SFO International Council - Weekly edition
Volume: 4 - N. 15 - 1998 - April - II
From: Letter of John Paul II to the Priests, 1998
FOR HOLY THURSDAY 1988
My dear Brothers in the Priesthood!
With mind and heart turned to the Great Jubilee, the solemn celebration of the second millennium of the birth of Christ and the beginning of the third Christian millennium, I wish to join you in invoking the Spirit of the Lord, to whom we dedicate in a special way the second stage of the spiritual journey of immediate preparation for the Holy Year of 2000.
Docile to the Spirit's loving inspirations, we prepare ourselves to share intensely in this favourable time, imploring from the Giver of gifts the graces necessary to discern the signs of salvation and to respond with full fidelity to the call of God. (...)
On Holy Thursday, the day when we commemorate the Lord's Supper, we contemplate Jesus, the Servant "obedient unto death" ( Phil 2:8), who institutes the Eucharist and Holy Orders as the supreme sign of his love. He leaves us this extraordinary testament of love, so that always and everywhere the mystery of his Body and Blood may be perpetuated and people may approach the inexhaustible source of grace. Is there a more appropriate and evocative moment than this for us priests to contemplate the work of the Holy Spirit in us and to implore his gifts in order to conform ourselves all the more to Christ, the Priest of the New Covenant?
(...) In the Creed of the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople the Church proclaims her faith in the Holy Spirit as the Lord and Giver of Life, which expresses well the role he plays in the events of human life, particularly in accompanying the Lord's disciples on the way to salvation.
He is the Creator Spirit, whom Scripture presents at the dawn of human history as " moving over the face of the waters " ( Gn 1:2) and, at the dawn of the work of redemption, as the one through whom the Word of God took flesh (cf. Mt 1:20; Lk 1:35).
One in substance with the Father and the Son, "in the absolute mystery of the Triune God, he is the Person-love, the uncreated gift, who is the eternal source of every gift that comes from God in the order of creation, the direct principle and, in a certain sense, the subject of God's self-communication in the order of grace. The mystery of the Incarnation constitutes the climax of this giving, this divine self-communication" (Encyclical Letter, Dominum et Vivificantem, 50).
The Holy Spirit directs the earthly life of Jesus towards the Father. Through his mysterious intervention, the Son of God is conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary (cf. Lk 1:35) and becomes man. It is again the Spirit who, descending on Jesus in the form of a dove at the baptism in the Jordan (cf. Lk 3:21-22), shows him to be Son of the Father; and, immediately afterwards, it is the Spirit who drives him into the desert (cf. Lk 4:1). After his victory over the temptations, Jesus begins his mission "in the power of the Spirit" ( Lk 4:14); Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit and blesses the Father for his providential plan (cf. Lk 10:21); and by the Spirit's power he drives out demons (cf. Mt 12:28, Lk 11:20). In the drama of the Cross, Jesus offers himself "through the eternal Spirit" ( Hb 9:14), through whom he then rose (cf. Rm 8:11) and was "designated Son of God in power" ( Rm 1:4).
On the evening of Easter, the Risen Jesus said to the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room: "Receive the Holy Spirit" ( Jn 20:22); and, after promising another outpouring, he sent them out on the roads of the world, entrusted with the salvation of their brothers and sisters: "Go... and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" ( Mt 28:19-20).
The presence of Christ in the Church of all times and all places becomes living and powerful in the hearts of the faithful through the work of the Consoler (cf. Jn 14:26). For our time too the Spirit is the "principal agent of the new evangelization.... [He builds the Kingdom of God within the course of history and prepares its full manifestation in Jesus Christ, stirring people's hearts and quickening in our world the seeds of the full salvation which will come at the end of time" (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 45).
(...) In tender and mysterious language, the Gospel of John tells the story of the first Holy Thursday, when the Lord, at table with his disciples in the Upper Room, "having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end" (13:1). To the end! : until, that is, the institution of the Eucharist, which anticipates not only Good Friday and the sacrifice of the Cross but the entire Paschal mystery. At the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread in his hands and for the first time utters the words of consecration: "This is my body which will be given up for you". Then, over the chalice filled with wine, he proclaims the words of consecration: "This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven", and he adds: "Do this in memory of me". Thus, in the Upper Room and without the shedding of blood, Christ completes the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, which will be accomplished in blood on the following day, when he will say on the Cross: " Consummatum est " - "It is accomplished" ( Jn 19:30).
By the power of the Holy Spirit, this Sacrifice, offered once and for all on Calvary, is entrusted to the Apostles as the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Church. Seeking the mysterious intervention of the Spirit, the Church begs before the words of consecration: "And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Holy Spirit, that they may become the Body and Blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist" ( Eucharistic Prayer III). Without the power of God's Spirit, how could human lips ever make of bread and wine the Body and Blood of the Lord, even to the end of time? It is only because of the power of God's Spirit that the Church can profess unceasingly the great mystery of faith: "Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!". (...)
(...) "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ?Abba! Father!'" ( Gal 4:6). "All who are led by the Spirit are children of God... It is that very Spirit bearing witness to our spirit that we are children of God" ( Rm 8:14, 16). The words of the Apostle Paul remind us that the fundamental gift of the Spirit is sanctifying grace ( gratia gratum faciens ), with which we receive the theological virtues—faith, hope and charity—and all the infused virtues ( virtutes infusae ), which enable us to act under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the charisms, which are bestowed for the service of others, these gifts are offered to all, because they are intended to lead the person to sanctity and perfection. (...)
(...) Through the Spirit, God comes intimately to the person and penetrates the human world more and more: "The Triune God who 'exists' in himself as a transcendent reality of interpersonal gift, giving himself in the Holy Spirit as gift to man, transforms the human world from within, from inside hearts and minds" ( Dominum et Vivificantem , 59). (...)
With the seven gifts, the believer can enter into a personal and intimate relationship with the Father, with the freedom proper to the children of God. This is what Saint Thomas underscores in noting how the Holy Spirit leads us to act not because we are compelled but because we love. "The Holy Spirit", he writes, "leads the children of God in freedom, through love, not by compulsion, through fear" ( Contra Gentiles, Book IV, 22). The Spirit renders Christian action God-like, in harmony, that is, with God's way of thinking, loving and acting, so that the believer becomes a visible sign of the Blessed Trinity in the world. Sustained by the friendship of the Paraclete, by the light of the Word and by the love of the Father, the believer can boldly set out to imitate the perfection of God (cf. Mt 5:48). (...)