P. Gianni Colzani
The Person of the Spirit
The truth about the Spirit was defined by the First Council of Constantinople in 381; the council rejects any denial of the Spirit and presents the Spirit as the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, is worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, and has spoken through the prophets. This is at least how the text sounds, which was adopted by the Chalcedonian Council; in any case, we find similar themes in the councils of union; in the confession of faith of Michael Palaiologos at the Council of Lyon in 1274; in the decrees to the Greeks and Jacobites at the Florentine Council, or at the councils of 1439 and 1441; in the confession of faith prescribed to the Greeks by Gregory XIII in 1575. This is how the Christian tradition continued and presented the Spirit as a person, one of the three persons of the Trinity. However, beginning with Boethius, the metaphysical elaboration of the concept of “person” has led to fixation on the rational essence and incommunicable individuality of the person. Yet it seems that such a characterization does not capture the Spirit and the action of the Spirit as we know it.
It is therefore useful to follow Moltmann when he urges us to approach the person of the Spirit without any preconceived metaphysical notion of “person.” Rather, we should use many images and various symbols by which the Spirit is designated in the history of salvation. Without attempting a complete enumeration or overview, we can recall some here; the Spirit is the Lord, the power or dynamis, fire and light, water of life and love, freedom and truth, and above all, life and holiness. Can we find a common, unifying element in such a wealth of concepts? I would say yes. There is always before us a sovereign and free force that, however, makes itself available to relationships and community, which enables the establishment of bonds between persons on new and diverse foundations. To this, the force of the Spirit is directed. The basic structure of the person of the Spirit can, therefore, be summarized around a dual dynamism: ek-stasis, or stepping outside oneself, and kenosis, or being close to another. This is the gospel: “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).
We understand the term ek-stasis if we see in God the one who steps outside of himself; for Irenaeus, the Word and the Spirit are the two hands by which God gives being and introduces into the depths of his love. The creative act does not designate the world and humanity for some neutral existence, but for an existence characterized by a certain uniting and ascending energy: the Spirit is the presence of God “outside” of himself, it is the altruism of absolute and pure love, which is satisfied only by giving itself for the emergence of another. The fact that the Spirit is a person is not exhausted by the Spirit being himself: in the life of the Trinity, the Spirit enables mutual self-giving – vinculum amoris (bond of love) – of the Father and the Son, and in the history of salvation, the Spirit is the one who opens and relates what has taken place through Jesus to all people and the whole world. Ek-stasis of God towards his counterpart, towards the creature – this is what the Spirit is, and in a divine way, transcendentally, salvationally, as is evident from the terms that represent it as freedom, truth, love, fire, and light, as a power that spreads from itself. The fullness of the reality that the Spirit is a person rests in the fullness of his gift; therefore, it cannot exist and at the same time not enter into a transforming and renewing community with the history of humanity. Such a Spirit is the place of divine action “outside” of itself. God carries out his work through the modality of the Spirit of Christ or through the modality of mercy, which justifies the sinner and sanctifies the person, through the powerful inclination towards hunger and sickness, to be novelty and hope, through the call to community with him even beyond the final borders of the struggle with death. As Athanasius reminds: “The Lord became the bearer of the body, so that we, human beings, might become bearers of the Spirit (pneumatoforoi).” The spiritual person - namely, one who has received baptism (let us not fall into any form of intimism) - is therefore a witness of the Spirit, a person who, in their freedom, knows how to justify the hope that has filled their heart.
The second dynamism of the person of the Spirit is kenosis, self-limitation, through which the Spirit brings the flow of God’s love to fullness, shows God in his greatness and brilliance, in which one can participate. And indeed, in the images of wind and light, the Spirit has no own face, but is the face of Jesus’ glorification in the life and life history of his disciples. Kenosis thus creates space for the other, a willingness to be used for the good of the other, surrendering oneself into his hands – in the joy of his free growth. Here, kenosis becomes a great light in an anthropological sense, in accordance with the text 2 Cor 3:17. “Those who are endowed with the Spirit can set limits to their freedom, create space for others, act for the benefit of the development of others. In this way and for this purpose, they are equipped with tremendous energy and spread kindness and trust around them. (…) Their well-being is connected with the liberating opening of new life possibilities for others, with the experience of overcoming life-hostile and oppressive powers and forces for the benefit of others.”16 The Spirit’s kenosis in this sense cannot be reduced to passivity. It is the principle of renewal and transformation of both the person and history; it operates in us and gives rise, from contact with our wretchedness – He, who purifies what is stained, and waters what is dry, – to a new creation. Kenosis is connected with the human search for meaning and mobilizes the person to strive for their highest vocation.
M. Welker summarizes these reflections and speaks of the Spirit as a “public person”.17 The Heidelberg professor aims to support the understanding of the Spirit, according to which, on a personal level, the Spirit focuses on the figure of Jesus and on a historical level is poured out onto us. The Spirit of Christ and the community of his disciples who live from his life are the public way through which God continues his work in a world that, by selfishness and individualism, endangers itself and its future. Welker depicts this “public nature” of the Spirit’s action with the concept of “resonance field,” which comes from N. Luhmann. To say that the church is a resonance field of Christ’s power means focusing it both on complete obedience to its Lord and on the creative courage to bear witness about him and live from him. In summary: the presence of the Spirit in someone other than themselves is the way through which the Spirit is truly himself: in his freely given gift, all human history comes into contact with divine life.
The Mission of the Spirit
At this moment, it is easy to summarize the mission of the Spirit in relation to life if we explain what is meant by life. The risk of naturalistic vitalism – more or less in line with Bergson's élan vitale or Tillich’s courage to be – is certainly great. In an effort to describe life theologically, J. Moltmann defines it “as both a self-creating finality and a means of achieving the Kingdom of God.”18 The great attention to history (including personal history – note of the editor), contained in this statement, would perhaps gain greater clarity if it were connected with a more precise emphasis on its trinitarian and christological value. In reality, it is precisely the trinitarian and perichoretic conception of the Spirit that highlights its salvific dynamism.
The modality of the Spirit's mission in the world is specified by the account of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–11). The meaning of this narration is to illuminate the surprising tension between the diversity of languages and cultures with their apparent mutual inaccessibility, laden with alienation and distrust, and the sudden experience of understanding and community into which the present are drawn. The history of each must be reconsidered in a new light, however mysterious and incomprehensible it may be, in light of the declaration of the universal nature of what has occurred through Jesus. The miracle of Pentecost does not reside in external phenomena, but in the universal proclamation of God’s deeds (performed) in Jesus. Jesus is the basis of a renewed, differentiated way to see oneself: around Jesus, a planetary and multicultural community emerges. The Johannine account of Pentecost (John 20:19–23) reminds that part of this new situation is also the messianic joy of the church and its commitment against evil and sin.
This new situation is entrusted to the church as a gift, as joy, and as responsibility. From the fullness of the Spirit and therefore from salvation, the church, however, possesses only a pledge (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; Eph 1:14), not their fullness. This, however, does not mean that the church only has a part of salvation, or that it deludes itself into thinking it has it. It has it completely, but as a seed that still needs to grow to prove its vitality through action. By the power of baptism, this task also becomes our task. Everyone is called to truly bring God into our time, to glorify him in our world. Paul presents in 1 Cor 9:11 the work of the missionary with a striking image as scattering spiritual gifts (pneumatika), which then aim at their natural fullness; through faith, hope, and love, the Spirit urges us towards eschatological fullness. To fullness, whose sign is community, the criterion is the path according to the Spirit and the pledge of joyful celebration.
Of the numerous observations that are possible in this context, Hans Urs von Balthasar19 distinguishes between objective and subjective modalities of the Spirit’s action, considering practically the entire Christian economy of salvation – I would like to remind only of the importance of charisms. Charisma is not merely a freely given gift, but is primarily a way in which the Christian participates in the universal and cosmic mission of Christ: “This ‘gift’, though it serves personal calling and is a form of participation in the salvific work of the church, is also to the benefit of others and builds the church and brotherly church communities in various areas of human earthly life.”20 The gifts of the Spirit do not disband the church into a tangle of personal roles of individuals, but encourage it to manifest the personal “I” of the Lord, who serves (Luke 22:27). In this respect, charisms are an appropriate expression of the life of the church: they realize a community whose foundation is not moral law or institutional demand, but dynamis – the strength and power that manifests itself in the history of people by giving life to a true community of love, brotherhood alive and diverse in its external action. Therefore, charisma is never our personal possession and can never be separated from its source and from its purpose: whoever becomes detached from the Spirit, whoever becomes detached from love, is nothing (1 Cor 13:2).
Rich in this power, the church stands amidst history: it gives concrete form to God’s plan, striving for both its own holiness and the renewal of humanity. Holiness today must combine the dimension of praise and contemplation with life’s engagement so that engagement does not devolve into empty activism, nor do praise and contemplation confine themselves to subjective intimism. Contemplation constantly places before us God’s rejection of worldly logic and the rejection of the Father’s love by the world, thus helping us discern the ultimate meaning of history and our plans. Only in this way can we open the barred doors of our dining rooms and work towards the renewal of the world, for the future of God. The Spirit, who definitively ties the freedom of God to the depths of our lives, leads us to respond to the diverse expectations of liberation, to turn towards all tenderness in gestures that signify God’s love.
Allow me to conclude by reminding you of the seal of the action and presence of the Spirit, namely joy. Joy is the seal of love given and returned. It involves awareness of the inadequacy of everyday realities and the breaking of the vicious circle of life that is unchanging and merely repetitive. Joy opens our lives wide to something greater than our calculations, stronger than our fears. The Spirit's call to those invited to the wedding resonates with us today: “Come, for all is ready” (Luke 14:17). Since the Spirit has the pledge of our future, only surrendering to him heals the toil of individual days with the powers and means of the Kingdom. Only thus will our life be filled with a legacy that incorporates even our smallness and transcends it: “Now we are children of God. But what we will be has not yet been revealed” (1 John 3:2). Joy is an excess of something that is incongruous with our experience. When our hearts learn to burn with joy (Luke 24:32), disappointment and sadness will be definitively banished.
(La rivista del clero italiano, Milano, vol. LXXVIII, no. 10 – October 1997, pp. 654–660.
Translated by Zdena Kolářová, supplemented by Kateřina Lachmanová.)
