Vol I, November 1998

Who is the Holy Spirit?

Dear Friends,

We are coming to the end of a truly unique year, a year which was dedicated by Pope John Paul II to the Holy Spirit. It is certainly the first time in history that a year was dedicated to the Third Divine Person, a Person who knows and loves each and every one of us. We ought therefore to spend some time reflecting on this Person. We will divide our meditation into three parts: first we will look on the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God. In other words, we will try to understand the Holy Spirit within the life of the Trinity; in the second part of this letter we will look at the Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus Christ; finally, in our third section, we will look at the Holy Spirit in our own lives.

The Holy Spirit as a Member of the Holy Trinity: Let us first think of God the Father. The first thing that we must say about this member of the Trinity is that He was always a Father. That should cause us to stop and think. Your father was not always a father. He became a father when your mother conceived for the first time. But God, He was always a Father. Why? Because He always had a Son. From all eternity He generates His only Son. There was never a time when God did not have a Son. The Father always existed, and He always had a Son. Likewise the Son always existed. He was always God the Son.

Next we should meditate on the fact that the Father always loved the Son, and the Son always loved the Father. God would not be God if He did not love Himself. What we are saying is that there always existed a mutual love between the Father and the Son. These two Persons were always bound together by reciprocal love. This reciprocal love is the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the Love of the Father and the Son. And, just like the Father and the Son, He too always existed. He always existed as the Father always loved the Son and the Son always loved the Father. The Holy Spirit is therefore God. He is the Love of God, just as the Son is the Word of God. All these Three Persons are equally God. These Three Persons are One God.

The Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus Christ: What does the word "Christ" mean? We speak so often about Christ, who is both God and Man, but now we want to explain one of the most basic truths of all about His humanity. He is the "Christ", in other words He is the "Anointed One". He is anointed by the Holy Spirit. He, more that all others, possesses the Holy Spirit. To make our point we could even say that the Holy Spirit "belongs" to Christ as He "belongs" to no other. No one enjoys the fullness of the Holy Spirit as does Jesus Christ.The Holy Spirit fully occupies the soul of Christ. His Heart was and is totally, completely, and utterly penetrated by the Holy Spirit. While we confess that Our Lady was truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we must also affirm that Her Son, Jesus Christ, even in His humanity, enjoyed a vastly greater participation in the Life of the Spirit than she did. Indeed, all her grace was a sharing in Christ's fullness.

The relationship that the Man Jesus enjoyed with the Holy Spirit is wonderfully expressed in the words of St. Mark: "The Spirit immediately drove him out into the desert"¹. The word that we have highlighted here, "drove", helps us to see that Jesus' every action was performed in response to the impulse (breathing) of the Holy Spirit. Christ delighted in allowing Himself to be guided by the Holy Spirit in everything. This even led to His death on the Cross. It was truly in the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus as Man laid down His life for us on the hill of Calvary. In the letter to the Hebrews we read of Christ, "who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God"². By this offering of Himself to God He earned for us a share in that same Spirit.

he Holy Spirit in our own lives: Just as Christ was anointed we too are anointed. We are other Christ's, we are Christians. However it is vital to remember that we received the Holy Spirit from Christ. Christ received the Holy Spirit directly from God. We did not receive the Holy Spirit directly from God, but rather "from God through Christ". Christ gives us a share in His Spirit, it is He who "baptizes with the Holy Spirit"³. We have therefore become Temples of the Holy Spirit. He truly dwells in our souls. This truth of our faith should be enough to provoke hours of meditation. As surely as you are reading this letter, even more surely is the Holy Spirit present in your soul, giving it life. He is your Guest. He is your Guest because He loves you and He wants to be loved by you. The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts should not only act as a powerful stimulus to avoid all sin, be it venial or mortal, but it should above all incentive us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.

In last month's letter we reflected on how our Guardian Angel is continually present at our side. He never leaves us. He remains with us to protect us. We should now, however, see why he is so faithful a companion. No one is as conscious as he that we are Temples of the Holy Spirit of God, and it is he who has received from God the task of protecting the Life of the Holy Spirit within our souls. By committing mortal sin we cease to be Temples of the Holy Spirit. For this reason the Angel has a deep hatred for mortal sin. By committing venial sin we prepare the way for mortal sin, because of this the Angel also deeply abhors venial sin. But most of all our Guardian Angel wants us to grow in love for the Holy Spirit, for Christ our Savior, and for God our Father.

The Angel himself is completely filled by the Love of the Holy Spirit. He is moved by the Love of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who unites the Father and the Son in Love. Now the Angel, in his love, wants to unite us more perfectly to the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

Let us therefore remain open to the inspirations of our Guardian Angel. He, as the servant of the Holy Spirit, will lead us to the fullness of life in God's Holy Spirit. With our Angel let us pray:

Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful,

and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.

V. Send forth Your Spirit, O Lord and they shall be created.

R. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

Let us pray:

God our Father, pour out the gifts of your Holy Spirit on the world.

You sent the Spirit on your Church to begin the teaching of the gospel: now let the Spirit continue to work in the world through the hearts of all who believe. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen. ⁴

¹Mk 1,12

²Hb 9,14

³Jn 1,33

⁴Votive Mass in honor of the Holy Spirit.