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Chapter 9. Receive the Holy Spirit • 105
“wind.” The Spirit was thus understood to be the source of inspiration,
life, and movement within God’s people.
Among these holy writings, the Church honors the promise that
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon the Messiah and endow him with
spiritual gifts (cf. Is 11:1-2), and the prophecy that the Messiah will be
moved by him to “bring glad tidings to the lowly, / to heal the broken-
hearted / . . . to announce a year of favor from the Lord” (Is 61:1-2).
The Gospels show us the dynamic action of the Holy Spirit. It is by
the Spirit that Jesus is conceived in the womb of Mary. The Holy Spirit
appears in the form of a dove over Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan. He
leads Jesus into the desert before he starts his public mission. In the Last
Supper discourse in John’s Gospel, Chapter 16, Jesus speaks at length
about the promised revelation and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is again revealed at Pentecost, when the seven weeks
after Easter have concluded. “Christ’s Passover is fulfilled in the out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a
divine person: of his fullness, Christ, the Lord, pours out the Spirit in
abundance” (CCC, no. 731).
The Acts of the Apostles and the various epistles of the New
Testament give us further evidence of the presence and action of the
Holy Spirit in the first-century Church. Later, in response to a denial
of the divinity of the Spirit, the First Council of Constantinople (AD
381) declared as the constant faith of the Church the divinity of the
Holy Spirit.
Even though the Holy Spirit is the last Person of the Trinity to be
revealed, we must understand that, from the beginning, he is a part of
the loving plan of our salvation from sin and of the offer of divine life.
He has the same mission as the Son in the cause of our salvation. When
the Father sends the Son, he also sends the Holy Spirit:
When the Father sends his Word, he always sends his Breath. In
their joint mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but
inseparable. (CCC, no. 689)
The Holy Spirit continues to give us knowledge of God, living and
active in the Church. The
Catechism
sets out eight ways in which the