Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 38 – Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 38 - Part III. Who is the “Holy Spirit”?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity and has the same divine majesty as the Father and the Son.  

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 246) The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)". The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration... And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son" (Council of Florence (1439): DS 1300-1301). (CCC 263) The mission of the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in the name of the Son (Jn 14:26) and by the Son "from the Father" (Jn 15:26), reveals that, with them, the Spirit is one and the same God. "With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified" (Nicene Creed).    

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) When we discover the reality of God in us, we are dealing with the working of the Holy Spirit. God sent “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (Gal 4:6), so that he might fill us completely. In the Holy Spirit a Christian finds profound joy, inner peace, and freedom. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship [in whom] we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ (Rom 8:15b)”. In the Holy Spirit, whom we receive in Baptism and Confirmation we are permitted to call God “Father”.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 206) In revealing his mysterious name, YHWH ("I AM HE WHO IS", "I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHO I AM"), God says who he is and by what name he is to be called. This divine name is mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is - infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: he is the "hidden God", his name is ineffable, and he is the God who makes himself close to men (Cf. Isa 45:15;  Judg 13:18). (CCC 310) But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 25, 6). But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG III, 71). 

(This question: Who is the “Holy Spirit”? is continued)