Parish News

Every Sunday, immediately after the homily, we all stand to make the Profession of the Faith. And each Sunday, we declare, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.’

The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God sent to us, is indeed the Lord. ‘The Lord’ indicates the Holy Spirit’s divinity. God is Father, the Lord, and Son, the Lord, and Holy Spirit, the Lord.

As St Paul indicated in his letter to the Corinthians, ;No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.’ It is the LORD, God’s unsayable name, that indicates the godness of the Holy Spirit, jointly professed also of the Son and the Father.

This accounts for who the Holy Spirit is: the Holy Spirit is God. But what of the Holy Spirt as the giver of life? We might say this is the mission of God, attributed to the Holy Spirit. God gives life. At creation, it was the Spirit of God who breathed on the formless void, bringing about the existence of creation, and the gift of life itself to humanity, God’s image.

Life was God’s first action, and principal action. It was life that Christ gave back to humanity in the resurrection. It was life that the disciples received on the day of Pentecost, and was given by Christ. God’s mission is life, and the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of this mission, who is the giver of life.

The Holy Spirit is the source of the dignity we possess in our God-given humanity. This dignity is an expression of the very nature of every person, created in God’s image and redeemed as God’s sons and daughters. As such, the right to our very lives—the right to life—is the prerequisite for every other right.

In a special way, we should see this principal gift of God in Christ’s resurrecting gift of peace. ‘Peace be with you’ were his first words, immediately repeated to emphasise their importance. Peace is the gift of life, overcoming the destruction and death that is the product of conflict and rejection. Peace, given by the Holy Spirit, is the gift of life for when we have succumbed to the worst in our humanity. Peace is the gift, to be fostered in our own actions that build towards unity among people and between peoples, that allows for life to flourish.

This mission of the Holy Spirit is further articulated in the gift of forgiveness. Sin and evil are death. Forgiveness is life. God forgave from the cross. God forgives in the reception of his Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is for us to receive and to then give. To forgive and to be forgiven—these are the pathways to life. Jesus breathed out this gift of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. It would be the gift they would give in their apostolic mission. Now it is our gift to receive and to give.

The Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, is God among us and God for us. We are One Body in Christ because of the Holy Spirit. May we, the many parts of that Body, look to the life we are given when we receive the creative breath of the Holy Spirit of God.

Banner image: Juan Bautista Maíno, Pentecost (detail), oil on Canvas, c. 1615–20, Prado Museum, Madrid. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons.)

Written by Archbishop Peter Comensoli