.
61. Cf. Lk 2:25-35.
62. Cf. Lk 1:35.
63. Cf. Lk 2:19, 51.
64. Cf. Lk 4:16-21; Is 61:lf.
65. Lk 3:16; cf. Mt 3:11; Mk 1:7f.; Jn 1:33.
66. n 1:29.
67. Cf. Jn 1:33f.
68. Lk 3:21f.; cf. Mt 3:16; Mk 1:10.
69. Mt 3:17.
70. Cf. St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, XVI, 39: PG 32, 139.
71. Acts 1:1.
72. Cf. Lk 4:1.
73. Cf. Lk 10:17-20.
74. Lk 10:21; cf. Mt 11:25f.
75. Lk 10:22; cf. Mt 11:27.
76. Mt 3:11; Lk 3:16.
77. Jn 16:13.
78. Jn 16:14.
79. Jn 16:15.
80. Cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26.
81. Jn 3:16.
82. Rom 1:3f.
83. Ez 36:26f.; cf. Jn 7:37-39; 19:34.
84. Jn 16:7.
85. St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Ioannis Evangelium, Bk. V, Ch. II:
PG 73, 755.
86. Jn 20:19-22.
87. Cf. Jn 19:30.
88. Cf. Rom 1:4.
89. Cf. Jn 16:20.
90. Jn 16:7.
91. Jn 16:15.
92. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium, n. 4.
93. Jn 15:26f.
94. n. 4.
95. Cf. Acts 1:14.
96. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 4. There
is a whole Patristic and theological tradition concerning the
intimate union between the Holy Spirit and the Church, a union
presented sometimes as analogous to the relation between the soul
and the body in man: cf. St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 24,
1: SC 211, pp. 470-474; St. Augustine, Sermo 267, 4, 4: PL 38, 1231;
Sermo 268, 2: PL 38, 1232; In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus, XXV,
13; XXVII, 6: CCL 36, 266, 272f.; St. Gregory the Great, In Septem
Psalmos Poenitentiales Expositio, Psal. V, 1: PL 79, 602; Didymus
the Blind, De Trinitate, II, 1: PG 39, 449f.; St. Athanasius, Oratio
111 Contra Arianos, 22, 23, 24: PG 26, 368f., 372f.; St. John
Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad Ephesios, Homily IX, 3: PG 62, 72f. St.
Thomas Aquinas has synthesized the preceding Patristic and
theological tradition, presenting the Holy Spirit as the "heart" and
the "soul" of the Church; cf. Summa Theo., III, q. 8, a. 1, ad 3; In
Symbolum Apostolorum Expositio, a. IX; In Tertiurn Librum
Sententiarum, Dist. XIII, q. 2, a. 2, Quaestiuncula 3. Decree on the
Church's Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes,
97. Cf. Rev 2:29; 3:6, 13, 22.
98. Cf. Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11.
99. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium
et Spes, n. 1.
100. Ibid., n. 41.
101. Ibid., n. 26.
102. Jn 16:7f.
103. Jn 16:7.
104. Jn 16:8-11.
105. Cf. Jn 3:17; 12:47.
106. Cf. Eph 6:12.
107. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 2.
108. Cf. ibid., nn. 10, 13, 27, 37, 63, 73, 79, 80.
109. Acts 2:4.
110. Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, III, 17, 2: SC 211, pp.
330-332.
111. Acts 1:4, S, 8.
112. Acts 2:22-24.
113. Cf. Acts 3:14f.; 4:10, 27f.; 7:52; 10:39; 13:28f.; etc.
114. Cf. Jn 3:17; 12:47.
115. Acts 2:36.
116. Acts 2:37f.
117. Cf. Mk 1:15.
118. Jn 20:22.
119. Cf. Jn 16:9.
120. Hos 14:14 Vulgate; cf. 1 Cor 15:55.
121. Cf. 1 Cor 2:10.
122. Cf. 2 Thess 2:7.
123. Cf. 1 Tim 3:16.
124. Cf. Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (December 2, 1984), 19-22: AAS
77 (1985), pp. 229-233.
125. Cf. Gen 1-3.
126. Cf. Rom S:19; Phil 2:8.
127. Cf. Jn 1:1, 2, 3, 10.
128. Cf. Col 1:15-18.
129. Cf. Jn 8:44.
130. Cf. Gen 1:2.
131. Cf. Gen 1:26, 28, 29.
132. Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, n. 2.
133. Cf. 1 Cor 2:10f.
134. Cf. Jn 16:11.
135. Cf. Phil 2:8.
136. Cf. Gen 2:16f.
137. Gen 3:5.
138. Cf. Gen 3:22 concerning the "tree of life"; cf. also Jn 3:36;
4:14; 5:24; 6:40, 47; 10:28; 12:50; 14:6; Acts 13:48; Rom 6:23; Gal
6:8; 1 Tim 1:16; Tit 1:2; 3:7; 1 Pet 3:22; 1 Jn 1:2; 2:25; 5:11, 13;
Rev 2:7.
139. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo., Ia-IIae, q. 80, a. 4, ad
3.
140. 1 Jn 3:8.
141. Jn 16:11.
142. Cf. Eph 6:12; Lk 22:53.
143. De Civitate Dei, XIV, 28: CCL 48, p. 541.
144. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 36.
145. In Greek the verb is parakalem, which means to invoke, to call
to oneself.
146. Cf. Gen 6:7.
147. Gen 6:5-7.
148. Cf. Rom 8:20-22.
149. Cf. Mt 15:32; Mk 8:2.
150. Heb 9:13f.
151. Jn 20:22f.
152. Acts 10:38.
153. Heb 5:7f.
154. Heb 9:14.
155. Cf. Lev 9:24; 1 Kings 18:38; 2 Chron 7:1.
156. Cf. Jn 15:26.
157. Jn 20:22f.
158. Mt 3:11.
159. Cf. Jn 3:8.
160. Jn. 20:22f.
161. Cf. Sequence Veni, Sancte Spiritus.
162. St. Bonaventure, De Septem Donis Spiritus Sancti, Collatio II,
3: Ad Claras Aquas, V, 463.
163. Mk 1:15.
164. Cf. Heb 9:14.
165. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, 16.
166. Cf. Gen 2:9, 17.
167. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in
the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, n. 16.
168. Ibid., n. 27.
169. Cf. ibid., n. 13.
170. Cf. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et
Paenitentia (December 2, 1984), 16: AAS 77 (1985), pp. 213-217.
171. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium
et Spes, n. 10.
172. Cf. Rom 7:14-15, 19.
173. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 37.
174. Ibid., n. 13.
175. Ibid., n. 37.
176. Cf. Sequence of Pentecost: Reple Cordis Intirna.
177. Cf. St. Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. XLI, 13: CCL, 38, 470: "What
is the abyss, and what does the abyss invoke? If abyss means depth,
do we not consider that perhaps the heart of man is an abyss? What
indeed is more deep than this abyss? Men can speak, can be seen
through the working of their members, can be heard in conversation;
but whose thought can be penetrated, whose heart can be read?"
178. Cf. Heb 9:14.
179. Jn 14:17.
180. Mt 12:31f.
181. Mk 3:28f.
182. Lk 12:10.
183. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo.IIa-IIae, q. 14, a. 3: cf. St.
Augustine, Epist. 185, 11, 48-49: PL 33, 814f.; St. Bonaventure
Comment. in Evang. S. Lucae, Ch. XIV, 15-16: Ad Claras Aquas VII,
314f.
184. Cf. Ps 81/80:13; Jer 7:24; Mk 3:5.
185. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia
(December 2, 1984), n. 18: AAS 77 (1985), pp. 224-228.
186. Pius XII, Radio Message to the National Catechetical Congress
of the United States of America in Boston (October 26, 1946):
Discorsi e Radiomessaggi, VIII (1946), 228.
187. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia
(December 2, 1984), n. 18: AAS 77 (1985), pp. 225f
188. I Thess 5:19; Eph 4:30.
189. Cf. Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et
Paenitentia (December 2, 1984), nn. 14-22: AAS 77 (19853, pp.
211-233
190. Cf St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XIV 28: CCL 48 451
191. Cf. Jn 16:11.
192. Cf. Jn 16:15.
193. Cf. Gal 4:4.
194. Rev 1:8; 22:13.
195. Jn 3:16.
196. Gal 4:4f.
197. Lk 1:34f.
198. Mt 1:18.
199. Mt 1:20f.
200. Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo. IIIa, q. 2, aa. 10-12; q.
6, a. 6; q. 7, a. 13.
201. Lk 1:38.
202. Jn1:14.
203. Col 1:15.
204. Cf., for example, Gen 9: 11; Deut 5:26; Job 34:15; Is 40:6;
42:10; Ps 145/144:21; Lk 3:6; 1 Pet 1:24.
205. Lk 1:45.
206. Cf. Lk 1:41.
207. Cf. Jn 16:9.
208. 2 Cor 3:17.
209. Cf. Rom 1:5.
210. Rom 8:29.
211. Cf.Jn 1:14,4, 12f.
212. Cf. Rom 8:14.
213. Cf. Gal 4:6; Rom 5:5; 2 Cor 1:22.
214. Rom 8:15.
215. Rom 8:16f.
216. Cf. Ps 104/103:30.
217. Rom 8:19.
218. Rom 8:29.
219. Cf. 2 Pet 1:4.
220. Cf. Eph 2:18; Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei
Verbum, n. 2.
221. Cf. 1 Cor 2:12.
222. Cf. Eph 1:3-14.
223. Eph 1:13f.
224. Cf. Jn 3:8.
225. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 22; cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium, n. 16.
226. Jn 4:24.
227. Ibid.
228. Cf. St. Augustine, Confess., III, 6, 11: CCL 27, 33.
229. Cf. Tit 2:11.
230. Cf. Is 45:15.
231. Cf. Wis 1:7.
232. Lk 2:27, 34.
233. Gal 5:17.
234. Gal 5:16f.
235. Cf. Gal 5:9-21.
236. Gal 5:22f.
237. Gal 5:25.
238. Cf. Rom 8:5, 9.
239. Rom 8:6, 13.
240. Rom 8:10, 12.
241. Cf. 1 Cor 6:20.
242. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, nn. 19, 20, 21.
243. Lk 3:6; cf. Is 40:5.
244. Cf. Rom 8:23.
245. Rom 8:3.
246. Rom 8:26.
247. Rom 8:11.
248. Rom 8:10.
249 Cf Encyclical Redemptor Hominis (March 4, 1979), n. 14: AAS 71
(1979), pp. 284f.
250. Cf. Wis 15:3.
251. Cf. Eph 3:14-16.
252. Cf. 1 Cor 2:10f.
253. Cf. Rom 8:9; 1 Cor 6:19.
254. Cf. Jn 14:23; St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, V, 6, 1: SC 153,
pp. 72-80; St. Hilary, De Trinitate, VIII, 19, 21: PL 10, 250, 252;
St. Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto, I, 6, 8: PL 16, 752f.; St.
Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. XLIX, 2: CCL 38, pp. 575f.; St. Cyril of
Alexandria, In Ioannis Evangelium, Bk. I; II: PG 73, 154-158; 246;
Bk. IX: PG 74, 262; St. Athanasius, Oratio111 Contra Arianos, 24: PG
26, 374f.; Epist. I ad Serapionem, 24: PG 26, 586f.; Didymus the
Blind, De Trinitate, II, 6-7: PG 39, 523-530; St. John Chrysostom,
In Epist. ad Romanos Homilia XIII, 8: PG 60, 519; St. Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theo. Ia, q. 43, aa. 1, 3-6.
255. Cf. Gen 1:26f.; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theo. Ia, q. 93, aa.
4, 5, 8.
256. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 24; cf. also n. 25.
257. Cf. ibid., nn. 38, 40.
258. Cf. 1 Cor 15:28.
259. Cf. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 24.
260. Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, 20, 7: SC 100/2,p.
648.
261. St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, IX, 22: PG 32, 110.
262. Rom 8:2.
263. 2 Cor 3:17.
264. Cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, nn. 53-59.
265. Ibid., n. 38.
266. 1 Cor 8:6.
267. Jn 16:7.
268. Jn 14:18.
269. Mt 28:20.
270. This is what the "Epiclesis" before the Consecration expresses:
"Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that
they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ"
(Eucharistic Prayer II).
271. Cf. Eph 3:16.
272. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,
Gaudium et Spes, n. 24.
273. Ibid.
274. Cf. Acts 2:42.
275. Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumensim, Unitatis
Redintegratio, n. 2.
276. St. Augustine, In Ioannis Evangelium Tractatus XXVI, 13, CCL
36, p. 266; cf. Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 47.
277. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 1.
278. Acts 17:28.
279. 1 Tim 2:4.
280. Cf. Heb 5:7.
281. Lk 11:13.
282. Rom 8:26.
283. Cf. Origen, De Oratione, 2: PG 11, p. 419-423.
284.Rom 8:27.
285.Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 63.
286.Ibid., n. 64.
287.Ibid., n. 4; cf. Rev 22:17.
288.Cf. Rom 8:24.
289.Cf. Jn 4:14; Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium,
n. 4.
290. Cf. Rev 12:10.
291. Cf. Rom 8:23.
292. Cf. Sequence Veni, Sancte Spiritus.
293. Cf. Creed Quicumque: DS 75.
294. Cf. Rom 5:5.
295. One should mention here the important Apostolic Exhortation,
Gaudete in Domino, published by Pope Paul VI on May 9, in the Holy
Year 1975; ever relevant is the invitation expressed there "to
implore the gift of joy from the Holy Spirit," and likewise "to
appreciate the properly spiritual joy that is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit": AAS 67 (1975), pp. 289, 302.
296. Cf. Jn 16:22.
297. Cf. Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22.
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