The Trinity and the Holy Spirit
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This Sunday is Trinity Sunday – so for the next few days let’s meditate on the Trinity and the way the Holy Spirit, Mary and the Church act as a mother toward us to form Jesus in us.
It may be helpful to begin by explaining the relationship of the three persons in the Trinity
The Holy Trinity is God. In God, there is only divinity, that is all there is.
The Father is the giver. He has only one gift, that of His divine life. He gives it all, he gives the gift of divinity.
The Son is the recipient. He is the Word and the Image of the Father.
The Son receives divinity from the Father and gives Himself in return to the Father.
Thus, the Son is both a receiver and a giver of divinity.
The Holy Spirit receives divinity from the Father and the Son.
Thus, the Holy Spirit is pure receptivity.
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God the Father sends the Son into the world to give his life to us. The mission of the Holy Spirit inseparable but distinct. The mission of the Holy Spirit is to receive the Son, first in Mary, then in us. This mission of the Spirit has three characteristics. It is:
I. Receptive and Feminine;
II. Maternal;
III. Virginal
First, the receptive or Feminine characteristic of the mission of the Spirit
The Catechism (687) says that we know the Holy Spirit “in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith.”
The mission of the Holy Spirit is to enter first into Mary and then into our soul to enable us to receive the Son, to receive Jesus and form Him in us.
Receptivity is a particularly feminine characteristic
· The symbol of the woman’s role in procreation is to receive the material of the man and then nurture the fruit of their union.
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We see the Maternal Characteristic of the Spirit in the Scriptures:
· Luke 1, At the Annunciation, Mary conceives Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is the Father of Jesus, not the Holy Spirit. However, Jesus is conceived by the power of the Spirit. Conceiving is a maternal mission.
· John 3, Jesus says the Christian “must be born of water and the Spirit.” One is either born from both a mother and a father, and since the Holy Spirit is not the Father, the Spirit must take the role of the maternal parent.
· 1 Corinthians 12 ascribes the mission to form Christ in Christians and so build up the Body of Christ to the mission of the Spirit. This too is a maternal mission.
So, the Holy Spirit fulfills a maternal mission toward us.
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The mission and mediation of the Spirit also has virginal characteristics
Virginity represents purity
· In the Trinity the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son in person, all the love of the Trinity which is absolute purity.
· Likewise, one of the symbols of the Holy Spirit is the dove.
· Jesus, furthermore, said that we must be innocent as doves.
· So the Mediation of the Spirit has virginal characteristics
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The Word of God speaks of the feminine, maternal and virginal characteristics of the Holy Spirit
Scripture and the Catechism say Wisdom with the Holy Spirit. Listen to how the Bible describes Wisdom.
Wisdom 7:7 And so I prayed, and understanding was given me; I entreated, and the spirit of Wisdom came to me. I esteemed her more than scepters and thrones; compared with her, I held riches as nothing. I reckoned no priceless stone to be her peer, for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand, and beside her silver ranks as mud. I loved her more than health or beauty, preferred her to the light, since her radiance never sleeps. In her company, all good things came to me, at her hands riches not to be numbered. All these I delighted in, since Wisdom brings them, but as yet I did not know she was their mother.
Sirach 15:2 Whoever fears the Lord…will obtain wisdom. She will come to meet him like a mother, and receive him like a virgin bride.
The Holy Spirit or Wisdom is described with distinctively feminine, maternal and virginal characteristics.
We are not saying the Holy Spirit is not a woman
God is neither man nor woman. However, we can attribute specific characteristics to the mission of the Son who became man in Jesus and to the mission of the Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit carries out a distinctively maternal mission toward us.
In fact, we shall see tomorrow that Mary is able to be the Mother of the Church and our spiritual mother because of the maternal power of the Holy Spirit.