I have always had a special feeling for the third Person of
the Trinity. Perhaps because I felt he was getting short shrift, always less
talked about than the Father and the Son: it seemed unfair. Later, as I finally
learnt more about the content of our faith, this feeling persisted, if only
because I found him referred to as the loving relationship between the Father
and the Son, and I could not figure out how a relationship could be a Person.
There are, of course, all sorts of mysteries surrounding
him. For instance, both in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles he is
sometimes referred to as if he were a specific, almost physical and delimited
object or motion. Yeshua breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Almost like your peace, which you can bestow upon a house but which you can
take back if the house does not receive you decently.
In three languages he is the same. In Hebrew, ruach; in Greek, pneuma; in Latin, spiritus;
and in each of those languages the word can have the same three meanings: breath, wind, or spirit. It/he is what animates matter: God made Adam of clay, then
breathed life into him. It is he who
hovered over the primeval waters of the planet, creating differentiated life.
And when the Son approaches his final trial, he promises his
friends that he will send them a Defender, an Advocate, someone who will
accompany them always and be on their side no matter what the big greebly world
will do to them. He is the paraklètos,
the one who is on your side. And since he is also God, how can he fail?
Then, when Yeshua has risen and spent some time with them
and finally gone to his Father’s house, the pneuma
comes to them in a huge way on the feast of Pentecost, seven weeks after
Pesach. By this time the followers of Yeshua are many, and from many countries
around the Mediterranean; a crowd of them has assembled somewhere, possibly for
a liturgy; and suddenly there is a sound as of a mighty rushing wind and
tongues of fire appear on everybody’s head (the origin by the way, of the
bishop’s mitre). And, amazingly, each person hears the apostles’ sermon in his
own language or dialect. The ruach is
there in Person, just as a fiery Cloud
appeared in the Temple.
And what the ruach does
is in this case fascinating. As a French commentator said, this is the opposite
of the Tower of Babel. There, there was uniformity and an ambition to be
divine; here there is diversity and a Divinity who comes down. And the lesson,
said the Frenchwoman, is that the Spirit allows us to hear the Word each in our
own way and still (in every sense) communicate. We do not have to be the same
or even much alike. The Word of God comes to us. All we need to do is unlock the door, open our windows, and
fling the shutters wide.
And when he comes in, he will not only defend us but teach
us. Teach us to pray, teach us to get things right, teach us discernment, teach
us how to live in such a way as to make a home for him in our hearts. Coming
into us, he breathes, and we are clay
receiving life. Awkwardly blindly, we start moving, like a golem or Frankenstein’s monster; gradually we are filled with more
of that spiritus until at last we
become fully human. Human, that is, in the way we were created and meant to be.
He is creator spiritus: he
(re-)creates us to be new beings. We leave the caterpillar’s husk behind,
marvel at out new colours, and spread our wings.
Illustration: El Greco, "Pentecost" (Madrid)
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