Pentecost (50th day) and the birth of the Church

Who is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, it is God, it is His powerful action that permeates creation with Love and Life. It is existence itself. We know Him also as the third person of the Holy Trinity.

As we look at the attributes of God, who is One, we may say that God the Father is the Absolute Power and Will, God the Son is His Word and command, God the Holy Spirit is the action of God which is Love.

The Holy Spirit is a fire of Divine Love that comes to touch us and refine us in an ardent desire to possess God. It gives us a passion for God, it destroys all the earthly affections because it opens our spiritual eyes to see how precious God is.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God the Father and of God the Son, so it moves us to cry Abba which means "daddy" and as children of God we come to trust God more than we have trusted before, it also moves us to accept Christ in our lives as our model, way, truth and life.

The fire of the Holy Spirit enkindles the little flame of Love that is in every heart, it raises the soul to soar in the freedom of God, it feeds the soul with food from Heaven, it gives courage to overcome all human weaknesses, it grants complete trust in God so that we can say with St. Paul, it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.

The Holy Spirit is not visible to our eyes, but we can feel His Presence within us, He grants Peace, Love and Joy to our hearts and by His action we learn to recognize Him.

No one can say that Jesus is Lord unless He is moved by the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 12:3]. So this Spirit abides in every one who acknowledges that Jesus is Lord, but this doesn't guarantee that that person is holy, it merely activates his faith by that conviction, so we still need a continuous guidance of the Holy Spirit to attain holiness. We must be born of the Spirit to become spirit, and we must let Him come like a gentle breeze and bend our wills to His holy inspirations [John 3:8].

What is born of the flesh is flesh, but what is born of the Spirit is Spirit [John 3:6], so in baptism we are born of the Spirit and we are challenged to prove that we are Spirit.

As temples of the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 3:16] we must behave with the due reverence to God Who abides in us, so that we can become like Him. But the problem is that through sin we become temples of the evil spirit and we despise God.

In order to experience the Love of the Holy Spirit and to become children of God, we must not sin [1 John 3:9]

The Holy Spirit will teach us what we need to say, He reveals the Wisdom of God, because He reveals the teachings of the Word of God into our hearts, He is also described as the Consoler and Advocate or The Paraclete [John 14:26]

No one can become holy on his own so he needs the influence of the Holy Spirit, He is like a gentle dove that gets scared at the least movement of sin. So we must be very gentle in the Presence of God who has vouchsafed to come to dwell in us.

We have to deny ourselves the influence of our own human spirit in order to allow the Spirit of God to take control of our lives, this is only achieved by a life of prayer and detachment. We must yield humbly to the powerful Holy Spirit in order to correspond to His Grace, we must make a decision to lead an interior life where we give up our private judgement, the light of reason in exchange for the Light of God which comes only through faith. Only through this complete annihilation of the self can we allow the Spirit of God to possess us; to think otherwise is only presumptuous, because our pride will always desire praise for our works, but God's work in our souls is the only way to make us holy.

The spiritual man is also called a man of God, because he truly belongs to Him, He doesn't look for personal rewards, He doesn't resist God's Will whether that may bring him trials, temptations, contradictions or humiliations. God knows best, so the man of God yields completely to Him just like Job. Any temporal gifts are for the Praise and Glory of God not for his own, when any material or spiritual gifts are taken away from him, He will gladly accept God's will [Job 1:21]. He will live his life in imitation of Christ who always yielded to the Will His Heavenly Father [Luke 22:42].

Introduction to Holy Spirit
God is only One, but He has revealed Himself very distinctly as three persons, so that we mere creatures can come to a better understanding of Him, however we are unworthy to know God completely and He remains the greatest mystery of our faith.

Promises of the Holy Spirit in Old Testament
God saw our need to have His Holy Spirit, otherwise we would be doomed. For this reason He made a promise in the Old Testament which was fulfilled with the coming of Christ, He spoke through different prophets.

The Holy Spirit in the New Testament
We are temples of the Holy Spirit and to be filled with the Spirit of God we must cleanse our temples with the waters of repentance through baptism. However we are supposed to stop sinning in order to receive the fire of the Holy Spirit. So this promise of God is conditional to our repentance.

Gifts of the Holy Spirit
The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.