Raniero Cantalamessa

Come, Creator Spirit – meditations on the Veni Creator

Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 2003
Alison Morgan June 2005

Introduction
Veni creator is a C9th hymn by Rabanus Maurus. His sources were the same as ours: scriptures plus philosophy
(to tell us about God), history (to tell us about Jesus), and experience (individuals and the collective Church,
which we call Tradition). This last is the work of the Holy Spirit.
Cantalamessa’s book explores the work of the Holy Spirit through the verses of the hymn.

1. Spirit, come!
The name ‘Spirit’ is just a translation; his real name is ruach. It was first translated as pneuma, the name given to him in the NT. The
name ruach, like all Hebrew names, says something about the origin/function of the one named. We cannot understand the HS unless
we understand his name. Ruach means:

 The space/air between heaven and earth (why we have ended up saying ‘in the HS)

 Wind/breath. Pneuma and Spirit retain these linked meanings (inspire, respire). Ghost derives from gast – breath. Wind and
breath are more than symbols of the HS; symbol and reality share the same name. Wherever we read ‘wind’ in scripture,
people also understood ‘spirit’. The wind gave its name to the HS – in human experience we do not know spiritual reality
first, but material reality, and only then what is spiritual (1 Cor 15.46). ‘so it is that we start our study of the Spirit in the open
air’. Other symbols will be water, fire, oil, light. The Bible teaches us about spiritual realities by using as symbols the ordinary
things found in nature; God wrote 2 books, creation (made of things and elements in themselves mute) and the Bible
(made up of letters and words); these books explain one another.
 Spirit/wind hovers over the waters, Gen 1
 God formed man and breathed the breath of life into him, Gen 2.7; cp 1 Cor 15.45 where that breath is seen as a
manifestation of the HS
 Jesus breathed the HS on the disciples, John 20.22
 Jesus gave up his spirit on the cross, 19.10; and this was the same moment at which he gave the HS.
 John 3.8 the wind blows where it will; so does the Spirit

Wind and breath symbolise power and tenderness, movement and rest; and these are the characteristics of the Spirit.
The word ‘holy’ was used in association with the Spirit more and more frequently, from Isaiah 63.10 and Psalm 51 onwards.
‘Holy’ isn’t about morality; it speaks of the absolute otherness, it is full of the numinous; an otherness which demands
adoration and brings purification.
The unstoppableness of the divine breath is brought out by its association with power; eg Acts 10.38; Luke 4.414; Luke
1.35; Luke 24.49. It is this strength and power which keeps the Church alive; Zech 4.6 (not by might, nor by power, but by
my Spirit); 1 Thess 1.5 (message came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the HS). It is through the HS that
the Church ahs the power to convince and to lead; the HS is the source and secret of the courage and the daring of all
believers.
 Acts 4.13,31 – ‘they were filled with the HS and spoke the word of God with boldness’
 Micah 3.8, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might
 2 Tim 1.17 not a spirit of cowardice, but rather of power
 Rom 8.26 Spirit helps us in our weakness

Every single thing, in the life of the Church or in the life of an individual believer, takes its power from the Spirit, or is
without any power whatsoever.

In Semitic langs, the noun ‘Spirit’ is feminine, which led to rich development of HS as mother in the early days. Gnostics
abused this theme, so it was left aside. But of the 3 divine persons, the HS is the one least characterised as masculine.
Only from Isaiah onwards do the scriptures speak of the Spirit as one who enters into human beings in order to be with us
in an uninterrupted way.
 Isaiah 63.10-11
 John 14.17 Spirit will be in you
 1 Cor 3.17 temples of the HS
Basil: ‘the Holy Spirit is the one who creates intimacy with God’; cp Eph 2.18-22. 1 John 4.13 we abide in him and he in us,
because he has given us his Spirit. This is what intimacy with God means: God in us, and we in God, due to the presence
of the HS. In every experience of human intimacy, what people are seeking is intimacy with God, intimacy that is absolute.
The HS is the answer to loneliness, the greatest cause of human suffering. What overcomes loneliness? Not a crowd, but a
companion. Sometimes we perceive the HS as power, sometimes as tenderness – cp Moses and Elijah (Ex 19.18-19 and 1
Kings 19.12)

Wind is the one thing that it is utterly impossible to bridle. It cannot be bottled or canned and distributed fo r use at need… Wind, bottled,
is no longer wind, air in free motion; it is still, confined, dead. The rationalism of our day has pretended to circumscribe, to enclose the
Spirit in concepts or definitions, texts or tracts, more or less as though the Spirit can be packed in cans or sachets, like milk. But all that this
achieves is that the Spirit is lost, rendered trivial and vain. 20

We mustn’t shut him up in milk bottles of an ecclesiastical kind, canons and institutions and definitions. Wind is the most
eloquent symbol of the Spirit’s freedom.
Breath: we need to pray, just as we need to breathe.
Ezekiel 37 is the place where all three meanings of ruach come together – wind, breath, HS : the valley of the dry bones.

2. Creator
Ambrose: how could one deny that the creation of the earth was the work of the HS, if it is the Spirit’s work to renew it? And
yet it was the NT that first established the link explicitly, drawing on Gen 1.2:
 the dove which descends over the Jordan recalls the Spirit who in the beginning hovered over the waters
 Jesus breathing the HS on the disciples recalls the moemnt when God breathed the breath of life into Adam

NT describes the intervention of the HS in the new creation, making use of the images we find in Genesis concerning the
creation of the world.

Maximus the Confessor: The HS is not absent from any creature whatever… He is present simply in every thing in that it is
he who keeps every thing together and who vivifies all; he is present in a special way in those who are under the Law; he is
present in all Christians in a new and different way, making them children; he is present as the author of wisdom in the
saints who, through a divinely inspired tenor of life, have been worhily disposed fo rhis indwelling. 30
‘The Christian view does not see a distinct animistic moving principle in each individual being, but only one authentic,
spirutal moving principle thorugh which every creature is taken up into that harmony and order that is the work of the
Creator Spirit… In the Christian view the Spirit remains transcendent, while in the pantheistic view (eg Stoics), it is part of
nature itself.’

Use of phrase ‘Creator Spirit’ widens our understanding of the HS, whose work transcends the salvational activities of
sanctification and grace – the Spirit is active in every field, in the inspiration of poets and in every form of artistic creativity.

Gen 1.2 : the HS is the one who makes creation pass from chaos into cosmos, and makes of it something beautiful,
orderly, clean (kosmos and mundus both mean clean, beautiful). We cannot say that God was Creator at a certain
moment only; God is always Creator – not just in the sense that he keeps things in being, but that he continually
communicates being and energy; he moves, stimulates, enlivens and renews creation. ‘To create is continually to make
new’ – Luther, p 34.

Crucifixion – darkness came over the whole land. Jesus sent forth his spirit, and the universe became steady again, as if
reanimated, enlivened, made solid. The same applies in the microcosm, for we carry within ourselves a vestige of the
primordial chaos:

I become aware, Lord, that the world of my own spirit is still formless and void and that darkness still covers the face of this abyss. It is
truly in a state of confusion, a kind of dark and terrifying chaos, knowing nothing of its own end or of its own origin or of what sort of
being it is. That is how my soul is, my God! That is how my soul is! A wasteland, empty and formless, and darkness is upon the face of the
abyss. But the abyss that is my spirit cries out to you, Lord, asking you to make a new heaven and a new earth of me too! Guigo II
(Carthusian monk, MA).

There is a particular time of day when it is most necessary for us, when we are most ready to experience the creative
power of the Spirit – when we wake in the morning. Each morning we have a reminder and symbol of the emergence of
the world from the primordial chaos. The wonder is renewed.

3. Fill with heavenly grace the hearts that you have made
NT gives 3 words/images to express the coming of the HS to us:
  Be baptised in the HS (Mt 3.11, John 1.33, Acts 1.5)
 Be clothed with the HS (Luke 24.49)
 Be filled with the HS (Luke 4.1, Luke 1.15, 41; Acts 6.5, 7.55, and esp Acts 2.4)

HS was at work first in Creation then in Redemption. By the first we are God’s creatures; by the seond, his children. By the
first we are human beings; by the second, Christians. What did he bring at Pentecost that was new? Grace.
The distinction between the Creator Spirit and the Redeemer Spirit is not the same as the distinction between the OT and
the NT. The Spirit of grace was already at work in the Law, paving the way for the gospel. The one who spoke through the
prophets was the Spirit of Christ (1 Pe 1.10-11). The prophets enjoy a profound illumination by the HS, but the faithful enjoy
more – that the HS himself dwells in us and remains with us. The prophets were never called temples of the HS.

Baptism of the Spirit

Aquinas: There is an invisible sending of the Spirit every time any progress in Without the Holy Spirit:
virtue or increase in grace takes place… when someone enters upon a new God is far away,
activity or into a new state of grace: for example, when a person receives the Christ stays in the past,
the Gospel is a dead letter,
grace to work miracles, or the gift of prophecy, or when spurred by the
the Church is simply an organisation,
fervour of love a person risks martyrdom or gives up possessions or authority a matter of domination,
undertakes some difficult or exacting task. mission a matter of propaganda,
liturgy no more than an evocation,
A modern testimony: ‘I was in an aeroplane, on a journey, and I was Christian living a slave morality.
reading the last chapter of a book on the HS. Suddenly it was as if
But with the Holy Spirit:
the Spirit came out of the page and entered into my gody. Tears
the cosmos is resurrected and groans with the
began to stream from my eyes. I began to pray. I was ovedrcome birth-pangs of the Kingdom,
by a Power much greater than I.’ 55 the risen Christ is there,
the Gospel is the power of life,
Description of the experience which lay at the beginning of the the Church shows forth the life of the
Trinity,
charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church, p 55-56.
authority is a liberating service,
Bonaventure: ‘to whom does the Spirit come? He comes to the ones mission is a Pentecost,
who love him, who invite him, who eagerly await him’. the liturgy is both memorial and anticipation,
human action is deified.
4. You whom we name the Paraclete Ignatius of Latakia, 1968 (bishop of an
Eastern rite), p 59
In the Bible 2 lines of action emerge concerning the manifestation
of the Spirit:

1. The charismatic line – the one that presents the Spirit as a power than on certain occasions breaks in on special people, giving
them the ability to do things and to explain reality in a way that is not humanly possible – Ex 31.3, 35.31; Mic 3.8; Judg 13.25
2. The line of sanctification; seen in the prophets and the psalms after the exile; Ez 26.26-27; Ps 51.12

The main difference is that the charismatic action of the Spirit passes through, without remaining in, the person who
receives it; its aim is the good not of the person but of the community as a whole; the sanctifying action of the Spirit
remains within the person who receives it, is renewed by it and transformed from within.
The first line comes to the fore in the NT – gifts of the Spirit. The second finds its apex in new life in the Spirit and
particularly in charity.

John calls HS the paraclete (Jn 14-16). (Luke calls him the finger of God.)
Did John have the name from Jesus? It is a name about consolation, comfort, Is 66.13, as a mother comforts her child, so I
will comfort you. It must lie also in John’s experience of the HS. This is what they felt. The Paraclete carries out, point by
point, what Jesus said he would do.
It can also mean intercessor/advocate (1 Jn 21.)
John gives him 2 roles: he has a teaching role, his domain is that of knowledge – truth. The Paraclete is the Spirit of truth.
And yet he is also Jesus; his role is to bring us to accept, to interiorize, to comprehend, to live all that is revealed to us in
the Son.

It is not enough to study the meaning of the word Paraclete; we need to become paracletes ourselves – if a Christian
should be another Christ, he should equally be another paraclete. In a sense, the HS needs us – he wants to console,
defend, exhort, encourage, but does not have lips or hands or eyes to ‘embody’ consolation. Or at least, the only ones he
has are ours.
5. Most High gift of God
In many passages of the NT, the HS is presented as the gift of God. Eg John 4.10; Acts 2.38, 8.20, 10.45. Augustine actually
uses the term ‘gift of God’ as a title for the HS.

6. Living water
Let your book be the divine page to which you ought to listen; let your book be the universe that you ought to observe. Only those who
know how to read and write can read the pages of Scripture, while everyone, including the unlettered, can read out of the book of the
universe’.

In the voice of Creation we have a kindof primordial and universal sacrament. ‘Join the word to the element and you have
a sacrament’ – Augustine. Eg join formula of baptism to the pouring of water and you have the sacrament. Certain
elements of creation have become sacramental signs of the HS – water in baptism and a sign of rebirth in the HS; oil and
chrism in confirmation as signs of the Spirit anointing. Water is more than a symbol of the Spirit; it is an efficacious sign of
the Spirit – not only calls him to mind, but makes him present and active.

Key text John 7.37-39. The association between water and life is universal; remember Isaiah 44.3. The association
water/Spirit is found in every text about pouring, eg Joel 3.1, Zech 12.10), flowing, washing, and others. It finds its
culmination in John. Then at a certain point in the NT the symbolism disappears, and only the reality remains – which is
life. ‘The Spirit gives life’ – John 6.63, Rm 8.2; 2 Cor 3.6. And so to the Nicene Creed, ‘the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life.’

Water always runs down, never up; it seeks the lowest place. So with the HS, who loves to fill the lowly, the humble, those
who know their own emptiness.

7. Fire
Water engenders life, fire destroys it. The Spirit creates new life, but does it by putting the old life to death. Properties of
fire:
 Fire purifies; water washes the surface, fire cleanses through and through (Num 31.22; Ps 26.2, 1 Pet 1.7; Is 1.25
 Drs used to use fire to cauterize, treating a wound by burning it with a red-hot iron; HS is a spiritual ‘cure’ of the same kind
– Is 6.6-7. Stages of the work of the HS in us:
 remorse,
 confession,
 repentance,
 absolution,
 justification,
 fervour.

Remorse is caused by something which is evil in the sight of God; false guilt by things considred evil only by social
convention or in the worldly view.

Augustine: the fact tha tyou are not pleased with what you have done is the result of a gift of the HS… Though you are still pelading for
pardon, evertheless because you yourself do not like the evil you have done, you are already united to God, because you have come to
dislike what displeases him. You are both at work to cure your fever; yourself, and the doctor too.

From the point of repentance onwards, the Spirit continues to work as fire, not as one that purifies/melts down, but as
one that warms and sets aflame. These are usually mentioned together in spiritual writings.

8. Love
The HS leads us to experience the love of God. He is love in the Trinity, insofar as he is the bond of unity between Father
and Son; he is love in the Church, insofar as he is the bond of the Church’s unity, and he is love in each believer, insofar as
he brings the believer to a living experience of the love of God.
Augustine was struck by 3 things the NT says about the HS; that he is gift; fellowship; and joy.
In the Trintiy, the Father is theone who loves, the principle and source of all; the Son is the one who is loved; and the HS is
the love with which they love.
‘The Son is Truth, the Spirit is Love, and the Father is Power’ – this became a classical proposition of the Church. In the
Eastern churches, there is almost no theology of the Spirit as love; they prefer to relate to him as the ‘breath’ that
accompanies the ‘word’, and even more as ‘illumination’.
The Spirit is to the Church what the human soul is to the human body; the Spirit is the principle that moves and inspires
the whole. Augustine: you have the HS when you adhere to the unity (of the church) by the sincerity of your love.
From Vatican II, Catholics began to speak of the church as ‘they mystery of the HS in Christ and in Christians’. On the
Catholic side we had had the Church without the HS, but on the Reform side we’d had the HS without the Church. Where
the Spirit is, the Church is; where the Church is, the Spirit is.
A testimony: ‘all my life long, I had felt unloved. The next day, that feeling vanished enitrelyl. I felt myself immersed in a
new experience of the love of God, and from that day it has never left me.’ This is the most beautiful moment of any
creature’s life: to know that one is loved, personally, by God, to feel oneself lifted to the bosom of the Trinity and to find
oneself in the flood of love that flows betweenFAther and Son, enfolded in their love, sharing their passionate love for the
world. And all of this in one instant, without any need to think about it or for words to say it. P145.

9. Anointing for the soul

2 Cor 1.21-2 – it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his
Spirit in our hearts as a first instalment.

As an anointing, the HS is the one who makes us ‘smell right’, causing us to share the odour of sanctity arising from the
holiness of Christ.

Anointing is present in the OT in figure, in the NT as event, and in the time of the Church as sacrament. The figure
anticipates and prepares for the event, the sacrament celebrates it and renders it present and actual.

 Figure: anointing in the OT – kings, prophets, priests; each shows the anticipation of an awaited king, priest and prophet
who would in fact be the Anointed One, the Messiah. The anointing conferred a real inward power in bringing about a
transformation that came from God, and that was more and more identified with the HS (1 Sam 10.1,6 – Saul; 1 Sam 16.13 –
David; Is 61.1 – Isaiah)

 Event: Christ as the Anointed One, to whom these figures were pointing as their fulfilment; Acts 10.38 God anointed Jesus of
N with the HS and with power. The event is his baptism; Lk 4.18 the Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has
anointed me. This anointing achieves a sp purpose in the life of Jesus – it defines the moemnt in which he receives the
fulness of the Spirit as head of the church and as messiah. Previously he was filled with the HS, but as personal grace, not as
office. Ps 45.8 – Jesus was ‘anointed with the oil of exaltation’ – ie the HS

 Sacramental signs make use of an anointing either as the rite of principal significance or as a compelementary rite. Christ
wasn’t anointed with oil (apart from his feet), and he never anointed anyone else. In him, the symbol was replaced by the
reality. The practice of anointing with oil comes from 2 Cor 1.21-2 and 1 Jn 2.27 - you have not lost the anointing that he
gave you, and you do not need anyone to teach you; the anointing he gave teaches you everything.

Anointing in the Spirit also came to be seen as a way of life – Bernard, Bonaventure. Bonaventure says it not enough to
read the scriptures and pray, for without the anointing, there will be study without admiration, knowledge without love,
zeal without grace. And the anointing depends on the HS.

In Pentecostal and charismatic tradition it has come to have a third meaning – it’s used to describe the character or
someone’s ministry. It comes back to signifying an act rather than a habit – cp Acts 10.38, anointed with the HS and with
power.

Macarius (attrib), C4-5: those who come to be anointed in mind and in the inner man with the heavenly and spiritual oil of
gladness, that sanctifies and fills with joy, are receiving a sign of the incorruptible Kingdom and of the eternal power, that is,
the assurance of the Spirit, and thus, they are receiving the HS, the Paraclete himself. 165.

Anointing confers clarity that enables us to do what has to be done with ease and mastery. It’s like being in form fo r an
athlete, or inspiration for a poet. But it’s more than we can tell in words.

How do we get it? From being baptised and confirmed (1 Jn 2.20; 2 Cor 1.21-2). But this anointing will remain inert and
inactive within us, unless we ‘set it free’. As long as perfume is sealed in the bottle, no one can enjoy its scent – cp Mark
14.3; the jar must be broken. Jesus himself was broken on the cross so that the HS within him could be poured out, to fill
the church and the world with the Spirit’s fragrance.

There are times when we feel almost physically the anointing coming upon us – feelings are moved, the soul enjoys
clarity, assurance; nerves disappear, fear goes. We experience sth of the tranquillity and authority of God himself. Certain
songs are helpful in disposing us to be open to this anointing – the Veni Creator itself, or such as ‘Spirit of the living God,
fall afresh on me’. We all depend on this, even the ordained; ordination provides authorization, but not of itself authority.
10. Sevenfold in your gifts
What is a charism?
 ‘A gift given for the common good’ – 1 Cor 12.7; it’s ‘for the service of others’ – 1 Pet 4.10
 a gift given to ‘one’ or ‘some’, but not to all in the same way

Different from sacraments, sanctifying grace, virtues of faith,hope, charity, which are for all
Marriage and virginity are charisms (1 Cor 7.7), but don’t quite fit this twofold distinction
The Fathers include wisdom, prophecy, power to drive out demons, clarity of insight in interpreting the scriptures,
voluntary continence – ie they speak of both aspects, the common good and the personal aspect.
NT doesn’t use the word charism to denote an enhance/transformed natural ability; it’s always a manifestation of
supernatural power. It may be that a charism is supported by a natural talent, but it’s not the same. Maximus the
Confessor:

The grace of the most HS does not confer wisdom on the saints without their natural intellect as capacity to receive it; nor does he give the
gift of knowledge where there is not a natural rational ability to receive it; nor doe she give faith without total certainty of intellect and
reason regarding future realities; nor does he give charims and healings where there is no natural love for our neighbour, nor any one of
th eother charisms where the conditions are not right and there is no matching ability to receive them.in any case, no one will ever come
to possess any of the gifts we have mentioned through any natural ability whatever, but only through the divine power that confers
them.175

7 gifts – concept comes from Isaiah 11.1-3:

wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, fear of the Lord; plus piety (added in Septuagint as trans of the
second instance of fear)
Often seen in realtion to the 7 spirits of the Apocalypse and to the 8 beatitudes.

From Vatican 2, attention shifted to 1 Cor 12 and Paul’s list of the charisms, which overlaps with the OT one. The spiritual
gifts were reclaimed as active in the church amongst the faithful of every rank. They had never been lost, in that gifte d
individuals minister through them throughout Church history, and in that history is full of ‘charismatic awakenings’. But
they had been progressively removed from their proper spehre which is the community, the common good and the
organisation of the Church, and confined more and more to the sphere of the purely private and personal. Charism and
office got out of balance, and charism had been seen as sth conferred along with ordination, to be exercised by the
ordained ministry. Ireneaus speaks of the gifts of the Spirit as in use by many; but gradually they faded.
Pentecost is today! The 2 lungs of the church, charism and sacrament, are once again working together. The HS breathes
into the Church from above (through sacrament) and from below (through charism). But we mustn’t fall into the opp error
of expecting charisms to manifest selves in the Church always, or always in the same way.

Exercising the charisms

A charism is not given because of holiness; but it won’t be exercised in a healthy way if it is not planted in the healthy
ground of personal holiness. In particular, it depends on obedience (Jesus did not turn, at his extreme moment, to angels
or charisms or power, but to obedience). Then it depends on humility; Gregory the Great wrote that ‘when the charisms
and humility are in perfect harmony, it is a sure sign that the HS is present’. Humility is like the insulator on a wire carrying
electricity; it prevents shorts. Thirdly, it depends on love. Augustine:

If you love, it is no small thing that you possess. If you love the unity, all that is in it and everything that belongs to any one is your
possession too! Cast out envy. and all that is mine becomes yours, and if I cast out envy. all that is yours is mine. Envy causes division but
love unites. Of all the organs of the body. only the eye can see. but does the eye see for itself alone? Not at all, it sees for the hand and for
the foot and for all the members… Of all the body, only the hand can work at things. but obviously it does not work for itself alone, but
also for the eye. If a blow is aimed at your face, does your hand say, “1 am not moving. because the blow is not aimed at me”?’

11. Finger of God’s right hand

Jesus: if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the Kingdom of God has come to you – Mt 12.28. Exodus
31.18, tablets written likewise by the finger of God. Jer 31.33, God would write his law in our hearts; Ezekiel 36.26-7 this wd
take place when he put his Spirit in our hearts; Paul 2 Cor 3.3 says the community of the New Covenant is a letter of
Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, on tablets of human hearts.

Speculum virginum, C9:

The Spirit is Paraclete when he comforts the timid,
living fountain when he refreshes those who are thirsty,
 love when he unites in faith and practice people of various cultures,
fire when he inflames with love,
soul’s anointing when by anointing them with heavenly chrism he makes believers fervent,
finger of God when he distributes the gifts that shine forth amonth the faithful.

The title finger of God opens up a perspective on the particular manifestation of the Spirit which is the working of signs
and wonders. Miracles have to happen afresh in each generation, for a miracle not seen becomes an matter of faith, just
like the text which describes them; they don’t prove anything, they just themselves become something else which needs
proof. Acts 4.30 – Grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch your hand to heal, and
signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

12. The Father’s solemn promise

Lk 24.49 – I am sending upon you what my Father promised. Luke and Paul both speak of HS as a promise: Acts 1.4-5; Acts
2.33; Acts 2.38-9; Gal 3.14; Eph 1.13. The whole of the OT is a promise of the HS. The promise is for us – Acts 2.39.

Pentecost was initially the festival of the first fruits, the day when people came to offer to the Lord the first-fruits of their
harvest. Today, it is still the feast of the first fruits, but they are the first fruits of what God is offering to humankind in the
Spirit.

13. Gifting lips with the Word to say

Spirit and Word together create the world and keep it in motion – ruach and dabhar; Ps 33.6 by the word of the Lord the
heavens were made, and all their hosts by the breath of his mouth’.
Easter – the Word made flesh, from the cross, poured out the HS on the Church. Pentecost was the moment when the HS
put the word on human lips.
Charisms linked with the Word: tongues and singing in tongues, prophecy, discernment of spirits, teaching. In all of these
the breath of God mysteriously enters human language, giving it a new quality. The Spirit continues to do what he did
when he inspired the scriptures (though no longer in a normative way); cp 2 Pet 1.21, when men spoke for God, it was the
HS that moved them’.
So it is that preachers become aware of anintervention, a signal on another wavelength coming through his voice; he feels
sitreed, his words acquire strength and conviction, an authority which is not his own but which all recognised when they
heard Jesus speaking. Paul describes this in 1 Cor 2.4-5 and 1 Thess 1.5.
It follows that we need to allow the fire of the HS to enter into every word that we speak; otherwise they may make sense
but they will be without power. The word of God carries energy. Without the HS there can be no authentic proclamation
or mission.

14. Kindle your light in our minds

HS is like light. To read the Bible without the HS is like opening a book in the dark. The HS makes scripture come alive.

15. Pour love into our hearts

The HS draws us from love of self to love of God.
Jesus emphasizes the ‘spirit of truth’ and Paul the ‘spirit of love’. Orthodox teaching has cast Spirit as light into stronger
relief, and Latin teaching has given greater emphasis to spirit as love. Basil the Great, in his On the HS, gives no role to
Spirit as love, while Spirit as light is pivotal. Augustine in his On the Trinity makes no ref to the theme of Spirit as light, but
gives the pivotal place to Spirit as love. Same difference found within the 2 Latin traditions. The Thomist school is
characterised by the search for truth, the Augustiniean/Franciscan by the importance of love. Thomists develop the
mysticism of light, Franciscans the mysticism of fire. Bonaventure summarises: ‘the one is interested primariy in
speculation and sees the anointing as secondary, and the other is interested primariy in the anointing and sees
speculation as secondary’. Cp Dante.

At the time Luke was writing Acts, the Jewish feast of Pentecost was understood as a commemoration of the giving of the
Law and the Convenatn on Sinai. It had come to be seen not so much as a feast linked to the cycle of nature (harvest and
first-fruits) but more as linked to the history of salvation. There are deep biblical roots for seeing Sinai and Pentecost as
linked in this way. Jer 31, promise that God will make a new covenant, writing his law on people’s hearts; Ex 36.27 ‘I will
pout my spirit wihtin you’; 2 Cor 3.3. written not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts..
Augustine notes that Passover/Exodus+50 days = law given on Sinai. And Passover/cross+50days = Pentecost. Meaning :
the HS is the new law.
Relevance for us, who live in a computer and technological age – we have a great need to rediscover our heart, if we want
to avoid moving into a kind of ice-age of humanity. No one has yet suggested developing a computer that can love or
experience emotions or be affectionate; can you imagine using a computer to help you to love? We use atomic clocks
whose margin of error is 1 second every 2m years. Is technology outpacing life? We know very sell that the happiness we
enjoy or the misery we suffer here on earth does not depend on what we know or do not know, but rather on whether we
love, and on whether we are loved. Why do we concentrate so much on knowledge not love? Because knowledge
translates into power, but love translates into service…

16. Infirmity in this body of ours overcoming with strength secure..

This verse is about how the HS relates to our body. A human being does not have a body – a human being is a body.
Charism of healings. We need to be healed not only of our sicknesses, but of our attachment to our sicknesses (‘do you
want to be made well?’).
We are free to ask the HS at any time to heal us. If he does not, it isn’t because we have no faith, or God doesn’t love us,
or is punishing us. It means he’s offering us a gift more precious than healing – to bear suffering with patience. That will
last; healing won’t.

17. The enemy drive from us away

Jesus casts out demons ‘by the finger of God’ (Luke 11.20); ‘by the Spirit of God’ (Matt 12.28) – where the HS comes in, evil
spirits have to go out. The more the devil is left out of the ambit of fiath, the more prevalent he becomes in the ambit of
superstition. Origen and Aquinas were the 2 writers who did the most to build up a ‘theology’ of the devil – and the
periods they represent were relatively free of ‘demonism’.
Three phases in the history of treatment of the devil:
1. Represented as ugly, grotesque – eg Dante
2. Represented as beautiful – eg Milton
3. Not represented at all. Bultmann: ‘it is not possible to use an electric light or listen to the radio, nor is it possible to go to a
doctor or make use of clinical remedies when you are sick, and at the same time believe in the world of spirits’.
In the lives of the saints it’s very different; the devil is forced to stand out against the light. Temptation of Jesus. Fran cis of
Assisi: ‘if the brothers knew how many trials and how great are the afflictions the demons cause me, there would be not
one of them who would not be moved to pity and compassion for me’.
Augustine: the devil delights in being blamed for something. In fact he actually wants you to blame him. He is more than
wiling to listen to all your recriminations, as long as they keep you from making your own confession!.
Satan today is behind the fear and anxiety which dominates our age. The saints suffered fear at his coming – he gives
present reality to the possibility that they too might, if they so willed, rebel as he did : and to lose God is to lose
everything.
Caesarius of Arles: ‘the devil is bound, like a dog on a chain. He cannot bite anyone unless, having no concern about the
danger, they go too close.. He can bark, he can whine and entice, but he can bite only those who go close an dlet him. ’
Conversely, the HS frees us from all fear.

18. Peace then give without delay

The HS gives the peace of God. Peace for the Christian occupies the same place as nirvana for the Buddhist – it points to
the ultimate outcome of all things, the supreme achievement of the adventure of life and time. Peace is a fruit of the Spirit
– Rom 8.6; Rom 114.17; Gal 5.22.
Augustine: ‘peace is the tranquillity of order’
Scripture speaks also of the ‘peace of God’ – eg Phil 4.7; Rom 15.33. Peace is not sth that God does, but sth that he is.
Peace in the fullest sense is that which reigns in God.
Dante – in his will is our peace.
Peace comes down on a soul in the presence of the Spirit as quiet comes down on the field of battle after the enemy has
fled.

19. With you as guide we avoid all cause of harm

The Spirit functions as guide
 Pillar of cloud/fire
 Jesus was ‘led’ by the Spirit into the wilderness
 We are ‘led by the Spirit’, Gal 5.18
 Luke wrote Acts to show that the same Spirit who guided Jesus is now guiding the church
 Peter went to Cornelius and the pagans because guided by the Spirit to do so, Acts 10-11
The Holy Spirit guides us:
  Through conscience – cp Rom 9.1, ‘my conscience confirms it by the HS’
o He teaches us; 1 Jn 2.27
o Through inspiration/illumination
 Through the Church – eg the Spirit guiding the churches in Revelation
o The Spirit helps us discern the signs of the times; between spirits, 1 Cor 12.10/1 John 4.1.
o He guides the church sometimes directly, through revelations and prophetic inspirations; and sometimes in a
collegial way, through discussion to a point of agreement – eg Acts 15.28, ‘it has been decided by the HS and by
ourselves’.
o He helps us distinguish the Spirit of God from the spirit of the world.
Ignatius Loyola suggested that in decision making we should settle on one choice and rest with it as if made, for a day or
more, to test it.

20. Through you may we the Father know

The HS leads us to know God as the Father of his son Jesus Christ.
The best way to judge a theology of the Spirit is to ask, is it open or closed to a Trinitarian perspective?
The first thing the HS does in us is to make us see God in a different way. He leads us to discover:
 God is on our side
 God is suffering too
What should we ask of the Spirit – that he should make us know the Father’s love.

21. Through you may we know the Son as well

The HS in scripture never puts himself forward proclaiming his own name; he’s always telling of the Father or of the Son.
The Holy Spirit is God behind the scenes, 353.
There is no need for new theologies of the Spirit; if we lack the support of a lived experience of the Spirit (as they had in
the C4th when the theology of the HS was first developed) then we won’t be able to write about him.
Charismatic movement – reveals that Jesus is Lord above all else. Demons called Jesus ‘Son of God’ or ‘Holy One of God’
– but never ‘Lord’.
Simeon the New Theologian was a great poet of the HS. He said, if a rich man gave a penny to a beggar and the beggar
ran off to tell all the others so that they too came crowding to the rich man clamouring for a penny, the rich man would
surely be irritated – but the Lord would be irritated if the beggar did not run off and tell all the others, so that they too
should come to receive from him.

22. And you, the Spirit of them both, may we always believe
381 filioque controversy. Questions asked which are answered in the definition ‘the HS who is Lord and giver of life, who
proceeds from the Father and with the Father and theSon is adored and glorified, and who has spoken through the
prophets’:
 Who is the HS? – Lord, who proceeds from the Father and is to be adored as Father and Son are adored
 What does he do? – gives life
Irenaeus – the Father anoints, the Son is anointed, and the HS is the anointing.

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