Below is the complete catechesis given by Pope Francis at the General Audience this Wednesday, October 16, on the Holy Spirit in the faith of the Church, the ninth part of a cycle dedicated to the third person of the Holy Trinity.
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
With today’s catechesis we move from what has been revealed to us about the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures to how he is present and acts in the life of the Church. The Holy Spirit is present and acts in our Christian life.
In the first three centuries, the Church did not feel the need to give an explicit formulation of its faith in the Holy Spirit. In the oldest Creed of the Church, the so-called Apostles’ Creed, after proclaiming: “I believe in God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, who was born, died, descended into hell, rose again and ascended into heaven,” it adds: “[I believe] in the Holy Spirit,” without any specification.
It was heresy that prompted the Church to specify this faith. When this process began – with St. Athanasius in the fourth century – it was the Church’s experience of the sanctifying and divinizing action of the Holy Spirit that led her to the certainty of his full divinity. This occurred at the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit with these well-known words that we still repeat today: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son], who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, and who has spoken through the prophets.”
To say that the Holy Spirit is “Lord” was like saying that he shares the “lordship” of God, that he belongs to the world of the Creator, not to that of creatures. The stronger claim is that he is due the same glory and worship as the Father and the Son. This is the argument of equality of honor, so dear to St. Basil the Great, who was the principal architect of this formula. The Holy Spirit is Lord.
The conciliar definition was not a point of arrival, but of departure. And, in fact, once the historical reasons that had prevented a more explicit affirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit had been overcome, this would be proclaimed calmly in the worship of the Church and in its theology. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, after that Council, would affirm without further reservation: “Is the Holy Spirit then God? Certainly. Is He consubstantial? Yes, if He is true God” (Oratio 31, 5.10).
What does the article of faith that we proclaim every Sunday at Mass say to us today? In the past, we were primarily concerned with the affirmation that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” The Latin Church soon completed this affirmation by adding, in the Creed of the Mass, that the Holy Spirit “proceeds also from the Son.” Since in Latin the expression “and from the Son” is “Filioque,” this gave rise to the dispute known by this name, which was the reason (or pretext) for many disputes and divisions between the Eastern Church and the Western Church. It is certainly not the place to deal with this question here, which, moreover, in the climate of dialogue established between the two Churches, has lost the harshness of the past and allows us to hope for full mutual acceptance, as one of the main “reconciled differences.”
I like to say this: reconciled differences. There are so many differences among Christians, because this one belongs to this school, this one belongs to the other school, this one is Protestant… But the important thing is that all these differences are reconciled in the love of walking together.
Once this obstacle has been overcome, today we can appreciate the most important prerogative for us that is proclaimed in the article of the Creed, namely, that the Holy Spirit is ‘life-giving’, that is, he gives life. We ask ourselves: what life does the Holy Spirit give? At the beginning, in creation, the breath of God gave Adam natural life; from a statue of clay, he transformed him into a “living being” (cf. Gen 2:7). Now, in the new creation, it is the Holy Spirit who gives believers new life, the life of Christ, supernatural life, as children of God. Paul can exclaim: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).
Where is the great and comforting news for us in all this? That the life given to us by the Holy Spirit is eternal life. Faith frees us from the horror of having to admit that everything ends here, that there is no redemption for the suffering and injustice that reign supreme on earth. Another word of the Apostle assures us of this: “If the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). The Spirit dwells in us, is within us.
Let us cultivate this faith also for those who, often through no fault of their own, are deprived of it and cannot find meaning in life. And let us not forget to give thanks to Him who, by his death, obtained for us this priceless gift!