How is it that the work of Jesus, which includes our salvation, continues in the world today? After all, Jesus is no longer with us. Following his resurrection, he ascended to his Father in glory.

The answer to the question, “How is Jesus still at work with us?” is found in his “farewell discourse” reported in Chapters 14-16 of John’s Gospel, where Jesus promises and at the same time reveals the Spirit — the Paraclete. In fulfillment of his pledge that he would not leave us orphans (Jn 14:18), Jesus explains to his apostles, before he undergoes his death on the cross for us, that he would empower them with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost marks the fulfillment of the promise and the initiation of his church, the beginning of the new creation.

Lord and giver of life

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter “Dominum et Vivificantem,” published on Pentecost Sunday, May 18, 1986, presents the church’s teaching on the Holy Spirit. This encyclical rounds out the trilogy on the most holy Trinity begun with his first letter, “Redemptor Hominis,” on the Lord Jesus Christ, and developed in his second encyclical on the mercy of God, “Dives in Misericordia.” In this third Trinitarian exposition, the pope turns his attention to the Holy Spirit as the Lord and giver of life.

It is clear that our Holy Father does not intend to present a textbook exposition of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Rather, the pope chooses to invite us to reflect on the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, and in our own life as a source of encouragement in our efforts to renew both the church and the wider society in which we live.

In the conclusion to the encyclical, our Holy Father reminds us that “the way of the church passes through the heart of man, because here is the hidden place of the salvific encounter with the Holy Spirit, with the hidden God, and precisely here the Holy Spirit becomes ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life’” (Jn 4:14) (67.1).

In effect, we are challenged to take a look at the power of God’s Spirit at work within us. We must determine if we have opened our hearts to God’s gracious gift that urges us to the life of the Gospels in a way that we actually bring about in our world some manifestation of the new creation — the kingdom of God.

The work of the Spirit

“Do you not know,” asks St. Paul, “that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). The Holy Spirit works in God’s people collectively as the church, but his inspiration and love are directed also to each individual Christian. With personal concern God’s Spirit wills to sanctify and lead each and every one of us to perfection. In all of us who thirst for the life-giving waters of grace, the Holy Spirit desires to make both our faith and our love personal and strong.

Indeed, only the presence of the Spirit binds the believer intimately to Christ. “Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom 8:9). “And the way we know that he (Christ) remains in us, is from the Spirit that he gave us” (1 Jn 3:24).

At the heart of the work of the Holy Spirit within the souls of the faithful is an outpouring of self to make us holy. The process of becoming holy — perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect — begins at baptism when the Holy Spirit initiates his dwelling in the soul to endow it with sanctifying grace, to implant in it faith and love and other rich gifts. “Whoever loves me,” Jesus says, “will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23).

One God, three persons

“Dominum et Vivificantem,” in addition to an introduction and a conclusion, has three chapters or headings. In the first, the pope addresses Jesus’ gift of the Spirit to the church and the gradual understanding of the Holy Spirit as a distinct, divine person, one with the Father and the Son, who is now the life-giving force of the church and who, by his communion with the Father and the Son, makes present the Trinitarian life in each believer.

While we may be in awe of the mystery of God’s Holy Spirit at work within us, and while the church’s teaching on the life-giving power of the Spirit may uplift us, we are also sadly aware of our own human failings. Concurrent with the energizing, renewing, restoring and sanctifying force of the Holy Spirit is the continuing and enduring effects of both original sin and our own personal sin.

In Chapter 2, our Holy Father turns our attention to the mission of the Holy Spirit, which is “to convince the world concerning sin …” (28). Conversion begins with a recognition that we are caught in the grasp of sin. One of the principal works of the Holy Spirit, as our Holy Father unfolds for us, is the awakening in human hearts of a sense of our own sinfulness in order to prepare the way for our conversion and our ability to live in the truth.

In the celebration of the Eucharist in the Roman Canon, we pray that we might be re-created “in Spirit and in truth.” As we gradually become a part of this new creation — a new being with new life in Christ — we take on more and more the transforming gift of the Spirit, which touches our hearts and opens our minds to the fullness of the truth.