The Holy Spirit: "Lord and Giver of Life"

Anne Lastman

Contents - Feb 2014 - Buy a copy now Editorial: In defence of marriage - Peter Westmore Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel: Pope Francis' challenge - Peter Westmore Victorian Inquiry: First report into clerical sex abuse released - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World Pope Francis repeats world peace plea Protecting the family: building the home - Carmen Pavia iWitness 2013 retreat: another young Catholics success story - Br Barry Coldrey Art: Interview with Tommy Canning: art in the service of truth The Holy Spirit: "Lord and Giver of Life" - Anne Lastman The transforming power of Eucharistic Adoration - Fr Joel Wallace Letters: Protecting the unborn - Bob Hogarth Letters: Religious instruction - Mrs Rowan Shann Letters: Spirit of Vatican II - Murray Cook Letters: Religious freedom - Keiron Long Letters: Climate propaganda Books: MANALIVE by G.K. Chesterton - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: THE IMITATION OF CHRIST by Thomas a Kempis - Br Barry Coldrey (reviewer) Books: TO BONEGILLA FROM SOMEWHERE, by Wanda Skowronska - Michael Gilchrist (reviewer) Support: Fighting Fund ends on high note! Books: Order books from www.freedompublishing.com.au Reflections: Australia Day: A time for thanks and commitment - Cardinal George Pell

He Breathed on Adam and Adam began to live.

We first encounter the breath of God in Genesis 2:7 where until the breath is breathed into the shaped human person it had remained inanimate, lifeless. It was the breath of God which animated the new creation.

It was the Spirit being breathed into the new creation which animated this creation. Indeed it was this breath that made the human being whose physical reality is composed of water, proteins and carbons, into something entirely different. The chemical reaction which that "breath" brought about was what changed the order completely from all the other created order.

This new order, created in Imago Dei (the image of God) now, was different from all the other creation.

We believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of Life.

The first truth about the Holy Spirit which we proclaim when we say the Creed is that the Holy Spirit is Lord. He is Kyrios. He is equal in every way to the Father and the Son. His divinity is no different, lesser or even greater than theirs. His knowledge, power, authority is not different.

After the Council of Nicaea (325AD) when the Son Jesus was declared of the same ousios (essence) as the Father, under the impetus of Ath-anasius and the Cappadocian Fathers, the Council of Constantinople in 381 concentrated on the mission of the Holy Spirit and declared, "We believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord and Giver of Life who proceeds from the Father and together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified."

In this Council, the Church fath-ers concentrated more on the work and role of the Holy Spirit as Life Giver. This of course means that the Holy Spirit is involved with the creative works of God the Father on the physical and spiritual level, that is, the supernatural life of grace.

The Holy Spirit does not excuse or distract us from the teachings of the Father or of Jesus. In the Gospels when Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, He said, "He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16:13-14).

And knowing this, it will be impossible to be led away from the will of the Father and the Son and of course the Church founded by Jesus.

In His role of vivifying and deifying the creature which God has called into being He transforms the creature from inanimate to life-filled and from sin to grace.

He is the guarantee of the unity between God and His created beings. He is the inward principle of each new life, a principle given by God and received at creation and at re-creation (baptism).

Life of Christ

The Holy Spirit dwells within the new creation, makes the creation a child of God, establishes within him/her the life of Christ, and where this happens removes the principle of evil and sin.

This indwelling becomes for the creation a principle of love, holiness and sanctification. In the words of Lumen Gentium, the Holy Spirit is the soul animating and securing the Mystical Body of Christ (Rom 5:5).

We first meet this mysterious being as the "breath" over the waters at the beginning of creation. It is a new beginning in relation to the original beginning of God's self-giving in creation (Dominum Vivificantem 3). Thus this brings order from chaos (Genesis 1:1-3).

We see Him again breathing over the apostles, giving them authority to forgive sins and to bring new order and life out of the chaos which is sin.

The Holy Spirit is Lord and Giver of Life because He is pure love and life and love are entwined and necessarily linked because "God is Love" (Ps 103, 1Jn 4:8) and in the words of Jesus, "I am the Life" (Jn 11:25). The Holy Spirit is the love and the life by which the Father and the Son love together to bring forth a new life, their pure essence the Holy Spirit.

When a man and a woman, made in the image and likeness of God, unite, one aspect of that "image and likeness" is that the union is so dynamic so life-giving that it will bring forth a new life. The language that their body speaks is one of love and the word spoken by the body is enfleshing (Theology of the Body, John Paul II). Thus we have a new creation, a new beginning and a new spirit in creation.

The Holy Spirit enters into the life created, vivifies it, and establishes Himself as gift from the Father God who enters into a union with His creation. The Holy Spirit is the source of life (Jn 6:63), as St Augustine would say, He is "Gift", or as St Thomas Aquinas would say, he is "Love." He is the Lover, beloved and the Love between them.

In the beautiful document Humanae Vitae, we find the proclamation and confirmation that love and life are linked and not two separate entities. The reason for this is because they are the same.

God is Love (Ps 103) and God is Life (Jn 11:25). It is the self-giving between God and His Son Jesus which gives life and love and this by another name is the Holy Spirit.

When a man and a woman who are made in Imago Dei give purely of themselves in love then their love also gives and creates new life.

The Holy Spirit, as the Lord and Giver of Life, has played a major and special role in the formulation of Humanae Vitae because through this document the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, beautifully teaches us in love and truth about the inner life of God.

Through this document He speaks of His authority over life and the tragic outcomes if attempts to remove Him from creation are pursued, because in truth we are not in control but we belong to God, are created for God and our destination is back towards Him. "You are not your own. You have been bought at a price", says St Paul in 1 Corinthians (ICor 6:19-20).

Openness to life is not some-thing added as an afterthought to the sexual act but it is the very essence of the act to accept life as its gift. The most intimate act of two human beings opens the gateway to a gift being given and that gift is "Life."

God has merged life, love and sexuality together because they belong together, as one cannot be without the other. One without the other is empty.

Utilitarian

Today there is a tragic loss of this understanding and as a result of this loss sexuality has become utilitarian. Today we have a society which has separated "love" and "life" and thus rendered both empty. It is a society overwhelmed and over-sexualised but in reality empty because the mystery of the author of love and life is removed from the very act which is designed by its author, the Holy Spirit, God.

The mystery is the uni-dual being as Pope Benedict says in Deus Caritas Est (5): "Spirit and matter con-penetrate each other" and in doing so both are elevated to great heights. Further to this, sexuality cannot be separated from its mystery of con-penetration because if it is separated then it becomes an act of the instincts and something used and abused.

Today we live in a culture where the body is seen merely as a physical entity, thus losing sight of the inseparable bond between the body and the spirit and indeed we are seeing the attempted uncoupling of the body from the spirit (contraception and abortion) and the ensuing degradation of the human body by our attempts to remove the transcendent dimension breathed within the creation.

The Holy Word of God (our Scriptures) reveal something amazingly beautiful and that is that this life that is given is God's life and love and freely given and He lives it through us. In other words, in accepting life and carrying out our roles and duties, we enter into a life, love, and freedom far superior to anything that could ever have been achieved on our own.

This life, love and freedom are gifts from our God, through the Lord and Giver of Life whose work is to continue until the end of time when the Spirit and the "Bride" who has been sanctified by the Holy Spirit say together, "Maranatha ... Come Lord Jesus, come" (Rev. 22:17).

Jesus presented the Holy Spirit as the possessor of truth, life and power and points to Him as the one who is personified divine love (Jn 17:26). As the spirit of truth He enables us to grasp the truth of our faith and to be able to see the meaning and purpose of creation. He is the principle which clearly shows us our value in the mind and heart of God, our eternal destiny and our raison d'être.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Life because he is the Lord charged with vivifying and sanctifying the life created by the Father and redeemed by the Son.

Kilian O'Donnell has expressed beautifully his idea of the Holy Spirit as being the light which shines on Christ and makes Him clearly visible, or as Walter Kasper would say, the Holy Spirit is the "divine ecstasy". He is the ecstasy of God. (How beautiful!)

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of divine power when we recognise the action of the Holy Spirit who is the source of all pardon, mercy, grace, healing and renewal from sin to peace. It is one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit to convince the world of sin (Jn 16:8) and His other task is to lead the sinner from the absence of holiness to holiness. His is the activity which completes the works of human beings, sanctifies their completed works and who then offers the works to the Father.

As the "comforter" promised by Jesus, He is in the sacrament of reconciliation when we hear the healing and consoling words, "God the father of Mercies has sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins."

Comforting are the words and anointing which release us from bind-ing pain. He is the comforter, companion, intercessor, and reconciler who has faith in us that we can overcome sin, repent and find forgiveness in the middle of all that is difficult in our own lives, in society and the world.

The Holy Spirit is also teacher. In my work as a Catholic post abortion grief counsellor, I help my clients to learn about, meet and fall in love with the baby/s they have aborted and learn of a God who has never abandoned them. The Holy Spirit is the inner guide who helps me in this work. He is the consoler of the pain and sorrow and hurt over the sin of abortion, even though He Himself has been deeply wounded in the rejection of His gift of a new life. He becomes the comforter of their pain.

He is attentive to the voice of pain and consoles. He rekindles love within abortive hearts so that they can learn to love again and recover. He helps individuals to believe they can be forgiven, even though they doubt whether they should be.

He is the priceless Gift of God who whispers words of love even when it is difficult to hear these words. He continues to whisper them and to love.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 27 No 1 (February 2014), p. 12