We have been made in the image and likeness of God and have an intellect and a free will — the power to know and to choose. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are able to dwell within us as the truth that fulfills our intellect and the Spirit of love that completes the yearning of our will.

In “Dominum et Vivificantem,” the third of Pope John Paul II’s reflections on the persons of the Trinity, the Holy Father offers for us a consideration of the church’s teaching on the Holy Spirit. The “Lord and Giver of Life,” who dwells within each of the baptized, motivates us toward the light of God. We are comforted by the presence of the third person of the holy Trinity as we are continuously threatened by aspects of sin — aspects of darkness.

From the earliest moment of God’s creative plan for all of us as the human family, sin has inserted its ugly face. The Holy Father speaks of “the spirit of darkness” who is “capable of showing God as an enemy of his own creature, and in the first place as an enemy of man, as a source of danger and threat to man. In this way Satan manages to sow in man’s soul the seed of opposition to the one who ‘from the beginning’ would be considered as man’s enemy — and not as Father. Man is challenged to become the adversary of God!” (38.1).

The power of darkness

The power of darkness continues to sow seeds of division to alienate us from God at the very heart of our relationship with him. We see this effort all around us every day. For example, the teaching of the church is presented as antiquated and archaic. Those who would foster a vision of human life centered on self and driven primarily by personal satisfaction and aggrandizement paint the voice of the church — the Spirit’s proclamation — as foolishness.

The public debate concerning abortion reveals how devious these attacks are. The banner “pro-choice” flies over the buildings where death is meted out to unborn children. Abortion is described as a “reproductive right” and the consequences of the exercise of this right are masked in rhetoric and denial.

What is under attack in so much of the civilization of death, as it is aptly described by our Holy Father in “Evangelium Vitae,” is, first of all, the truth. Words are used to hide or distort, to mask and to deform the truth. The taking of the life of helpless elderly people is no longer called euthanasia or even mercy killing. We now read about “facilitating the natural conclusion of the biological process.” Infanticide, the killing of a newly born child, is guised as the “termination of the product of extended gestation.” An unborn baby is killed under the banner of its “pre-functional dependency.” This is the use of words to distort or mask the truth.

Our advocate and guide

Our Holy Father teaches us that “the Spirit who searches the depths of God was called by Jesus in his discourse in the upper room the Paraclete. For from the beginning the Spirit ‘is invoked’ in order to ‘convince the world concerning sin’” (39.1).

He is reminding us that the redemptive salvific work of Christ’s death and resurrection becomes operative in us to the extent that we recognize our own sin and turn from it. In the logical dynamic of our communion with God — first comes recognition of our sinfulness, then our turning to God for healing and new life.

It is in the chapter on the Spirit convincing the world concerning sin that the pope reiterates the church’s ancient teaching that it is the Spirit who enlightens our minds to recognize right from wrong, God’s way from our failure, and the healing power of the Spirit to make us one with God — to forgive our sins and restore us to new life. It is the Spirit who gives life.

The third chapter of “Dominum et Vivificantem” reminds us that “man’s intimate relationship with God in the Holy Spirit also enables him to understand himself, his own humanity, in a new way. Thus that image and likeness of God, which man is from his very beginning, is fully realized” (59.1).

Each of us is called to a sublime destiny. What awaits us at the end of this long struggle through life is the glory of God. The Spirit comes not only to convince us of sin but also to provide us with an awareness of who God is and, therefore, who we are and to give us a share in the life of God himself. There is no greater gift than God’s gift to each of us of the Holy Spirit, who elevates us to new life in God.

Made one in the Spirit

At the same time, the encyclical recalls that we do not make the journey through life to the Father by ourselves. We are not islands in a sea of time and space. We are members of a family — God’s family. The church is the sacrament of intimate union with God. In his reflection on the role of the church and our salvation, the pope reminds us that the “new coming of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and his constant presence and action in the spiritual life are accomplished in the sacramental reality” (61.2).

The great sacramental presence of Christ is his church, the manifestation of Christ in a life-giving manner takes place in the seven sacraments, which bring us into an immediate and grace-giving encounter with Christ. Clearly, “the most complete sacramental expression of the ‘departure’ of Christ through the mystery of the cross and resurrection is the Eucharist. In every celebration of the Eucharist his coming, his salvific presence, is sacramentally realized: in the sacrifice and in communion. It is accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, as part of his own mission” (62.1).

Interestingly enough, the Holy Father footnotes this particular reflection with a reference to the “epiclesis” before Communion, which expresses: “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer II).