What Are You Looking For? Part 1: The Nicene Creed

The Lord, The Giver Of Life

The Lord, the Giver of Life

            Describe wind.  Go ahead.  Try.  I’m not talking about describing the effects of wind; I’m talking about wind itself.  It’s next to impossible, because it is intangible.  We can’t touch wind. We can feel it, but we can’t hold it in our hands. We can’t smell it.  We can smell the scents carried by the wind, but not the wind itself.  We can’t taste it.  We can taste the sand in the wind, but wind has no taste.  We can’t see it.  We can see the leaves blow off of the trees, but we can’t see the wind.  We can’t hear it.  We hear the movement of the branches of the trees.    We hear the force of it strike a building, but that’s not the same as hearing the wind.  We are hearing the effect of the wind.  Not the wind. 

            Trying to write about the Holy Spirit is kind of like writing about wind.  At least for me.  Maybe a great scientist can write about wind without discussing the effects of wind.  And maybe a great theologian can write about the Holy Spirit in a deep and profound way, but…I’m not a great theologian.  I can describe the Gifts of the Spirit or the Fruits of the Spirit or the impact of the Spirit on a life, but to describe the Spirit Himself…not so much.  However, I will do my best to explain, in my own feeble way, why it’s appropriate to call the Holy Spirit the Lord and why we say he’s the giver of life.

            First of all, it’s fitting that we should acknowledge the Holy Spirit as Lord because he is the third person of the Most Holy Trinity.  If the Father is called Lord (Old Testament) and the Son is called Lord, (New Testament) then it’s only right that the Holy Spirit is called Lord as well.  All are their own person, yet all are one.  Don’t ask me how that works, I don’t know.  In the Roman Catholic Church there are some things that are referred to as mysteries.  These are things that God has not given to anyone to fully know and understand.  At least not here on earth.  We accept them, we believe them, but we will never fully understand them.

            The Holy Spirit is also the Giver of Life.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (and Genesis 2:7) both his Word (the Son) and his Breath (the Holy Spirit) were present. (CCC 703)  But, as we all know, we blew it.  “Disfigured by sin and death, man remains ‘in the image of God,’ in the image of the Son, but is deprived ‘of the glory of God,’ of his ‘likeness’.  The promise made to Abraham inaugurates the economy of salvation, at the culmination of which the Son himself will assume that ‘image’ and restore it in the Father’s ‘likeness’ by giving it again its Glory, the Spirit who is ‘the Giver of life.’”  (CCC 705)

            The Holy Spirit animates all life.  He also draws all people to life.  His mission is inseparable from the mission of the Son.  Jesus came to bring life, but in order for us to understand that and accept it, we need to be drawn toward it.  We need to have our spirits illuminated.  We need to see.  The Holy Spirit is the one who draws.  Who illuminates.  He is the one who opens our eyes so we can see and our ears so we can hear.  He also is the power that enables us to live the Christian life here on earth.  He is the Wisdom that helps us to grow.  Which is another way of giving us life.  Like any living thing, if you aren’t growing, you are dying – or dead.  For anything to be alive, it must meet three conditions.  It must eat.  It must breathe.  It must grow.  That is as equally true of the spiritual life as it is of the physical life.  We must eat.  The Word of God, the Eucharist, these things are food for our soul.  We must breathe.  Literally.  You can’t grow spiritually here on earth if you’re dead.  We also must pray.  We must honor the Holy Spirit, who is the Breath of Life.  Finally, we must grow.  For a Roman Catholic, that means that the journey didn’t end with Baptism, first Eucharist and Confirmation.  It began with them.  For those of the Protestant Tradition, it didn’t end with the Sinner’s Prayer or Baptism.  That was just the start of the journey.  The journey will take a lifetime.  There will always be more to learn about Christ and the Church and how to walk as Jesus walked.