113. The Holy Spirit is worshiped as God just like the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit is worshiped as God just like the Father and the Son.

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 113

Ave Maria series

I Believe in the Holy Spirit

113  What does it mean to say: I believe in the Holy Spirit?

To believe in the Holy Spirit means to worship him as God just like the Father and the Son.  It means to believe that the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts so that we as children of God might know our Father in heaven.  Moved by God’s Spirit, we can change the face of the earth.  [683-686]

The  Holy Spirit as Dove (detail) c. 1660. …..113

Before his death, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send them “another Counselor” (John 14:16) when he was no longer with them.  Then when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples of the original Church, they learned what Jesus had meant.  They experienced a deep assurance and joy in their faith and received particular charisms; in other words, they could prophesy, heal, and work miracles.  To this day there are people in the Church who possess such gifts and have these experiences.  35-38, 310-311

Charisms (from the Greek charis=gift, grace, favor, charm): a name for the gratuitous gifts of the Holy Spirit as they are described, for example, in 1 Corinthians 12:6ff,: the gift of healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, speaking in tongues, and the gift of interpreting them, wisdom, knowledge, firmness in faith, and so on.  Also included are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord; and there are special gifts for governing, administering, performing works of charity, and proclaiming the faith.

[683-686]

I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT

683 "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit."( 1 Corinthians 12:3.)¹ "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!"'(Galatians 4:6)² This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

Baptism gives us the grace of new birth in God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. For those who bear God's Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son, and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is impossible to see God's Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of God's Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit.( St. Irenaeus, Dem. ap. 7: Sources Chretiennes 62,41-42.)³ –CCC

684 Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to awaken faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to "know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ."( John 17:3.)⁴ But the Spirit is the last of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be revealed. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, explains this progression in terms of the pedagogy of divine "condescension": --CCC

The Old Testament proclaimed the Father clearly, but the Son more obscurely. The New Testament revealed the Son and gave us a glimpse of the divinity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit dwells among us and grants us a clearer vision of himself. It was not prudent, when the divinity of the Father had not yet been confessed, to proclaim the Son openly and, when the divinity of the Son was not yet admitted, to add the Holy Spirit as an extra burden, to speak somewhat daringly. . . . By advancing and progressing "from glory to glory," the light of the Trinity will shine in ever more brilliant rays.( St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio theol.,5,26 (= Oratio 31,26):Patrologia Graeca 36,161-163.)⁵ –CCC

685 To believe in the Holy Spirit is to profess that the Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, consubstantial with the Father and the Son: "with the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified."( Nicene Creed; see above, par. 465.)⁶ For this reason, the divine mystery of the Holy Spirit was already treated in the context of Trinitarian "theology." Here, however, we have to do with the Holy Spirit only in the divine "economy." –CCC

686 The Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the plan for our salvation, but in these "end times," ushered in by the Son's redeeming Incarnation, the Spirit is revealed and given, recognized and welcomed as a person. Now can this divine plan, accomplished in Christ, the firstborn and head of the new creation, be embodied in mankind by the outpouring of the Spirit: as the Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. –CCC

Trinity  Holy