The Holy Spirit, this great unknown

When St. Paul asked the disciples of Ephesus if they had received the Holy Spirit by coming to faith, they replied: We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit (Acts 19,2). But there will also be a reason why the Holy Spirit has also been called "The Great Unknown" in our day, while he is the true conductor of our spiritual life. For this reason, in the year of the Holy Spirit we try to get to know his work in the brief but dense known instructions of Fr. Rainero Cantalamessa.

1. Do we speak of the Holy Spirit in the ancient revelation? - Already at the beginning the Bible opens with a verse that already presages its presence: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was shapeless and deserted and darkness covered the abyss and the spirit of God hovered over the waters (Gn 1,1s). The world had been created, but it had no form. It was still chaos. It was darkness, it was abyss. Until the Spirit of the Lord began to hover above the waters. Then creation emerged. And it was the cosmos.

We are faced with a beautiful symbol. St. Ambrose interpreted it in this way: The Holy Spirit is He who makes the world pass from chaos to the cosmos, that is, from confusion and darkness, to harmony. In the Old Testament the features of the figure of the Holy Spirit are not yet well defined. But his way of acting is described to us, which manifests itself mainly in two directions, as if using two different wavelengths.

Charismatic action. The Spirit of God comes, indeed, breaks out on some people. It gives them extraordinary, but only temporary, powers to carry out specific tasks in favor of Israel, the ancient people of God. It comes to the artists who must design and make the objects of worship. He enters the kings of Israel and makes them fit to rule the people of God: Samuel took the horn of oil and consecrated it with the anointing among his brothers and the Spirit of the Lord settled on David from that day on ( 1 Sam 16,13:XNUMX).

The same Spirit comes upon the prophets of God to reveal his will to the people: it is the Spirit of prophecy, which animated the prophets of the Old Testament, up to John the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus Christ. I am full of strength with the Spirit of the Lord, of justice and courage, to announce his sins to Jacob, his sin to Israel (Mi 3,8). This is the charismatic action of the Spirit of God, an action intended primarily for the good of the community, through the people who received it. But there is another way in which the action of the Spirit of God is manifested. It is his sanctifying action, aimed at transforming people from within, to give them a new heart, new feelings. In this case, the recipient of the action of the Spirit of the Lord is no longer the community, but the individual person. This second action begins to manifest relatively late in the Old Testament. The first testimonies are in the book of Ezekiel, in which God affirms: I will give you a new heart, I will put a new Spirit within you, I will remove the stone heart from you and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will place my spirit within you and make you live according to my precepts and I will make you observe and put into practice my laws (Ez 36, 26 27). Another hint is present in the famous Psalm 51, the "Miserere", where he implores himself: Do not reject me from your presence and do not deprive me of your Spirit.

The Spirit of the Lord begins to appear as an internal transforming force, which changes man and elevates him above his natural malice.

A mysterious force. But in the Old Testament the personal traits of the Holy Spirit are not yet defined. Saint Gregory Nazianzeno gave this original explanation of the way in which the Holy Spirit revealed himself: “In the Old Testament he said we clearly knew the Father (God, the Creator) and we began to know the Son (in fact, in some messianic texts already speaks of him, even if in a veiled way).

In the New Testament we clearly knew the Son because he made himself flesh and came among us. But we also start talking about the Holy Spirit. Jesus announces to the disciples that the Paraclete will come after him.

Finally, St. Gregory always says in the time of the Church (after the resurrection), the Holy Spirit is among us and we can know him. This is God's pedagogy, His way of proceeding: with this gradual rhythm, almost passing from light to light, we have reached the full light of the Trinity. "

The Old Testament is all pervaded by the breath of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, we cannot forget that the books of the Old Testament themselves are the greatest sign of the Spirit because, according to Christian doctrine, they were inspired by him.

His first action is to have given us the Bible, which speaks of him and his work in the hearts of men. When we open the Bible with faith, not only by scholars or simply curious, we encounter the mysterious breath of the Spirit. It is not an evanescent, abstract experience. Many Christians, reading the Bible, feel the perfume of the Spirit and are deeply convinced: “This word is for me. It is the light of my life. "