Just as the Father and the Son are God, the Holy Spirit is God. The third person of the Holy Trinity is the eternal love between the Father and the Son, the life of God which is poured out on Catholics allowing them to love God and one another.
Called “the Lord, the giver of life” in the Nicene Creed, the Holy Spirit flows from the Father and the Son, always in existence and actively present throughout Salvation History, participating in Creation and speaking through the prophets.
Jesus became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, who later appeared as a dove at his Baptism and at the Transfiguration. The Apostles received the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them and gave them the ability to forgive sin.
After his Resurrection, but before his Ascension into Heaven, Jesus promised an Advocate or Paraclete Who would console, guide, and encourage his Church until He returned. The Holy Spirit descended on his Disciples at Pentecost.
Just as the soul animates a person’s body, the Holy Spirit remains active in the entire Church and her sacraments. Initially in Baptism and with a permanent mark in Confirmation, the Spirit allows the life of God to dwell within a Catholic.
The Holy Spirit’s gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord help to guide the actions of Catholics and to deepen their relationship with God.
The Holy Spirit also gives each Christian unique, supernatural talents or graces called charisms, to help them interpret, practice, and spread the Gospel and bring other people to God.
If a Catholic allows the Holy Spirit to work in them, they will then exhibit the Holy Spirit’s fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, gentleness, modesty, chastity, and self-control.
Although purely spirit and not a physical being, the Holy Spirit is manifested or represented as fire, water, wind, a seal, anointing, clouds, light, or a dove in the Bible to show how He is at work in the world.
The love of God poured out into the hearts of Christians:
Life in Christ needs the breath of God:
The third person of the Holy Trinity is active and present:
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.”
John 14: 16-17
The one who is beside us:
The same Spirit that filled the Apostles:
The Holy Spirit is God:
“Holy Spirit” is the proper name of the one Whom we adore and glorify with the Father and the Son. The Church has received this name from the Lord and professes it in the Baptism of her new children. The term “Spirit” translates the Hebrew word ruah, which, in its primary sense, means breath, air, wind. Jesus indeed uses the sensory image of the wind to suggest to Nicodemus the transcendent newness of Him Who is personally God’s breath, the divine Spirit. On the other hand, “Spirit” and “Holy” are divine attributes common to the three divine persons. By joining the two terms, Scripture, liturgy, and theological language designate the inexpressible person of the Holy Spirit, without any possible equivocation with other uses of the terms “spirit” and “holy.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 691
The Holy Spirit transforms:
The Holy Spirit carries out God’s work in the world:
We believe in the Holy Spirit, who is Lord and Giver of life, who is adored and glorified together with the Father and the Son. He spoke to us by the prophets; He was sent by Christ after His resurrection and His ascension to the Father; He illuminates, vivifies, protects and guides the Church; He purifies the Church’s members if they do not shun His grace. His action, which penetrates to the inmost of the soul, enables man to respond to the call of Jesus: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
Pope Paul VI, Solemni hac Liturgia, 30 June 1968
He makes it possible to be holy:
The Spirit gives the ability to know God intimately:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Discovering that the early Church was Catholic:
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