April 12, 2015. This was the day my father died. When my sister called me and shared this news, I was totally sad. The death of my father was unexpected and it happened just one year before my ordination to priesthood. My plan, or rather, my father’s desire to join my ordination or see me becoming a priest suddenly vanished. With this sorrow in my heart, I returned home three days after his death. When I arrived, he was already buried, and there, in his cemetery, I sat down. Cried.
But there were also tears of joy after my father’s departure. My father left us a beautiful letter (his prayer) that was written one week before his death. In this letter, he wrote his prayers, trying to find God in the last days and hours of his life. Reading his beautiful prayers, I was consoled, knowing that my father was a holy man until the last days of his life. His prayers strengthen and console me. He gives me peace. There were tears of joy when I read it during the Mass, five days after his funeral. Through my father’s death and life, I experienced the Holy Spirit as a consoler and comforter. It reminds me of Jesus’ message to his disciples, “It is good that I go so that I can send the Spirit to you.”
We experience in one way or another the power of the Holy Spirit. We feel his guidance or gentle presence in our hearts. And that is why we always invoke his presence, “Come Holy Spirit, Veni, Creator Spiritus! But perhaps we are still wondering, and questions arise from our hearts, “Who is the Holy Spirit? How can we recognize him? What does he do?” These questions are perhaps still difficult to answer, especially regarding the person of the Holy Spirit, because the Scripture didn’t reveal him like the revelation of Jesus through incarnation. But, at the same time, we cannot disregard the truth that the Holy Spirit is always present in God’s revelation. Thus, the question about who the Holy Spirit is must be answered.
In creation history, the book of Genesis presented to us that the Spirit of God was moving over the chaos, over the water of the abyss (see Gen 1:2). The world in which we live is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Creator Spirit. The same spirit guided Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and all the kings, judges, and prophets in the history of salvation. Indeed, we can say that the Holy Spirit has been present in the history of salvation in many ways.
The presence of the Holy Spirit becomes more obvious in the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Holy Spirit is no longer “something” in which people can feel his power, but the Holy Spirit as Someone, Person just like the Father and the Son. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit a Paraclete. In fact, through the incarnation and life of Jesus, we can see the role of the Holy Spirit.
The role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ life can be seen at the moment of Incarnation. The Catechism states that “The entire mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of time, is contained in this: that the Son is the one anointed by the Father’s Spirit since his Incarnation—Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah” (CCC. 727). In other words, as Brian Gabbay underlines it, “the incarnation is from the beginning the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of the love that binds Father and Son (Mt 1:20).
The work of the Holy Spirit can be explored further in the life of Jesus. When Jesus was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit was present. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased" (Lk 3:21–22). The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus also took place when Jesus was tempted in the desert. "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil" (Lk 4:10–24).
Moreover, at the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus declares, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor (Lk 4:18). The link between Jesus and the Holy Spirit can be seen more clearly throughout his ministry. Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit to Nicodemus: "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. The flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit (Jn 3:5-8), and to the Samaritan woman, Jesus says, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth" (Jn 4:10–24).
Furthermore, Jesus does not reveal the Holy Spirit fully until he himself has been glorified through his Death and Resurrection. “Only when the hour has arrived for his glorification does promise the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of truth, the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in the answer of Jesus' prayer" (CCC. 729). In fact, before he ascended into Heaven, Jesus consoled his disciples, saying, "But very truly, I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn 16:7).
The inseparability of Christ and the Holy Spirit is described beautifully when Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit to his disciples, “Again, Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:21–22). From the New Testament, we can see that Jesus not only talks to us about the Holy Spirit, but he also calls the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus empowered his disciples with the Holy Spirit.
However, it took a long period of time for the Church to formally acknowledge the Holy Spirit as inseparable person with the Father and the Son. Thus, the Cappadocian Fathers offers to the Church a profound insight and teaching regarding the Spirit. According to the Cappadoacian fathers, the Spirit is one and of the same nature with the Father and the Son (Homoosius) and different persons (hypostases). The inseparability of this divine Trinity holds by the Catholic Church until now. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The one whom the Father has sent into our hearts, the Spirit of His Son, is truly God. Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, in both the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of Love for the World… When the Father sends his Word, He always sends his Breath. In their joint mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable." (CCC.689)
