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

YOUCAT Question n. 38 - Part V. 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 248) At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son (Jn 15:26; cf. AG 2). The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason" (Council of Florence (1439): DS 1302), for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle" (Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331), is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds (Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274): DS 850). This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.     

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 247) The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447 (Cf. Leo I, Quam laudabiliter (447): DS 284), even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches. (CCC 264) "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son" (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095). (CCC 207) By revealing his name God at the same time reveals his faithfulness which is from everlasting to everlasting, valid for the past ("I am the God of your father"), as for the future ("I will be with you") (Ex 3:6, 12). God, who reveals his name as "I AM", reveals himself as the God who is always there, present to his people in order to save them. [End]      

(The next question is: Is Jesus God? Does he belong to the Trinity?)