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- Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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The Sanctifier
The Sanctifier
A translation by Sister M. Aquinas, o.s.u.
Of the work “El Espiritu Santo” by Luis M. Martinez(Late Archbishop of Mexico)
Nihil Obstat:
Bede Babo, O.S.B.
Imprimatur:
✠James A. McNulty
Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey
April 24, 1957
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Martinez, Luis M. (Luis Maria), 1881–1956.
[Espiritu santo. English]
The Sanctifier / Archbishop Luis M. Martinez; translated by Sister M. Aquinas; with a foreword by George Montague.— 2nd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 9780819874122
1. Holy Spirit. I. Title.
BT121.3 .M2913 2004
231’.3—dc22
2003017032
Cover design: Rosana Usselmann
Cover art: © istockphoto.com/dndavis
Except where indicated, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine translation, as follows: the New Testament copyright © 1941; all other books copyright © 1955.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.
Original title: El Espiritu Santo
Copyright © 2003, Daughters of St. Paul
Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Paul’s Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491. www.pauline.org.
Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.
Contents
Foreword
Editor’s Preface
Translator’s Preface
Part I: True Devotion to the Holy Spirit
1. The Holy Spirit Leads Us to Holiness
2. Our Delightful Guest
3. Our Supreme Director
4. The Holy Spirit: God’s Gift to Us
5. Transformation into Christ
6. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit
7. The Holy Spirit Consecrates Us
8. Practicing the Presence of the Holy Spirit
9. The Holy Spirit Strengthens Our Faith
10. The Holy Spirit Inspires Our Hope
11. The Holy Spirit Fills Us with Love
12. The Holy Spirit Possesses Us
13. We Possess the Holy Spirit
14. The Holy Spirit Brings Us to Jesus
15. The Holy Spirit Leads Us to the Father
16. Union with the Loving Will of the Father
17. The Mystery of the Cross
18. Our Response to Christ Crucified
19. Summary and Conclusions
Part II: The Gifts of the Holy Spirit
1. Overview of the Gifts
2. The Gift of Fear of the Lord
3. The Gift of Fortitude
4. The Gift of Piety
5. The Gifts that Pertain to the Intellect
6. The Gift of Counsel
7. The Gift of Knowledge
8. The Gift of Understanding
9. The Gift of Wisdom
Part III: The Fruit of the Spirit
1. The Holy Spirit Consoles Us
2. The Fruit of the Spirit and Joy
3. Consolation and Suffering
4. Charity, Joy, and Peace
5. Patience and Longanimity
6. Goodness, Benignity, Mildness, Faith
7. Modesty, Continence, Chastity
Part IV: The Beatitudes
1. The Beatitudes and Happiness
2. The First Beatitude
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:3)
3. The Second Beatitude
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth.” (Mt 5:4)
4. The Third Beatitude
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Mt 5:5)
5. The Fourth Beatitude
“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.” (Mt 5:6)
6. The Fifth Beatitude
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” (Mt 5:7)
7. The Sixth Beatitude
“Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt 5:8)
8. The Seventh Beatitude
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” (Mt 5:9)
9. The Eighth Beatitude
“Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:10)
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Amid the flood of books on spirituality today, reprints of classics are appearing at a phenomenal rate. Like the person in the gospel who tries new wine and then says that the old is better (Lk 5:39), readers athirst for God in print are finding that the Christian wine cellar has vintages that equal or even surpass the new (Mt 13:52). One of these is the book you have in your hands, Archbishop Martinez’s The Sanctifier. It is one of the most formidable books on the Holy Spirit ever written.
I confess that, having written several books, scholarly and popular, on the Holy Spirit, I had not thought of going back to this classic until Sister Marianne Lorraine asked me to write a preface for its reissue. Then I remembered what an impact it had on so many persons years ago. I began rereading it and found myself experiencing a little of what the two disciples traveling to Emmaus said they felt two thousand years ago, “Were not our hearts burning when he spoke to us on the way?” (Lk 24:32) The book is solidly grounded in St. Thomas Aquinas’ theology, but it is more than theology. It could have been written by someone who has experienced in his own mystical life the reality of which he writes. It is a striking combination of the theological and the experiential. For good reason it has been compared to the writings of St. John of the Cross.
The author begins by exploring what the indwelling of the Holy Spirit means in the soul of the believer. The Spirit is the relational Spirit and leads to the consummation of divine union. Martinez then explores each of the gifts that Isaiah attributes to the Messiah and Christian tradition has spoken of as the “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” A third section of the book explores the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit that St. Paul lists in his letter to the Galatians. Finally, the author consummates his reflections by focusing on the beatitudes, which St. Thomas Aquinas considers the summit in the exercise of the Isaian gifts.
No book, of course, can say everything. Archbishop Martinez focuses on the role of the Spirit in the sanctification of the individual believer, laying out the landmarks for one’s spiritual journey to the beatific vision. He takes the theological framework of St. Thomas as his own and elaborates upon it in stirring meditations. St. Thomas himself stood on the shoulders of the Fathers of the Church, so a wealth of tradition and the experience of the saints is incorporated in this work.
Contemporary readers should be aware of two areas, however, that later tradition and theology have developed. One is the ecclesial dimension of the Holy Spirit. This dimension of the Spirit, particularly as the bond of love among the faithful, is not totally absent from The Sanctifier. It hardly could be. But in recent decades a considerable development has taken place in relating the Holy Spirit not merely to the interior life of the Trinity but also to the community of the Church.
The second is the area of biblical theology. Aided by recent developments in exegesis and interpretation theory, it has revealed even greater depths of the Spirit available in the Scriptures. The language of the Bible is largely symbolic, opening up vast areas of meaning. Moreover, biblical revelation is progressive, beginning with “peeks” into the mystery in the earliest writings and, ever widening its vision, ending with the full revelation in the Johannine literature of the New Testament.
Of particular interest is the biblical understanding of the “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The traits which Isaiah paints for the ideal king (Is 11:2–3), later tradition, developed by St. Thomas and Archbishop Martinez, has understood as gifts of sanctification available to the believer. The New Testament, particularly Saint Paul, understands gifts of the Spirit as charismatic gifts, that is, gifts that are meant to accompany baptismal grace but are oriented toward building the community. Tertullian had already identified these as essential underlying features of the baptismal grace, and therefore of the Holy Spirit. Among the Fathers of the East and the West there was an expectation that these gifts would be manifested in adults from the time of their initiation. They included the gifts of praise (one form of which was, for Paul and Luke, the gift of tongues), a fresh hearing and speaking of the Word of God (prophecy), wisdom and knowledge (here there is an approximation of the Isaian gifts, though in Paul they are ministries to the Church), healing, discernment of spirits, administration, and services of various sorts. The Fathers expand them, suggesting that they are too numerous to mention. Paul also tells the Corinthians to seek these charismatic gifts (1 Cor 14:1) because they build up the Church. They of course need to be regulated in their exercise by charity, which is greater than all the gifts (1 Cor 13). It is thus important to complete the present work with the ecclesial, ministerial and missionary aspect of the Holy Spirit. Yet for someone like myself who has dedicated many years to developing the charismatic dimension of New Testament pneumatology, it is important to remember that God’s purpose for the Church and the world is the full role of the Holy Spirit, and that inescapably includes his sanctifying role, so beautifully developed in The Sanctifier.
George T. Montague, S.M.
Professor of Theology
St. Mary’s University
San Antonio, Texas
Editor’s Preface
This edition of The Sanctifier is a reprint of a classic work. The original Spanish text was translated into English and published by St. Anthony Guild of Paterson, New Jersey, in 1957. The present work is the only complete and unabridged version currently available in English. To enhance the text for modern readers, various explanatory notes have been added to clarify some terms and give additional information.
For a further explanation of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church, readers may wish to consult the encyclical of Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem. This document beautifully restates Church teaching on the Holy Spirit in the light of Vatican II.
For those who would like to refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in conjunction with The Sanctifier, the following sections correspond to some of the author’s main topics. Besides these major sections, however, many references to the Holy Spirit are scattered throughout the Catechism.
243–248: the Holy Spirit in relation to the Trinity.
249–260: the Blessed Trinity
687–747: catechesis on the Holy Spirit
1091–1112: the Holy Spirit and the liturgy
1987–2011: grace as a participation in God’s life
1830–1832: gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit
1716–1729: the Beatitudes
The English text contained herein is that of the translator, except for direct quotations from the following sources, used with the permission of the respective publishers:
Quotations from St. Thomas Aquinas are taken from The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province and published by Burns, Oates & Washbourne, London, 1920–1935.
Quotations from St. John of the Cross are taken from The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers and published by Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland, 1953.
Marianne Lorraine Trouvé, FSP
Translator’s Preface
Surprisingly, very few of the writings of the late Archbishop of Mexico, Luis M. Martinez, have as yet been translated into English. This will not be the case for very long, however, in view of the fact that friends and close acquaintances have been very active in circulating more and more of his works and in making known his great personality.
Since the work was begun, the beloved Archbishop of the Mexican people has left them to return to the embrace of the Father whose Spirit he has done so much to make known among them. Always revered by the Mexicans and all those whose privilege it was to know him, the Archbishop will remain an inspiration to all who will yet come under his influence through the writings that he has left us.
A close and lifelong friend of the Archbishop refers to his personality as “a diamond of multiple facets.” He is seen as a philosopher, a theologian, a teacher, an educator, a superior, a sociologist, a sacred orator, a writer, a poet, a director of souls, a humorist. “But,” continues his friend, “there is perhaps one aspect that has remained in shadow until now, in spite of the fact that it is the most important: it is the interior man, his spiritual life, his intimate relationship with God; in a word, it is the mystic . . . the experimental mystic, who speaks and writes about what has happened to him personally, in the style of St. Teresa—or better, of St. John of the Cross.”1 May the passing of time and the gradual clarification of knowledge regarding this saintly man give us this true picture.
We can understand a little the Archbishop’s intense dedication to his people, his devotion to their needs, his longing for sacrifice, from these words summing up the sermon he gave in the Cathedral of Mexico on the occasion of assuming his position as head of the Archdiocese of Mexico City: “I come to promise you but one thing: I come to give you my life,”2 Those who read his work on the Holy Spirit will surely learn where he acquired the love and the knowledge that made him the tremendous force he was in a wide circle of souls.
The help of many kind friends was necessary in order to bring this translation of a sublime and masterful work to completion. I wish to express my sincere thanks to them for enabling me to share its spiritual treasures with others.
Because the termination of the translation nearly coincides with the Ursuline celebration of one hundred years in Kentucky, this work is offered in thanksgiving to God for the blessings we have received.
Sister M. Aquinas, o.s.u.
Feast of Pentecost
May 1957
Part I
True Devotion to the Holy Spirit
Chapter 1
The Holy Spirit Leads Us to Holiness
One fortunate tendency of our times has been that which seeks to establish the supernatural life on the solid basis of dogma. Nothing is more right and necessary than this. Life ought to be based on truth, or rather, it is truth itself that descends, so to speak, from the heights of the understanding to pour itself out over the affections, the works, and all the activity of man.
The truths that we beg God to reveal to us are not only “light” but “spirit and life” (Jn 6:64). They are not only a sublime and complete doctrinal system, they are also “words of eternal life” (Jn 6:69). They are the exceedingly fruitful seeds that transform souls when the intelligence and the heart are opened to them as to the very substance of life.
Love is the essence of the Christian life. It is the charity poured by the Holy Spirit into souls, the charity that embodies the perfection of all the virtues. But it is a very ordered love, because virtue is order in love, according to the beautiful and profound words of St. Augustine.1 And that order is the fruit of light, of dogmatic truth, for, it belongs to wisdom to set things in order, as St. Thomas teaches.2
The influence of dogma in the Christian life puts each thing in its place and thus avoids those pietistic deviations caused by mere personal inclination or lack of instruction. Such deviations, though devout and well intentioned, hinder the prompt and rich flowering of Christian perfection in souls. It is more important than we sometimes realize to put things in their proper place in the spiritual life.
St. Grignion de Montfort,3 in his excellent little treatises True Devotion to the Most Holy Virgin and The Secret of Mary, which are fortunately circulating among us with a marvelous effect on souls, has done no more than establish the most Holy Virgin in her place in Christian piety. The merit of these works consists in this: that they show an understanding of the universal and indispensable function of Mary Immaculate in the sanctification of souls—a traditional doctrine of the Church that obtained the magnificent confirmation of the Holy Apostolic See in modern times when the feast of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces was introduced into the liturgy.4
St. Grignion de Montfort understood so clearly the place that belongs to Mary in the work of sanctification that he made devotion to this sweet Mother not something superficial or intermittent, consisting of isolated practices with a special place and hour in our day, but constant and essential, reaching to the very depths of our hearts and filling our whole beings and our lives like a heavenly perfume.
The method of Grignion de Montfort is not artificial. It does not impose on Christian life the particular note of filial tenderness that the saint himself professed for the Blessed Virgin. It simply shows how to bring to Christian life the traditional Catholic teaching about Mary. That is, it gives her the proper place as universal Mediatrix of the graces of God.
With even greater reason, then—because he is more forgotten—the Holy Spirit must be given his proper place, the place that rightfully belongs to him in Christian life and Christian perfection. Devotion to the Holy Spirit must become what St. Grignion de Montfort made of devotion to Mary: something not superficial and intermittent, but constant and profound, filling the depths of souls and impregnating lives with the sweet unction of infinite love.
Christian life is the reproduction of Jesus in souls; and perfection, the most faithful and perfect reproduction, consists in the transformation of souls into Jesus. This is the doctrine of St. Paul, set forth time and again in his letters: “Do you not know yourselves that Christ Jesus is in you?” (2 Cor 13:5). “For all you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27). “. . . Christ dwelling through faith in your hearts” (Eph 3:17). “Those whom he has foreknown he has also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). These are some of the many expressions of the Apostle relative to Christian life.
As for perfection, these profoundly comprehensive words are well known: “It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). The word “transformation” is also from St. Paul: “But we all, with faces unveiled, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his very image from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18).
Now, how will this mystical reproduction be brought about in souls? In the same way in which Jesus was brought into the world, because God gives a wonderful mark of unity to all his works. Divine acts have a wealth of variety because they are the work of omnipotence; nevertheless, a most perfect unity always shines forth from them because they are the fruit of wisdom. This divine contrast of unity and variety stamps the works of God with sublime and unutterable beauty.
In his miraculous birth, Jesus was the fruit of heaven and earth. Isaiah foretold this in words breathing forth the poetry of an age-old desire and a unique hope, words that the Church lovingly repeats during Advent: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior” (Is 45:8).
The Holy Spirit conveyed the divine fruitfulness of the Father to Mary and this virginal soil brought forth in an ineffable manner our most loving Savior, the Divine Seed, as the prophets called him.
This is what we are taught regarding Jesus, with the conciseness and the precision of an article of faith: “who was conceived by the Holy Spirit . . . of the Virgin Mary.” That is the way Jesus is always conceived. That is the way he is reproduced in souls. He is always the fruit of heaven and earth. Two artisans must concur in the work that is at once God’s masterpiece and humanity’s supreme product: the Holy Spirit and the most holy Virgin Mary. Two sanctifiers are necessary to souls, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, for they are the only ones who can reproduce Christ.
Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary sanctify us in different ways. The first is the Sanctifier by essence because he is God, who is infinite sanctity; because he is the personal Love that completes, so to speak, the sanctity of God, consummating his life and his unity, and it belongs to him to communicate to souls the mystery of that sanctity. The Virgin Mary, for her part, is the cooperator, the indispensable instrument in and by God’s design. From Mary’s maternal relation to the human body of Christ is derived her relation to his Mystical Body, which is being formed through all the centuries until the end of time, when it will be lifted up to the heavens, beautiful, splendid, complete and glorious.
These two, then, the Holy Spirit and Mary, are the indispensable artificers of Jesus, the indispensable sanctifiers of souls. Any saint in heaven can cooperate in the sanctification of a soul, but his cooperation is not necessary, not profound, not constant. The cooperation of these two artisans of Jesus of whom we have just been speaking is so necessary that without it souls are not sanctified (and this by the actual design of Providence), and so intimate that it reaches to the very depths of our souls. For the Holy Spirit pours charity into our hearts, makes a habitation of our souls and directs our spiritual lives by means of his gifts. The Virgin Mary has the efficacious influence of Mediatrix in the most profound and delicate operations of grace in our souls. Finally, the action of the Holy Spirit and the cooperation of the most holy Virgin Mary are constant; without them, not one single character of Jesus would be traced on our souls, no virtue grow, no gift be developed, no grace increase, no bond of union with God be strengthened in the rich flowering of the spiritual life.
Such is the place that the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary have in the order of sanctification. Therefore, Christian piety should put these two artisans of Christ in their true place, making devotion to them something necessary, profound, and constant.
But all the dogmatic richness and all the practical influence, the treasures of light and life that are contained in this synthesis, must be brought out by analysis. With divine help, then, let us attempt it in the following pages.
Chapter 2
Our Delightful Guest
How wonderful is the work of the artist! By efforts both ardent and gentle he can penetrate hard and shapeless materials with the light of his soul. The instruments he uses, though often crude, can impart to these materials exquisite proportions and shapes.
That is the way one may conceive the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, Artist of souls. Is not sanctity the supreme art? God has only one ideal, which, in its prodigious unity and because it is divine, encompasses all the highest forms of beauty. This ideal is Jesus. The Holy Spirit loves him more than an artist loves his ideal. That love is his being, because the Holy Spirit is nothing but love, the personal Love of the Father and of the Word.1 With divine enthusiasm he comes to the soul—the soul, breath of the Most High, spiritual light that can merge with uncreated Light, exquisite essence that can be transformed into Jesus, reproducing the eternal ideal.
That which the human artist dreams of without ever being able to attain, the divine Artist accomplishes because he is perfect and infinite. His action is not exterior nor intermittent, but intimate and constant. He enters into the depths of our souls, penetrates the innermost recesses, and takes up his permanent dwelling there to produce later on his magnificent work.
To the Artist of souls, sanctification and possession are the same act: for sanctification is the work of love and love is possession. The very lowest degree of sanctity demands that the Holy Spirit dwell in our souls, possess them while supreme sanctity is the supreme possession that the Spirit attains in the soul, the full and perfect possession of love.
Therefore, the first relationship that the Holy Spirit has with souls is that of being the delightful Guest—dulcis Hospes animae—as the Church calls him in the inspired prose of the Mass of Pentecost. Without doubt, the entire Blessed Trinity dwells within the soul living the life of grace, as it is to dwell eternally within the soul living the life of glory, which is the full and joyous expansion of the life of grace. Thus Jesus taught us on the night before his death, that night of intimate secrets and sweet effusions: “If anyone loves me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (Jn 14:23). Fortunately, this consoling doctrine is familiar to the faithful of our times. But attention should be given to the fact that the Scriptures attribute, in a special manner, this indwelling to the Holy Spirit.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). Without this dwelling of the Holy Spirit in us we cannot “become Christ.” “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Rom 8:9). Grace and charity, which are the life of our souls, have relationship with the Spirit who dwells in us, because “the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). Even the resurrection of the flesh is a consequence of this indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who converts our bodies into his temple. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also bring to life your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). And the Holy Spirit does not come to us in a transitory manner; infinite Love is not a passing visitor who pays us a call and then goes away. He establishes in us his permanent dwelling and lives in intimate union with our souls as their eternal Guest. Jesus promised this to us on the last night of his mortal life: “And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you shall know him because he will dwell with you and be in you” (Jn 14:16–17).
Undoubtedly, as we have already said, this permanent and intimate dwelling in our souls, which is attributed by appropriation2 to the Holy Spirit, pertains to all the divine Persons; but the appropriation is made by the Scriptures, by Jesus Christ himself, so we know that it is perfectly founded and admirably efficacious for revealing the Blessed Trinity to us. And why is this indwelling in souls attributed to the Holy Spirit? Because it is a work of love. God is in our souls in a most particular manner because he loves us.
What delight in the thought! It is not because of the exigencies of his immensity, nor only because our wretchedness demands it that God establishes his dwelling in souls; love, which attracts, allures, and makes one overcome all difficulties, makes the God of heaven, who is in love with souls, come down to them and unite himself to them in an intimate and permanent manner. This is love: union or desire of union; and as the Holy Spirit is the infinite Love of God, to him is appropriated this happy name: “the soul’s delightful Guest.”
The Scriptures give us a foundation for exploring this mystery of love. We have already seen St. Paul establish a close bond between the Holy Spirit and charity. And St. John, the master of love, completes in a wonderful way the teachings of St. Paul. In his first letter, the beloved disciple explains the intimate relation that exists between the Holy Spirit and charity. This virtue is the image of God, because “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16); and for this reason charity accomplishes the prodigy that “he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 Jn 4:16). But the unmistakable sign of the mutual and sweet possession is that we have received the Holy Spirit: “In this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 Jn 4:13).
The first gift of love is love itself, and all the other gifts emanate from this supreme gift, as from their source. Therefore, the Gift of the love of God is the Holy Spirit. Loving us with the love of friendship and giving us his Spirit is for God one and the same thing. And through his Gift, he gives us all the gifts of his munificence. “Through the Gift, which is the Holy Spirit, are distributed many gifts proper to the members of Christ,” says St. Augustine.3 But of all the gifts that God gives us through his Gift, the most excellent and precious, the created gift that cannot be separated from the uncreated, is charity, the image of the Holy Spirit.
The love of friendship is mutual. God loves us through the Holy Spirit. So that we may correspond to that infinite love with a love created, to be sure, but also supernatural and divine, when giving himself to us the Holy Spirit pours into our souls the likeness of himself, which is charity. This can become so perfect that it can be said that God and we form one same love, one same spirit, as St. Paul teaches: “He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17).
There is, then, a very close union between the Holy Spirit and charity. The Holy Spirit does not give himself to us without pouring charity into our hearts, nor can there be the love of charity in us without the Holy Spirit’s coming to us by the very act of loving.
Consequently, the basic reason why God dwells in us, why he remains in us and we in him, is love. The love of God that descends to the depths of our souls, our love which by its irresistible need attracts the God of heaven and captivates him in the bonds of charity—these are two loves that seek each other, find each other, and fuse together in a divine unity. On the part of God it is the Holy Spirit who gives himself to us, and on our part it is charity, the image of the Holy Spirit that cannot be separated from the divine Original. Therefore, the inspired expression of the Church, “delightful Guest of the soul,” encloses a mystery of love.
Undoubtedly, knowledge also makes God dwell in us as in his temple, though not knowledge as such, even of the supernatural order, but only that knowledge called wisdom, which is, as it were, experienced and which proceeds from love and produces love. “The Son,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “is the Word; not any sort of word, but one who breathes forth Love.”4 Thus, too, St. Augustine says that the Son is sent “when he is known and perceived by someone. But the perception signifies experimental knowledge. And this is properly called wisdom.”5
Some profound considerations result from this doctrine, revealing to us the important part played by the Holy Spirit in the spiritual life.
The divine gifts that belong to the understanding make us resemble the Word of God, who is Wisdom engendered by the understanding of the Father. The gifts that pertain to the will make us resemble the Holy Spirit, who is infinite Love.
Now, on earth, the most perfect gift is charity. Con-sequently, our assimilation with the Holy Spirit is more perfect than our assimilation with the Word of God. But from charity, by which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are ordered in their progress and development, springs that loving wisdom which, according to St. Thomas, accomplishes our resemblance to the Word of God, our transformation into Christ, which is the work of light and consummates holiness on earth.
In the supernatural order, love leads to light; the Holy Spirit leads us to the Word, and through the Word we go to the Father, in whom all life is completed and all movement is converted into rest. And in him every creature finds its perfection and its happiness, because all things are completed when they return to their principle.
The development of these ideas will reveal to us the economy of the work of sanctification. In this chapter, however, it is sufficient for our purpose to establish upon a firm foundation this consoling doctrine: that the Holy Spirit is, in a unique sense, the soul’s delightful Guest.
Chapter 3
Our Supreme Director
The soul’s delightful Guest does not remain idle in his intimate sanctuary. Being fire and light, as the Church calls him, he hardly takes possession of the soul before his beneficent influence extends itself to the whole being and begins with divine activity its work of transformation.
The Holy Spirit lives in the center of the soul, in that profound region of the will where he himself has diffused charity. From that center he pours himself out, so to speak, over the whole man with a divine unction, like the sacred perfume of which the Scriptures speak, that descended from the head of Aaron down his flowing beard and over his vestment to the tassel of his mantle.
Like the victor who, on taking possession of a kingdom places in each city men to execute his orders and act as his regents, governing the place he has conquered, so the Holy Spirit, the loving conqueror of souls, places some divine gifts in each of the human faculties, that through his holy inspirations the whole man may receive his vivifying influence. Into the intelligence, the supreme faculty of the spirit from which radiates light and order over the whole human being, he pours the gifts of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, and of knowledge; into the will, the gift of piety; and into the inferior region of the sensible appetites, the gifts of fortitude and fear of God. By means of these gifts the Holy Spirit moves the whole man, becomes Director of the supernatural life, and more—becomes the very soul of our soul and life of our life.
If man had but to accomplish a work of moral perfection according to his human nature, then human reason, a spark from the light of God, would be enough to direct the life of the spirit; but the work that has to be accomplished in man, as we have already said, is divine. It is the reproduction of Jesus, the masterpiece of God, and for such an exalted undertaking the direction of the Holy Spirit is necessary. Sanctity is impossible without this direction, as it is impossible to obtain a finished and perfect work of art without the direction of a master.
The intimate Master of our souls is the Holy Spirit; thus Jesus taught in his discourse at the Last Supper: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name . . . will teach you all things and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you” (Jn 14:26).
The Holy Spirit teaches everything, not only as earthly masters do, by projecting the light of their explanations on the subject of their teaching, but intimately, by communicating a new light, a divine light, to the intelligence itself. “His anointing teaches you concerning all things” (1 Jn 2:27), said the Apostle St. John. The Spirit’s teaching is unction. He teaches us by pouring himself into us gently and penetratingly. He teaches us as mothers teach their children, with kisses of love, with an indefinable outpouring of tenderness. We learn from him as we perceive the fragrance of a perfume, as we savor the sweetness of a fruit or enjoy the caress of a breeze that enfolds us.
The light of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of love; it is the happy consequence of union. United intimately to divine things through the work of the Holy Spirit, the soul tastes them by a direct divine experience. How profoundly do the words quoted above from St. John express this: “his anointing teaches you concerning all things.”
But light is not the only mark of the direction of the Spirit; there is also sanctity. As the artist is not content with explaining to pupils the secrets of art, but takes the uncertain hand of the beginner and gently but firmly moves and guides it in order that the beauty of his ideal may be expressed on the canvas, even thus does the Holy Spirit take our faculties and move and guide them—so firmly that they do not stray, and at the same time so gently that our activities continue to be vital, spontaneous, and free. Only the Creator can reach in this way to the depths of our acts and, so far from changing their properties, rather marvelously perfect and elevate them.
The supplications of the Church to the Holy Spirit admirably detail this work of His, for example, in the sequence of the Mass of Pentecost:
Wash the stains of guilt away,
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill,
Guide the steps that go astray.
In the hymn Veni Creator:
Kindle with fire from above
Each sense, and fill our hearts with love;
Grant to our flesh, so weak and frail,
That strength of thine which cannot fail.
All these, in addition to many other delicate and marvelous operations, are contained in that sweet and firm movement that the Holy Spirit exercises in every human faculty, by reason of which he is called the soul of our souls.
The seven gifts are a divine means for making our souls fit to receive the motion of the Spirit. The celestial influence of this intimate Guest is called inspiration; its action is the breath of wind, delicately soft and irresistibly strong, that impels our life toward heaven, the warm and powerful wind of love that cleanses, eases, rectifies, consoles, refreshes—but also moves, carrying along all that is before it.
Imagine a fine lyre whose perfectly harmonized strings vibrate at the blowing of the wind, each giving its own sound and all together composing a beautiful symphony. This is the soul of a just man when the Holy Spirit possesses it fully and has harmonized all the faculties by means of his gifts. Each one of them, like the strings of a living lyre, gives its own sound when the wind of the Spirit blows.
What else would the Holy Spirit, the personal love of God, produce, but a song if it is proper to love to sing? And what shall love sing but the Beloved—the divine obsession of the one who loves? What is to be sung but the name of the Beloved, the unique word holding all beauty, that love pronounces? The earth and the heavens sing because love passes through; because the immaculate wings of the Spirit soar above them.
But the song of souls is a new song, because the Spirit infuses new love in them. The song of souls is free. It is not like the song of nature, which is harmonious but compelled, the automatic reproduction, as it were, of the impression the Spirit made in the beginning of time when he moved triumphantly over the fruitful waters. The song of souls is theirs and the Spirit’s conjointly, as the sounds given off by the strings of a lyre come also from the artist who makes them vibrate.
Nevertheless, nature and souls sing to the same Beloved, saying the same thing, each in its own language. To live spiritually is to sing, because living spiritually is loving. For the song to be perfect, all the human faculties must be rectified and harmonized, like the strings of a lyre, and the Holy Spirit must inspire the unique song of a unique love.
The true Director of souls, the intimate Master, the soul of the spiritual life, is the Holy Spirit. As we have already said, without him there is no sanctity. The perfection of a soul is measured by its docility to the movement of the Spirit, by the promptness and fidelity with which its strings produce the divine notes of the song of love. A soul is perfectly holy when the Spirit of love has taken full possession of it, when the divine Artist finds no resistance or dissonance in the strings of that living lyre, but only celestial strains coming forth from it, limpid, ardent, and delightfully harmonized.
The inspirations of the Holy Spirit are not, then, something extraordinary and superfluous in the spiritual life; they are its vital, perfect impulse. Undoubtedly, their infrequency at the beginning of the spiritual life is due precisely to the imperfection of that life—just as the direction of reason is not frequent or strong in the early years of man’s natural life, because his development is still imperfect. As the spiritual life grows, the strings of the living lyre of the soul, which before were weak and inharmonious, are attuned and harmonized. The soul becomes marvelously sensible to the movement of the Spirit and life becomes intense, rich, perfect, holy.
St. Paul expressed this action of the Holy Spirit in souls very well when he said: “For whoever are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God” (Rom 8:14). The Apostle thus makes known a mysterious bond between the movement of the Holy Spirit and the divine adoption. Through the Spirit we become sons of God, and because we are sons, we are moved by the Spirit. Thus he is called in the Scriptures “Spirit of adoption . . . by virtue of which we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ For the Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God” (Rom 8:15–16). Without doubt we are sons by grace, and this precious gift, the true participation in the divine nature, puts us in intimate and special relationship with the divine Persons: it makes us sons of the Father, incorporates us with Jesus, and the Spirit of God becomes in a certain manner our spirit. These relationships are simultaneous, but in the order of appropriation, the mission of the Holy Spirit is the first in our soul, because the first gift, intimately connected with grace, is charity. The Holy Spirit brings to our souls the fruitfulness of the Father and binds us lovingly to the Son.
And because of this, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son becomes ours in an ineffable way. And just as it is our natural spirit that directs and moves temporal life, so this Spirit of God, ours by the mystery of adoption, moves and directs our life that is for eternity. Because we are sons we are heirs, and “none can receive the inheritance of that land of the blessed, except he be moved and led thither by the Holy Spirit.”1 Thus St. Thomas teaches when he interprets in this sense the words of the psalmist: “May your good Spirit guide me on level ground” (Ps 143:10).
This intimate direction of our souls accomplished by the Holy Spirit is something profoundly bound up with the mystery of the spiritual life. It is something which that life demands essentially, just as our natural life demands the movement of our soul. Consequently, the Holy Spirit is truly the soul of our soul and the life of our life.
Chapter 4
The Holy Spirit: God’s Gift to Us
The Holy Spirit lives in us not only to possess us, but also to be possessed by us, to be ours. For love must possess, as well as be possessed. He is the Gift of God—Altissimi Donum Dei. Now, the gift that belonged to the giver becomes the possession of the one who receives it. The Gift of God is ours through the stupendous prodigy of love.
Almost every time that Sacred Scripture speaks of the mission of the Holy Spirit in our souls, we find the word give. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate” (Jn 14:16). “In this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 Jn 3:24). “For the Spirit had not yet been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified” (Jn 7:39). “...giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us” (Acts 15:8).
The words “give” and “gift” have a meaning proper to the Holy Spirit. The Father gave us his Son because he loves us: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). “Through [him] he has granted us the very great and precious promises” (2 Pet 1:4). It is characteristic of love to give gifts, but the first gift, the gift par excellence, is love itself. The Holy Spirit is the Love of God; therefore, he is the Gift of God. God gave his Son to us through love; consequently, that inexpressible gift is through the first Gift, through the Gift of all gifts.
