3 rd Person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit
God the Holy Spirit

John 16:7

How is it to our advantage?

Our advantage? John 16:7-8
“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.”

Our Advantage
John 15:26 John 14:16
“When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who issues from the Father…”
“I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever, that Spirit of Truth…”
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.
The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son.

A Second Procession
WORD LOVE
Intellectual
Procession
The Son
Willful
Procession
The Holy
Spirit

Generation
The Willful Procession
Procession
Inward
Spiration
Outward
Generation is begotteness, requiring a similitude with the
Agent. As a self-conscious idea generation is rightly assigned to the field of intellectual procession; The Word & Image
Spiration is not-begotteness, but procession through willfulness– a vital impulsiveness and movement toward a mental apprehension.

Generation versus Spiration
The Holy Spirit’s origin must distinguish it from the Son, and thus cannot simply proceed from the Father, else appear to be the same procession as the Son.
Instead the Holy Spirit finds its origin from the Father & the
Son: hence, “We believe in the
Holy Spirit…who proceeds from the Father and the Son…”

“…who proceeds from the
Father and the Son…”
To say “proceeds from the
Father and the Son” means
“to be a gift of God.”
- St. Augustine
The Holy Spirit as “GIFT.”

The Gift of God
“A gift is properly an unreturnable giving– a thing which is not given with the intention of a return.”
“A gift contains the idea of gratuitous donation,” which issues from love and hope of well-being.

The Vulnerability & Kenosis of the Trinity
Both the Father and the
Son are making of themselves and their entire beings a complete gift-of-self, to sustain and honor the Other.
This complete self-gift is given out of love, and the very gift itself enables the well-being of the Other. Love is the first gift of the
Trinity– the only necessary gift, the total gift; Love-Gift.

Love-Gift, Person-Love, Person-Gift
“ Love in God can be taken essentially or personally” I.37.1.Ans
“ Gift as a personal name” I.
38.1.Ans
The Holy Spirit is the first gift , a willful procession of love, the gift through which all others are given.
It enables the Trinity to operate in
Itself and in Creation. It enables the many other gifts which follow from our knowing ourselves as sons
& daughters of God.

Love-Gift, Person-Love, Person-Gift
Ambiguous and Amorphous
Paraclete: he who is called to one’s side; Counselor, Advocate, intercessor.
The Spirit of: Truth, Promise,
Adoption, Christ, the Lord, God,
Glory.
THE HOLY SPIRIT: definitive, holy, spiritual.

Symbolism
Transformative and energetic.

Symbolism
Definitive, revelatory.

Symbolism
Animated, active, objective.

Who is the Holy Spirit?
What does He look like?
What does the Creed tell us?

The Lord & Giver of Life
“It belongs to the
Holy Spirit to rule, sanctify, and animate creation…power over life pertains to the
Spirit…”
CCC 703

The Lord & Giver of Life
The LORD fashioned man from dust (the Image)
Creation as an act of
LOVE. Life through
LOVE. The ‘why?’ of
Creation, not the ‘how?’
Then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (the
Likeness)
And thus, man became a living being.

Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son
Filioque Controversy:
“…and from the Son.”
Council of Toledo (589), comes into Latin Liturgy in 8 th -11 th Centuries
Council of Florence (1438): “The
Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration…And since the
Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Sons is also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Son.”

Who with the Father & the Son together is worshipped and glorified
Affirmation of the
Godhead, the consubstantial nature with the
Father and the
Son.

Who spoke through the Prophets
Spiration and Aspiration: the
Joint Mission of the Word and the Spirit.
The inSPIRATION of the
Good News: since the beginning and through the fullness of time, the Son & the Holy Spirit have been at work, together.

Who spoke through the Prophets
The Old Testament and the
New Testament speak from different vantage points: OT
 +  NT.
But the message is the same, articulating the Truth of the
Messiah, the anointed one.
Each writer is inspired to tell of the Son, the Word, by the
Holy Spirit.

Who spoke through the Prophets
Where the Son is, the Spirit is:
•
Creation: Word is spoken.
•   Christ is conceived (Lk 1:35,
Creed)
•
•
•
•
Christ is anointed (Jn 3:34)
Christ is glorified (Jn 16:14)
Mass & the Epiclesis
Theophanies of the OT; the Holy
Spirit reveals and conceals, CCC
707

Who spoke through the Prophets
The Fullness of Time: why not immediately.
Part of being helped is admitting that we need help.
Part of believing the incredible things that God has done for us is having them explained and preparing ourselves for the great revelation.

Who is the Holy Spirit?
What does He look like?
Clear as Mud. Still no visual.

Mission of the Holy Spirit
To unite all to
Christ and make them live with Him.
CCC 689

Mission of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost: Christ promises the Holy
Spirit to the Witnesses (Acts 1:8)
The Spirit is poured in abundance by
Christ… (Acts 2:33)
…into our hearts… (Rom. 5:5)
… to know the Father he has sent… (John 17:3) and the one whom
…to enable us to be
(Gal. 4:6) adopted as sons …
…the proof that you are sons is…the Spirit that cries out “Abba! Father!
” (Gal. 4:6-7)

Who is the Holy Spirit?
What does He look like?
WHO CARES?!
What effect does He have on you?!
Can you call God, “Father.”

The Vortex of Love
The Glorious Love Affair:
The Spirit sweeps through our lives, sanctifying us by drawing us ever-closer to
Christ, conforming us to
Him, that we may be united to Him and enjoy the Divine Life.

The Gift, the Love, the Holy
Spirit
“He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
WHAT IS CHRIST’S?
The Father’s Love.

In his intimate life, God is love, the essential love shared by the three divine Persons: personal love is the Holy
Spirit as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Therefore, he searches even the depths of God, as uncreated Love-
Gift. It can be said that in the Holy Spirit the intimate life of the Triune God becomes totally gift, an exchange of mutual love between the divine persons and that through the Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift.
It is the Holy Spirit who is the personal expression of this self-giving, of this being-love. He is Person-Love. He is Person-Gift. Here we have an inexpressible deepening of the concept of the 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 which derives as from its source all giving of gifts vis-à-vis creatures: the fit 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.”

Christ’s farewell discourse at the Last
Supper stands in particular reference to this giving and self-giving of the
Holy Spirit…In John 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 Redemption.
[WE ARE TAKEN IN]

What begins at Christ’s departure is the new salvific self-giving of God, in the
Holy Spirit.
[THAT IS WHY IT IS TO OUR
ADVANTAGE]
“If I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” Describing this departure as a condition for the “coming” of the
Counselor, Christ links the new beginning of God’s salvific selfcommunication in the Holy Spirit with the mystery of the Redemption.
-Bl. John Paul the Great, Dominum et Vivificantem