Catholic Faith
Legion of Mary
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Dominum et vivificantem
On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church
and the World
1986.05.18
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