TRINITY: DOMINUM ET VIVIFICANTEM (outline)

Outline of the Encyclical:

DOMINUM ET VIVIFICANTEM

INTRODUCTION

1. In our age we are called anew to draw near to the HS as the giver of life.

2. This letter responds to the deep desires discernible in people’s hearts today, a fresh discovery of God, the hope of finding a new creation and a giver of life – Church’s mission.

3. It only hopes to develop the church’s awareness of being “compelled by the HS.” (LG 17)

PART 1: THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON GIVEN TO THE CHURCH

A. Jesus’ Promise and Revelation at the Last Supper

1. The HS is an another counselor because Jesus is the first one – a counselor to continue the work of the good news of salvation.
2. John 14:26 – this will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you.
3. It guarantees the continuation among the generation of Christian disciples.
4. It will guide us into all truth.

• refers not only to the scandal of the cross but to everything that Christ “did and taught”
• it is achieved in FAITH – humanity’s supreme guide and light

5. intimate bond between the HS and JC: “the Spirit will glorify Christ and take what is in him and declare it to us.”
6. If Christ did not go away, the counselor will not come to us. When he comes he will convince the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment.

B. Father, Son and Holy Spirit

1. use of “he” reveals the bonds that unite the Father, Son and HS
2. The Spirit bears witness to the Son and is sent by the Son.
3. The HS will come insofar as Christ will depart through the cross, not only afterward, but because of the redemption accomplished by Christ, through the will and action of the Father.
4. The “love” shared by the 3 persons is the HS.
5. In the HS the life of the triune God becomes totally gift.

• it is a personal expression of this self-giving from which all giving of gifts derives:

a) the gift of existence to all things through creation

b) the gift of grace to HB through salvation

• God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the HS, which has been given to us.

C. The Salvific Self-Giving of God in the Holy Spirit

1. the redemption accomplished by the Son in his departure through cross and resurrection, is transmitted to the HS, the one who “will take what is mine.”
2. it is the beginning of the new salvific self-giving of God in the HS.

• does the use of the plural “Let us make” already suggest the Trinitarian mystery?
• Jesus’ description of his departure as a condition for the new beginning links to the mystery of redemption – anew beginning needed because sin had intervened.

3. the departure of Christ means a new presence of the Spirit of God in creation
4. The HS comes at the price of Christ’s departure on the cross, a departure that caused sorrow, a sorrow that turned into joy.

D. The Messiah, Anointed with the Holy Spirit

1. Isaiah 11:1-3 links the ancient biblical concept of “spirit” understood as “a charismatic breath of wind” to the “Spirit” as a person and as a gift, a gift for the person
2. the Prophet presents the Messiah as the one who comes in the HS, the one who possesses the fullness of this Spirit in himself.

E. Jesus of Nazareth, “Exalted in the HS”

1. John the Baptist foretells the Messiah-Christ not only as the one who “is coming” but also as the one who “brings the HS”
2. “heaven was opened, and the HS descended upon him in bodily form as a dove” – a Trinitarian theophany; it touches the mystery of the very person of the Messiah: “my Son”.

• this would be gradually revealed and confirmed by what “Jesus did and taught”
• rejoicing in the HS
• he rejoices at God’s fatherhood, and because it had been given to him to reveal God’s fatherhood

3. What came at the Jordan “from outside” comes here “from within” – from the depths of who Jesus is.
4. What he says of the Father and of himself flows from that fullness of the Spirit that is in him, pervading his own “I,” inspiring his actions from the depths “within,” being the Son of the same substance.

F. The Risen Christ says: “Receive the Holy Spirit”

1. What is the Spirit? OT: breath; Isaiah: gift; Jordan: Jesus as one who comes in the HS
2. It is at the last supper that the HS is revealed in a new and fuller way. He is not only the gift to the Messiah; he is a Person-gift, another counselor, who will lead the apostles “into all truth”.
3. Pascha; events: the time of the new coming of the HS – time of the “new beginning”
4. the HS is given to the apostles and to the church in a new way, and through them to humanity and the whole world
5. On the day of resurrection, when the risen Jesus, “full of power” does 2 things:

a) fulfilling God’s promise: “a new heart I will give you…” (Ex. 36:26f.)

b) and fulfilling his own promise: “If I go, I will send him to you” (1 Jn. 16:7)

6. In this key the Risen Christ “brings” to the apostles the HS at the price of his won departure

• thus there is no sending of the HS – after the original sin – without the cross and resurrection.

7. the redemption is carried out by the Son and at the same time constantly carried out in the history of the world by the HS, the “other counselor”.

G. The HS and the Era of the Church

1. On the day of Pentecost the HS sanctified the church forever.
2. Vatican II: it calls Pentecost the day of Church’s birth

• what is being shut now manifested in public

3. Doubtless, the HS was already at work in the world before Christ was glorified. Yet on the day of the Pentecost, he came down upon the disciples to remain with them forever.

• on that day the church was publicly revealed to the multitude
• the Gospel began to spread among the nations by means of preaching

4. the HS, transmitted in ordination and confirmation dwelling within the Church as in a temple guides it in the fullness of truth
5. Vatican II: confirmed the presence of the HS, making the Spirit “newly present” in our difficult age
6. the XX opening itself to the contemporary world must carefully “discern” what comes from the HS

PART 2: THE SPIRIT WHO CONVINCES THE WORLD CONCERNING SIN

A. Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment

1. According to Jesus words’, the Spirit will convince the world concerning these 3: (Jn. 16:7)

a) concerning sins – because they do not believe in me

b) concerning righteousness – because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more

c) concerning judgment – because the ruler of this world is judged

• sin – the unbelief Jesus meets among his own – rejection of his mission
• righteousness – the definitive justice and glory the Father will give to him
• judgment – that the world will be shown guilty of his death

2. Vatican II: understands the “world” as fallen in sin, yet emancipated by Jesus, to be fashioned anew according to God’s design and to reach its fulfillment
3. Sin includes here all the sin in the history of humankind.

• because that mission is universal, every sin in the world is related to the cross of Christ

B. The Testimony of the Day of Pentecost

1. what Jesus had foretold the HS would do
2. conversion includes the interior judgment of the conscience, and at the same time a new beginning, receiving the HS.
3. “convincing concerning sin” is a double-gift: the gift of conscience and the gift of redemption
4. The sin of Good Friday and of every human sin was matched by the oblation of supreme love, conquering all sins.
5. The HS “searches the depths of God”, and from them draws God’s response to sin.
6. By convincing the world concerning the sin of Golgotha, the HS shows the evil of sin in relation to the cross of Jesus.

C. The Witness Concerning the Beginning: The Original Reality of Sin

1. The dimension of sin as described in the Genesis book is the principle and root of all other sin.
2. In it the “mystery of iniquity” has its beginning, but also the “mystery of devotion – disobedience of Adam and obedience of Christ.”
3. The disobedience in the beginning relates to the “nonfaith” in the Paschal Mystery.

• a rejection or a turning away from the truth contained in the Word of the Father

4. The Spirit of God is not only the witness of the mutual love between the Father and the Word-Son; he himself is this love, the eternal uncreated gift.

• in the HS is the source and beginning of every giving of gifts to creatures
• Creation means not only that humanity is rational and free but also that it has a capacity of a personal relationship with God, of having a mutual covenant, and a call to friendship.

5. The HS, knowing from the beginning the secrets of the HB, is the only one who can convince the world concerning sin and concerning what happened at the beginning.
6. sin in Genesis is “disobedience” – a transgression of the prohibition laid down by God
7. God the Creator is the source of moral order in the world; HB cannot decide by themselves what is good and what is evil.
8. humanity cannot know good and evil like God

• God decides about good and evil in the reflection of the Word, the eternal Son
• The HS gives humanity the gift of conscience, so that in this conscience the HB – the image of God – may reflect its model.

9. The HS does not cease to convince the world of this sin relating it to the cross of Christ.
10. Man has separated himself from the sharing of God’s love and life, not to the degree of Satan, but opened up to the way of the “father of lies”.
11. Spirit of darkness = capable of showing God as an enemy of God’s own creature, a source of danger and threat to humanity.
12. Humanity is pressed by the “father of lies” to reject God even to the point of hating God: “Love of self to the point of contempt for God.”

• atheistic ideologies = religion causes the radical “alienation” of humanity
• declaring God’s death – more threat to humanity than to God

13. GS 36: “Without the Creator the creature would disappear. When God is forgotten the creature itself becomes unintelligible.”

D. The Spirit who Transforms the Suffering into Salvific Love

1. Father feels compassion for humanity, sharing in their pain – brought about the wonderful economy of redemptive love in JC – love can reveal itself as stronger than sin, and the “gift” may prevail
2. For a HB mercy means sorrow and compassion for the misfortunes of one’s neighbor. In God, the Spirit-love, it is expressed in a fresh outpouring of saving love.
3. “Convincing the word of sin” becomes for the HS the good news that sin is conquered through the sacrifice of the lamb of God.
4. Presence of the Spirit in the Sacrifice of the Incarnate Word: see the connection between the sacrifice and the purification of conscience/spirit and the power to convince concerning sin

• Heb. 9:13 indicates that the HS is present in the sacrifice of Jesus, just as the Spirit was present in Jesus’ conception and in his hidden and public life.
• Jesus opened himself totally to the action of the Spirit-Paraclete in his humanity at Gethsemani and on Golgotha. (Heb. 5:7f.)
• New humanity: JC, as a HB, enabled the HS to transform that humanity into a perfect sacrifice.

5. The HS is the “fire from heaven” at work at the depth of the mystery of the cross.

• the Spirit comes down into the very heart of the sacrifice on the cross; Jesus receives the HS in such a way that he – alone with God the Father – can “give him” to he apostles, the churc and humanity.

E. The Blood that Purifies the Conscience

1. at Easter the HS is revealed in a new way – revealed as the one who is t continue the salvific work rooted in the sacrifice of the cross

• entrusted to the apostles, church
• the HS remains the agent of the accomplishment of this work in the history of the world
• the Spirit who blows where he wills

2. Jn. 20:22 – this power to grant forgiveness presupposes and includes the saving action of the HS.
3. Becoming the “light of their hearts” he makes people realize their own evil and directs them to what is good.

• Thus conversion is brought about by the influence of the Counselor, entering by virtue of the redemption trough the blood of the Son of Man the sanctuary of human consciences.

4. Conscience is the secret core and sanctuary of HB, where they are alone with God, whose voice echoes in their depths.

• it speaks to the heart: “Do this, shun that!”
• it is the main characteristic of the personal subject
• it detects from it a LAW, which one does not impose upon oneself but which holds to obedience
• it is not an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil
• imprinted upo it is a principle of obedience, vis-à-vis objective norm, the commands and prohibitions that are at the basis of human behavior.
• It is the “voice of God” – not a mere principle of moral order but it has a direct reference to the Creator.

5. The upright conscience calls good and evil by their proper names:

a) whatever is opposed to life itself

b) whatever violates the integrity of the human person

c) whatever insults human dignity

d) disgraceful working conditions

• They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them, than to those who suffer from injury.
• Thus, all of life is involved in the “dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness” (GS 13).

6. Calling sin by its right name is not all the HS works out in the human conscience.
7. The HS also demonstrates that the imbalances in the modern world are rooted in the basic imbalance in the heart of the HB.

• Man as wrestling constantly – with the help of God’s grace – to cling to what is good.

8. This effort of conscience determines the paths of human conversion: turning one’s back on sin and restoring truth and love in our hearts.

• recognizing evil in ourselves demands a great effort
• it is the source of remorse in the “heart of the Trinity” and expressed on the cross in Jesus’ obedience unto death.

9. The giver of this saving power is the HS, filling “the depths of the human heart,” opening them to forgiveness, to the remission of sins.
10. The HS comes by virtue of Christ’s “departure” in the PM, in each concrete case of conversion-forgiveness.

F. The Sin Against the Holy Spirit

1. “blasphemy against the HS” – consists in the refusal to accept the salvation that God offers through the HS
2. the “nonforgiveness” Jesus speaks about is linked to “nonrepentance” to the radical refusal to be converted
3. blasphemy against the HS is the sin committed by the person who claims the “right” to persist in evil.

• One closes oneself up in sin, which means spiritual ruin.

4. In such a person the action of the HS meets an interior resistance, the “hardness of heart” or maybe in the words of our time: “the loss of the sense of sin”. (DV 47)
5. Those who let themselves be convinced concerning sin and righteousness and who are converted though the action of the HS are also led out of the range of “judgment.”

• they are led to the righteousness that the Father gives to the Son and to all those united with him in truth and love
• the HS is in this way revealed as the Spirit of eternal life

PART 3: THE SPIRIT WHO GIVES LIFE

A. Reason for the Jubilee of the Year 2000: Christ was conceived by the HS

1. Since the coming of Christ, human history has been wholly permeated by the “measurement” of God, a transcendent presence of the “eternal NOW.”
2. Luke and Matthew (narrative of the birth of Jesus) express the mystery of incarnation making reference to the Holy Spirit.
3. The conception and birth of JC are the greatest work of the HS in the history of creation and salvation.

• It brings about the mystery of the “hypostatic union,” the union of the divine nature and the human nature of the divinity and humanity in the one Person of the Word-Son.
• The incarnation of God the Son signifies the taking up into unity with God, not only in human nature, but in this human nature.

4. The XX cannot prepare for the jubilee in any other way than in the HS.

• It is only by the Spirit that what was accomplished “at the fullness of time” can be remembered.
• It was the same HS that made Mary’s heart in faith obedient to the self-communication of God.

5. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17)

B. Reason for the Jubilee: Grace Has Been Made Manifest

1. The Incarnation opens in a new way the source of divine life in the history of humankind.
2. “All who are led by the Spirit are children of God.” (cf. Rom. 8:14)

• This birth or rebirth happens when God the Father “sends the spirit of his Son into our hearts.”
• In this way there begins in the heart of all HB the gift by which they become “partakers of the divine nature” (cf. 2 Pet. 1:4).

3. Celebrating this jubilee we need to go further back to even before the Christ if we want to embrace the whole of the action of the HS throughout the world.
4. Vatican II: “outside the visible body of the Church, all people of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for al, and since the ultimate vocation of the HB is in fact one, and divine we ought to believe that the HS in a manner known only to God offers to every HB the possibility of being associated with the Paschal Mystery. (GS 22, LG 16).
5. God’s presence in the intimacy of the HB (inmost being): in JC this divine presence has been made manifest in a new way, through the power of the HS.

• The salvific “hidden God” “fills the universe” as love and gift.

C. The HS in One’s Inner Conflict: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.”

1. The Spirit meets resistance and opposition in our human reality.

• This opposition has its origin in the fact that world and God differ radically: materiality and Spirit.
• Because of sin this opposition becomes conflict and rebellion.

2. There exists in us, as being made up by body and spirit, a certain tension [St. Paul]:

a) works of the flesh: impurity, drunkenness, enmity, strife, jealousy and anger

b) fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness

3. Paul also distinguished between life and death: “If you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the world of the flesh you will live.” (Rom. 8:6, 13)
4. Present’s resistance of the Spirit: MATERIALISM

• CORE OF Marxism and which does not accept God’s existence (atheism)
• Matter is the only one form of being.
• Materialism accepts death as the definitive end of human existence.
• Life then is nothing but an “existence in order to die.”
• Ex. nuclear self-destruction, abortion, terrorism

5. Does there not arise from all this a more or less conscious plea to the life-giving Spirit?

“We grown inwardly as we wait for…” the redemption of our human essence, but we do that in unflagging hope, because it is to this HB that God has drawn near, sending his own Son: the Son who breathed over them, saying: “Receive the HS,” the Spirit who helps us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26).”

D. The Holy Spirit Strengthens the “Inner Person”

1. “He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).

• The church serves this life that comes from God, making the human person “the way of the Church.”

2. It is under the influence of the HS that a person matures and becomes strong.

• In this Spirit the triune God opens God’s very self to the human spirit.
• A new life is brought about and the person becomes a “dwelling place” of the HS, “a living temple of God”, living in God and by God.

3. Humanity’s relationship with God will enable people to understand themselves in a new way as the image and likeness of God – rediscovering themselves in Christ in their gift to others, precisely by reason of their divine likeness.

• It is in this way that the triune God transforms the human world from within, from inside hearts and minds, making it ever more human (GS 38, 40) until all God will be “all in all”.

4. Sums up the whole Christian Anthrpology: “that all may be one…as we are one” implying a “certain likeness between the union of the divine persons and the union of the children of God in truth and charity”
5. The year 2000 contains in this way the promise of liberation by the power of the HS:

a) freedom and human dignity that shine especially in times of persecution

b) manifest themselves also in the ordinary conditions of society

c) we work together in obedience to the HS at the “renewal of the face of the earth”

E. The Church as the Sacrament of Intimate Union with God

1. “I will not leave you desolate, I will come to you.” (Jn 14:18)

This new coming of Christ by the power of the HS and his constant presence are accomplished sacramentally.

2. The departure and coming of Christ are most completely expressed in the Eucharist.

• It is through the E that individuals and communities are strengthened.

• It reveals the union of God’s children and teaches us to share in the sacrifice of Christ..

3. FATHER: Through creation we all live and move and have our being in God.
4. SON: Through redemption we are taken up in a double rhythm:

mission of the Son both finding their source

mission of the HS in the Father

HS: The HS came through the departure of the Son, gone away in the PM – but comes to us and is with us through the power of the HS.

0. The Church is the visible dispenser and the HS acts as the invisible dispenser. Together with the Spirit Jesus is present and acting.
1. The Church is a “sacrament that is sign and instrument” of this unity at the very roots of the human race, trying to restore and strengthen it, a task in which the HS is present and at work.

The Spirit and the Bride Say: “Come!”

The simplest way in which the HS makes itself felt is in prayer.

• Wherever a prayer is offered in the world the HS is breathing in the human heart.
• Prayer remains the voice of the voiceless, crying to God.
• The HS is the one who guides us in prayer, giving it a divine dimension.
• This is a comforting sign in an age in which humanity feels threatened, notwithstanding all the rapid technological and scientific progress.

The XX remains faithful to its birth, persevering in prayer in the Upper Room together with Mary.

The Church perseveres in hope of the eternal kingdom that is brought about by participation in the life of the Trinity.

“Lord JC: Come” – a prayer that is filled with eschatological significance in this time leading up to the great jubilee.

CONCLUSION

The way of the Church passes through the heart of the human person, because there is the hidden place where we meet the HS:

Counselor

Intercessor

Advocate

Guardian of Hope

Father of the Poor

Giver of Gifts

Light of Hearts

Sweet Guest of the Soul

The XX keeps professing its faith in a Spirit that is an uncreated gift, filling the universe.

It implores from the HS; the joy that “no one will be able to take away” (cf. Jn. 16:22) and a peace that can only pass through love and that it will never cease to serve.

Before this Spirit-love, this Spirit of peace, I implore for all of us the blessing and grace that I desire to pass on the church and to the whole human family.

May 30, 1986