Introduction:
Following
the Ascension of Our Lord, tradition says that the
disciples gathered in the upper room together with
Our Blessed Mother for the first novena, nine days
of prayer in anticipation of the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples
to empower them to ``be my witnesses... even to the
ends of the earth.'' (Acts 1:8) Today, as disciples of Jesus, we too join
together in prayer for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our Dioceses,
our parishes, our faith communities, our families, and in ourselves. We are in
need of the power of the Holy Spirit to be effective witnesses of the love of
God for our world. Pentecost therefore, becomes the culmination of the work of
our salvation, that mighty plan of God's mercy which originated long ago when
the Lord first began to form a people for himself.
How many mysterious signs
can be discovered in this feast which link the old
dispensation with the new, teaching us that the law
of Moses was the herald of the grace of Christ, in
which it was to find its fulfillment! Fifty days
after the sacrifice of the lamb marking the deliverance
of the Hebrews from the Egyptians, the law was given
to the people of Israel on Sinai; and fifty days
from the resurrection of Christ after his immolation
as the true Lamb of God, the Holy Spirit came down
upon the new Israel, the people who put their faith
in Jesus. The same Holy Spirit was the author of
both Old and New Testaments; the foundations of the
gospel were laid with the establishment of the old
covenant. What a wealth of meaning can be found,
therefore, in the opening words of the second chapter
of Acts, "When the
days of Pentecost were fulfilled"!
Jerusalem
was chosen by Christ himself (cf. Lk 9:51; 13:33)
as the place of the fulfillment of his messianic
mission. It was the place of his death and resurrection
("Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up": Jn 2:19), and the place
of the redemption. With the Pasch of Jerusalem the "time of Christ" is
prolonged in the "time of the Church": the decisive moment will be
the day of Pentecost. "Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer
and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness
of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Lk
24:46-47). This beginning will take place under the action of the Holy Spirit
who, at the beginning of the Church, as the Creator Spirit (Veni, Creator Spiritus)
prolongs the work of the first creation when the Spirit of God "hovered
over the waters" (Gen 1:2).
DAY 1
TOPIC: THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE BLESSED TRINITY
The Holy
Spirit is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. In his intimate life, God "is
love," 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 ", 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. 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.
In
the New Testament the word spirit and,
perhaps, even the expression spirit of Godsignify
at times the soul or
man himself,
inasmuch as he is under the influence of God and
aspires to things above; more frequently, especially
in St. Paul,
they signify God acting
in man;
but they are used, besides, to designate notonly
a working of God in
general, but a Divine Person,
Who is neither the Father nor the Son, Who is named
together with the Father, or the Son, or with Both,
without the context allowing them to be identified.
A few instances are given here. We read in John,
14:16-17: "And I will ask the Father, and
he shall give you another Paracletes 24
, that he
may abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive"; and in John
15: 26: "But when the Paraclete comes,
whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit
of truth,
who proceeds from the Father, he shall give testimony
of me. Many other texts declare quite as clearly
that the Holy Spirit is a Person,
a Person distinct
from the Father and the Son, and yet One God with
Them. In several places St. Paul speaks of Him
as if speaking of God.
In Acts 28:25, he says
to the Jews: "Well
did the Holy Spirit speak to our fathers by Isaias the
prophet"; now the prophecycontained
in the next two verses is taken from Isaias 6:9-10,
where it is put in the mouth of the "King
the Lord of hosts". In other places he uses
the words God and Holy Spirit as
plainly synonymous. Thus he writes, I Corinthians
3:16: "Do you not know that you are the
temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" and
in 6:19: "Do you not know that your members
are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in
you . . . ?" St. Peter asserts the same
identity when he thus remonstrates with Ananias
(Acts 5:3-4): "Why
has Sata tempted your
heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit
. . . ? You have not liedto
men, but to God" The
sacred writers attribute to the Holy Spirit all
the works characteristic of Divine power. It
is in His name, as in the name of the Father
and of the Son,
that baptism is
to be given (Matthew
28:19). It is by His operation that the greatest
of Divine mysteries,
the Incarnation of
the Word, is accomplished (Matthew
1:18, 20; Luke
1:35).
It is also in His name and by His
power that sins are
forgiven and souls sanctified: "Receive
ye the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you
shall forgive, they are forgiven them" (John
20:22-23); "But you are washed, but
you are sanctified, but you are justified in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit
of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11); "The
charity of God is
poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit,
who is given to us" (Romans 5:5). He is
essentially the Spirit of truth (John
14:16-17; 15-26),
Whose office it is to strengthen faith (Acts
6:5), to bestow wisdom (Acts 6:3) , to give
testimony of Christ,
that is to say, to confirm His teaching inwardly
(John 15:26),
and to teach the Apostles the
full meaning of it (John
14:26; 16:13).
With these Apostles He
will abide for ever (John
14:16).
Having descended on them at Pentecost,
He will guide them in their work (Acts
8:29), for He will inspire the new prophets (Acts
11:28; 13:9),
as He inspired the Prophets of
the Old Law (Acts
7:51). He is the source of graces and
gifts (1 Corinthians
12:3-11lain ); He, in particular, grants
the gift of tongues (Acts
2:4; 10:44-47).
And as he dwells in our bodies sanctifies them
(1 Corinthians
3:16; 6:19),so
will and them he raise them again, one day, from
the dead (Romans
8:11). But he operates especially in the
soul,
giving it a new life (Romans
8:9 sq.), being the pledge that God has
given us that we are his children (Romans
8:14-16; 2
Corinthians 1:22; 5:5;
Galatians 4:6). He is the Spirit of God, and
at the same time the
Spirit of Christ (Romans
8:9); because He is in God,
He knows the deepest mysteries of
God (1
Corinthians 2:10-11), and He possesses all knowledge.
St. Paul ends his Second Epistle to the Corinthians
(13:13) with this formula of benediction, which
might be called a blessing of
the Trinity: "The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God,
and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with
you all."
