THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE LORD AND GIVER OF LIFE

Peter C. Phan, Ph.D., S.T.D., Warren-Blanding Professor of Religion and Culture in the Department of Religion and Religious Education at the Catholic University of America.

THE HOLY SPIRIT, AN "UNKNOWN GOD"?

Facing the daunting task of discoursing on the Holy Spirit, the theme of the 62nd anniversary of Catechetical Sunday and of the second year of the triennium devoted to the preparation for the third millennium of Christianity, catechists can breathe a sigh of relief. Thanks to a plethora of publications on pneumatology (theology of the Holy Spirit) since the Second Vatican Council, the divine person who has often been described as the "Unknown God" has acquired a familiar face. The widespread lament that the Holy Spirit is a "forgotten deity" in Western theology, if ever justified in the past, certainly is not now, after the works of Yves Congar and Heribert Mühlen, to name only two contemporary Roman Catholic theologians. Pope John Paul II himself has given the church an encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominus et Vivificantem (May 18, 1986).

Charismatic Experiences

This familiarity with the Holy Spirit is not limited to the rarified circle of theologians. On the contrary, since the 1960s, experience of and devotion to the Holy Spirit spread like wildfire through the grassroots of all Christian communions, including the Catholic Church. Indeed, one of the most amazing signs of the time is the worldwide explosion of the Charismatic Movement or Charismatic Renewal whose membership was estimated at the end of the 1980s to be over 300 million in 230 countries. Moreover, this powerful presence of the Spirit is discerned not only in extraordinary phenomena such as speaking in tongues and miraculous healings but also in the less spectacular work for liberation, justice, and peace by the poor and marginalized in base Christian communities.

How Do We Speak about the Holy Spirit?

In this context of the universal presence of the Holy Spirit, how can we catechists talk about this divine person, absolutely transcendent and mysterious yet more intimate to us than we are to ourselves? Different starting points are possible. One may begin with the biblical narrative of the activities of the Holy Spirit in human history, especially as presented by the twin works of Luke; or with the teachings of the magisterium, in particular the ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381; or with the affirmations of catechisms, especially the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), nos. 683-747; or with the classics of ancient theologians such as Augustine's De Trinitate.

In the footsteps of some contemporary theologians such as Karl Rahner, I propose a different three-stage approach. We begin by identifying some common experiences that most if not all of us have today and name them as experiences of the Holy Spirit; next, using biblical and theological images and categories we interpret these experiences and in this way develop a Christian theology of the Holy Spirit; and finally, we show how this pneumatology can be verified in our daily Christian praxis.

NAMING THE EXPERIENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Are there today experiences that can be said to be experiences of the Holy Spirit which on the one hand enable us to understand what the Bible teaches about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us and which on the other hand are confirmed by the Bible as indeed genuine experiences of the Holy Spirit? The answer is decidedly affirmative.

Extraordinary Experiences of the Holy Spirit

Let us begin with exceptional, easily identifiable experiences. These are frequently reported by people involved in the Charismatic Movement and include prophecy, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), and miraculous healings. When these experiences are genuine, they are readily recognized as gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul enumerates nine gifts of the Spirit (charismata) among which are prophecy, healing, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues (1 Cor 12: 8-10). These gifts, though extraordinary, are not confined to the early church but are being given to quite a few people even in our days.

Ordinary, Everyday Experiences of the Holy Spirit

But it would be wrong to limit the experiences of the Spirit to these spectacular events. Karl Rahner has convincingly shown that the experiences of the Spirit are not the privilege of the elite in the church but occur in the midst of daily life, not only among Christians but also among non-Christians and even non-believers. We experience the Holy Spirit in what Rahner calls a "transcendental experience," that is, when we are brought into the ever-elusive presence of God as the Absolute Mystery toward whom we necessarily, though not self-consciously, tend as our horizon whenever we come to know a particular object and when we choose in freedom to love someone.

Other experiences of the Spirit include the times we forgive someone without expecting any reward; try to love God though God seems to be wrapped in a deadly silence; perform our duty without anyone thanking us; remain silent even though unjustly accused; are crushed by the weight of loneliness and yet continue to hope; pray even when God does not seem to hear us; accept responsibility for our actions when tempted to blame others; enjoy the fragmentary experiences of love, beauty, and joy without cynicism; remain faithful in love despite betrayal; confront oppressive power with a word of truth about God's preferential love for the poor and struggle with the poor and oppressed for their liberation, even at the risk of our lives; accept our own death in freedom and peace. And the list can go on and on. Rahner calls these experiences "mysticism of everyday life," "the discovery of God in all things," and "sober intoxication of the Spirit."

Naming the Experiences of the Holy Spirit

Because these experiences are so common and even commonplace, we run the risk of missing the fact they are the "fruit of the Spirit" which is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22-23). Our task as catechists is to name these experiences as experiences of the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit does not remain a stranger but may be recognized for what the Spirit is: God's gift, God's grace, God's power in whom we live and move and have our being.

THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

This naming is followed by an interpretation of who the Holy Spirit is in light of the teaching of Scripture and Tradition. Even though the Spirit was actively present since the beginning of creation, the Spirit's identity was recognized only gradually. In this way, the expression "Holy Spirit," which in itself can be used of God in general, became the "proper name" of the third divine person, just as "Father" is the proper name of the first, and "Son" that of the second.

Images of the Spirit

Before strictly personal terms were predicated of the Holy Spirit, material images were used to describe the Spirit: ruach (breath, air, wind), water, anointing, fire, cloud and light, seal, hand, finger, and dove (CCC, nos. 694-701). Different titles have also been given to the Spirit: Paraclete (advocate or consoler), the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of the promise, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of glory (CCC, nos. 692-693).

The Spirit as a Divine Person

It was only in 371 at the Council of Constantinople that the Holy Spirit was confessed officially and dogmatically as "the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son)." It is further confessed that "with the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets." With these succinct expressions, the church confesses the divinity of the Holy Spirit as a "person" one in nature with but distinct from the Father and the Son ("with the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified" and "who proceeds from the Father"), even though it did not explicitly say that the Spirit is "God" or "consubstantial with the Father." Equally important are the council's usage of personal rather than impersonal and material categories for the Spirit ("Lord and Giver of life") and its insistence on the Spirit's action in history ("he has spoken through the prophets).

Contemporary Insights on the Holy Spirit

To these conciliar teachings, we could add further insights of recent pneumatology. First, there is an indissoluble unity between Jesus and the Spirit (CCC, nos. 689-690, 727-730), as Yves Congar repeatedly reminds us: "no Christology without pneumatology and no pneumatology without Christology." Second, there is also an intimate unity between the Holy Spirit and the church. Being the body of Christ, the church is also the temple of the Holy Spirit who is said to be the "soul" of the church (CCC, nos. 731-738). Third, there is a causal connection between the Spirit and all the sacraments, especially the sacraments of initiation. It is through the invocation of the Spirit (epiclesis) that the sacraments achieve their efficacy (CCC, nos. 739-741, 1091-1109). Fourth, the Holy Spirit is intimately linked with Mary who was prepared by the Spirit to be the mother of God and who conceived the Son of God by the power of the Spirit (CCC, nos. 484-486; 721-726).

LIVING IN AND BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Lest these truths of faith on the Holy Spirit remain abstract and irrelevant, we catechists must show how they truly shape the Christian way of life and are indeed validated by our praxis. There are two areas, besides liturgical and sacramental celebrations, in which the Holy Spirit acts to bring about our transformation.

Life in the Spirit

The first is our life in Christ which is also said to be "life in the Spirit." CCC recommends that we give "a catechesis of the Holy Spirit, the interior Master of life according to Christ, a gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects, and strengthens this life" (no. 1697). In this context we should explain that the "gifts" and "fruits" of the Spirit (CCC, nos. 1830-1832) and the "baptism in the Spirit" are existential realities truly available to all Christians and not only to charismatics. In addition we must insist that these experiences of the Spirit are found in the midst of daily life and not only in spectacular events and that they should be used not only for the individual's benefit but for building up the church.

Prayer in and to the Spirit

The second area of the activity of the Holy Spirit is prayer. "No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1Cor 12:3). "The Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings" (Rom 8: 26). "With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit" (Eph 6:18). The Holy Spirit is not only our teacher of prayer and the one praying in us. The Spirit is also the one to whom we should pray. We are urged to call upon the Spirit everyday, especially at crucial moments. The Christian tradition has given us two prayers to the Holy Spirit, i.e., the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, composed by an unknown author in the ninth century, and the sequence Veni, Sancte Spiritus, which was probably written by Stephen Langton in the thirteenth century. There are no richer liturgical texts for a catechesis on the Holy Spirit than these two prayers.

It is appropriate that at the threshold of a new millennium for Christianity these two hymns invoke the coming of the Holy Spirit whom they call "Paraclete," "Father of the poor," "Giver of gifts," "Kindly Comforter," and "Guest of our soul."

Through you may we know the Father
And recognize the Son;
and may we always believe
in you, Spirit of both. (Last verse of Veni Creator Spiritus)

Bibliography

Catechists may find the following works to be of great help:

1. Karl Rahner. The Spirit in the Church. New York: The Seabury Press, 1979.

2. Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vols. New York: The Seabury Press, 1983.