Faith in the Holy Spirit
The Church unceasingly professes her faith that there exists in our created world a Spirit who is an uncreated gift. He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son; like the Father and Son, he is uncreated, without limit, eternal, omnipotent, God, Lord. This Spirit of God 'fills the universe', and all that is created recognizes in him the source of its own identity, finds in him its own transcendent expression, turns to him and awaits him, invokes him with its own being.
Humankind turns to him as to the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth and of love; human beings live by truth and by love and without the source of truth and love cannot live. To him turns the Church, which is the heart of humanity, to implore for all and dispense to all these gifts of the love which through him 'have beenpoured into our hearts'. To him turns the Church, along the intricate paths of humankind's pilgrimage on earth she implores, she unceasingly implores uprightness of human acts, as the Spirit's work she implores the joy and consolation that only he, the true Counsellor, can bring by coming down into people's inmost hearts; the Church implores the grace of the virtues that merit heavenly glory, implores eternal salvation, in the full communication of the divine life, to which the Father has eternally 'predestined'human beings, created through love in the image and likeness of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Church unceasingly professes her faith that there exists in our created world a Spirit who is an uncreated gift. He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son; like the Father and Son, he is uncreated, without limit, eternal, omnipotent, God, Lord. This Spirit of God 'fills the universe', and all that is created recognizes in him the source of its own identity, finds in him its own transcendent expression, turns to him and awaits him, invokes him with its own being.
Humankind turns to him as to the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth and of love; human beings live by truth and by love and without the source of truth and love cannot live. To him turns the Church, which is the heart of humanity, to implore for all and dispense to all these gifts of the love which through him 'have beenpoured into our hearts'. To him turns the Church, along the intricate paths of humankind's pilgrimage on earth she implores, she unceasingly implores uprightness of human acts, as the Spirit's work she implores the joy and consolation that only he, the true Counsellor, can bring by coming down into people's inmost hearts; the Church implores the grace of the virtues that merit heavenly glory, implores eternal salvation, in the full communication of the divine life, to which the Father has eternally 'predestined'human beings, created through love in the image and likeness of the Most Holy Trinity.
Yes, we groan, but in expectation filled with unflagging hope, because it is precisely this human being that God has drawn near to, God who is Spirit. God the Father, 'sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.' At the culmination of the Paschal Mystery, the Son of God, made man and crucified for the sins of the world, appeared in the midst of his Apostles after the Resurrection, breathed on them and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' This breath continues for ever, for 'the Spirit helps us in our weakness'.
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