Come, Holy Spirit

Inner Fire, Giver of Life, and Comforter of

the Poor

Leonardo Boff
Translated by Margaret Wilde
Founded in 1970, Orbis Books endeavors to publish works that enlighten the
mind, nourish the spirit, and challenge the conscience. The publishing arm of the
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, Orbis seeks to explore the global dimensions of
the Christian faith and mission, to invite dialogue with diverse cultures and
religious traditions, and to serve the cause of reconciliation and peace. The
books published reflect the views of their authors and do not represent the
official position of the Maryknoll Society. To learn more about Maryknoll and
Orbis Books, please visit our website at www.maryknollsociety.org

Copyright © 2015 by Orbis Books

Published by Orbis Books, Box 302, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0302.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by

any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from
the publisher.

Queries regarding rights and permissions should be addressed to: Orbis Books,
P.O. Box 302, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0302.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boff, Leonardo.
[O Espírito Santo. English]
Come, Holy Spirit : inner fire, giver of life, and comforter of the poor /
Leonardo Boff ; translated by Margaret Wilde.
pages cm
“Originally published as: O Espírito Santo : fogo interior, doador de vida e pai
dos pobres. 2013 by Animus/Anima Produoes Ltda., Petrcentpolis, RJ, Brasil.”
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62698-106-5
1. Holy Spirit.  2. Spiritual life.  I. Title.
BT121.3.B6513 2015
231'.3—dc23

2014028548
 Contents

Preface: Pentecost Was Only the Beginning

1.    Come, Holy Spirit, Come Soon!

The Presence of the Spirit in Great Crises
The Erosion of the Sources of Meaning
The Spirit in History: The Collapse of the Soviet Empire,
the Emergence of Globalization, the World Social
Forum, and Ecological Consciousness
The Fossilization of Religions and Churches
The Irrationality of Modern Reason
The Contribution of World Feminism
Catholic Charismatic Renewal
A Mission for the Renewal of Community
A Mission to Evangelize the Hierarchical Church?

2.    In the Beginning Was the Spirit: A New Way of

Thinking about God
Recovering the Word “Spirit”
Spirit-Laden Realities
The Power of Nature, Howling and Trembling
Life as an Expression of the Spirit
The Vitality of Plant and Animal Life
The Radiance of Human Life
The Human Being as Privileged Bearer of the Spirit
Brilliant Flashes of Charisma
Spirit-Possessed Enthusiasm
The Irruption of the Prophetic Spirit and Poetic
Inspiration
The Power of the Spirit in the Face of Oppression
Flesh and Spirit: Two Ways of Being
3.    Spirit: Interpreting the Foundational Experiences
Animism and Shamanism Are Still Relevant
The Biblical Ruah: Spirit That Fills the Cosmos
Pneuma and Spiritus: An Elemental Force of Nature
The Axé of the Nagô and Yoruba Peoples: Universal
Cosmic Energy
Everything Is Energy: Modern Cosmology
The Spirit in the Cosmos, in Humanity, and in God

4.    Moving from the Spirit to the Spirit of Holiness

The Spirit Acts in Creation
God Has Spirit
God Is Spirit

5.    The Leap from Spirit of Holiness to Holy Spirit

What Does Jesus Say about the Holy Spirit?
The Spirit Comes to Dwell in Mary of Nazareth
The Holy Spirit Forms the Community of Disciples
The Holy Spirit Is God
The Two Arms of the Father: The Son and the Holy Spirit
Two Kingdoms and Two Projects: Flesh and Spirit
The Spirit, the Church, and Charisms
From Signs to the Full Revelation of the Spirit

6.    From God the Holy Spirit to the Third Person of

the Holy Trinity
The Baptismal Formula
The Eucharistic Epiclesis
Mission and Martyrdom
Monasticism: Men and Women of the Spirit
Theological Disputes: Is the Holy Spirit God?
The Holy Spirit Is God: The Council of Constantinople

7.    Paths for Reflection on the Third Person of the

Holy Trinity
Two Models of Understanding: The Greek and the Latin
 The Importance of Images for Doctrine
The Controversy over the Origin of the Holy Spirit
Modern Efforts to Rethink the Holy Trinity

8.    Philosophers of the Spirit: Men and Women

Joachim of Fiore and the Age of the Holy Spirit
G. W. F. Hegel: The Spirit in History
Paul Tillich: The Spirit and Life without Ambiguity
José Comblin: The Spirit as Liberating Life and Action
St. Hildegard of Bingen: Prophet, Theologian, and
Physician
Julian of Norwich: God as Father and Mother

9.    The Spirit, Mary of Nazareth, and the

Pneumatization of the Feminine
The Spirit Comes and Dwells First in Mary
The Intellectual Blindness of Churches and Theologies
The Dwelling of the Spirit in Mary: Her
Spiritualization/Pneumatization
The Spirit Engenders the Holy Humanity of the Son
The Spiritualization/Pneumatization of Mary Radiates Out
to Womanhood and All Creation

10.  The Universe: Temple and Field of Action of the

Holy Spirit
The New Cosmology: An Overview
The Main Acts of the Cosmic Drama
Continuing Creation: Cosmogenesis
The Cosmogenic Principle
The Living Earth, Gaia, Moved by the Energy of the Spirit
The Purpose of the Cosmogenic Process
The Universe as the Temple of the Spirit
“The Spirit Sleeps in the Stone, Dreams in the Flower…”
The Spirit and the New Heaven and New Earth

11.  The Church, Sacrament of the Holy Spirit

 The Death and Resurrection of Jesus: Preconditions for
the Birth of the Church
The Historical Birth of the Church at Pentecost
Charisms: The Organizing Principle of the Community
Unity: One Charism among Others
The Necessary Coexistence of Models of the Church

12.  Spirituality: Life according to the Spirit

The Spirit: The Energy That Infuses and Inspires
Everything
The Spirit of Life
The Spirit of Freedom and Liberation
The Spirit of Love
The Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit
The Spirit: Source of Inspiration, Creativity, and Art

13.  Comments on Some Hymns to the Holy Spirit

The Origin of Veni, Sancte Spiritus
Brief Commentary on the Verses
The Origin of Veni, Creator Spiritus
Brief Commentary on the Verses
A nós descei, Divina Luz
Brief Commentary on the Verses

Conclusion: The Spirit Came First and Keeps On Coming

Works Cited
 Preface
Pentecost Was Only the Beginning

After many years of research and reflection, I offer here a

modest treatise on the Holy Spirit: in the cosmos, in
humankind, in religions, in the churches, and in every
human being, especially in the poor.
We live in dangerous times, which call us to serious
reflection on the Spiritus Creator. All creation is in danger.
The poor and marginalized are suffering great oppression,
which calls for a process of liberation. The danger is not
from an incoming meteorite, like the one sixty-five million
years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs after more than a
hundred million years on the earth. Today's meteorite is
called homo sapiens et demens, with the emphasis on
demens. With our hostility toward the earth and all its
ecosystems, humanity is poised to wipe out human life,
destroy our civilization, and inflict terrible damage on the
whole biosphere. It has been rightly said that we are living
in a new geological era, the anthropocene: humankind itself
is the great danger to the earth-system and the life-system.
Here we shall reflect on the Holy Spirit in that context,
with all the rigor that theology requires. We shall explore
history in search of experiences that can help us grasp the
spirit. We will find it first in the cosmos, and only then in
ourselves.
We shall look beyond that spirit to the Spirit of God, and
especially to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy
Trinity. Our sources are human experience and the founding
texts of the Christian faith: the two Testaments.
 Within this effort of retrieval, we are concerned with one
especially complex paradigmatic task. To think of the Spirit
is to think of movement, action, process, appearance, story,
and the irruption of something new and surprising. It means
thinking about what we are constantly becoming. These are
not things that can be described in the classical concepts of
Western, traditional, conventional theological discourse. Our
concepts of God, Christ, grace, and the Church were first
thought out in metaphysical categories of substance,
essence, and natures. They are static concepts, forever
circumscribed and immutable. This is the Greek paradigm,
officially incorporated into Christian theology.
But to fully understand the Holy Spirit we need a different
paradigm, more in line with modern cosmology. A
cosmological perspective helps us see the genesis of all
things: their emergence out of the Unnamable, Mysterious,
and Loving Energy that exists before there was a before, at
the zero point of time and space. That Energy upholds the
universe and all the beings that have been and will be; it
penetrates creation from beginning to end.
To rethink the third article of the Creed—“I believe in the
Holy Spirit”—from this perspective is a task fraught with
difficulties. We shall put our best efforts into that task,
knowing that our efforts will fall short of what God the Spirit
requires.
Theological reflection is never the work of one person, but
of a community filled with faith, trying to shed light on a
dark horizon. We know that this darkness is part of the
Mystery. The Mystery is always open to us, but it is also
hidden. The theologian's task is an unceasing search for its
revelation.
Hiddenness is in the nature of the Spirit. Discovering it is
in the nature of human beings. The Spirit blows where it
chooses, and we do not know where it comes from or where
it goes (John 3:8), but that does not free us from the task of
unveiling it. And when to our surprise it breaks through, we
rejoice and celebrate. We celebrate with excitement. We are
excited and intoxicated by its grace and its gifts.
Pentecost was only the beginning. It spreads through the
length and breadth of history, and reaches us in our own
time of living and suffering.

Leonardo Boff
Petrópolis, Pentecost 2013
 1

Come, Holy Spirit, Come Soon!

The situation of the world, religions, our churches, and the

poor, causes us to cry out: “Come, Holy Spirit! Come soon to
deliver us!” The cry arises from the depths of a terrible crisis
that can plunge us into an abyss or inspire a qualitative leap
into a new kind of humanity: toward a different way of living
in our only shared home, Mother Earth.
In this context of fear and anguish, our hearts echo the
words of the Pentecost hymn: “Sine tuo numine nihil est in
homine, nihil est innoxium” (without your grace there is
nothing in us, nothing that is not harmful). But another line
of the hymn fills us with hope: “In labore requies, in aestu
temperies, in fletu solatium” (in labor, rest, in heat,
temperance, in tears, solace).

The Presence of the Spirit in Great Crises

The Holy Spirit is everywhere in history, but it breaks
through especially at critical moments for the universe, for
humanity, or for the life of the individual. At the singular
moment of the “big bang”—the original upheaval or silent
explosion (before time and space, sound could not travel) of
that tiny speck, a billion times smaller than the head of a
pin, but full of energy and information, giving rise to the
universe as we know it—the Spirit was there in its densest
form. That is reflected in the first biblical story of creation,
describing the wind from God that swept over the original
chaos (tohuwabohu: Genesis 1:2). It was the Spirit that
upheld the delicate balance of all the factors that made
possible the expansion of fundamental energies, material
(the “God particle” and the “Higgs boson”), and the
appearance of the giant red stars. After many millions of
years those stars exploded, giving rise to the matter out of
which the galaxies, stars, planets, and we were created.
The Spirit was present when that matter reached the level
of complexity that made possible the emergence of life, 3.8
billion years ago. It was present in the fifteen great
extinctions that later came upon the earth, especially the
Cambrian extinction 570 million years ago, when 80–90
percent of all living species disappeared. It was present
again in the Permian-Triassic extinction 245 million years
ago, when the single great continent of Pangaea broke apart
and the continents we know appeared.
It was especially present in the Cretacean age 65 million
years ago, when a meteorite 9.7 kilometers wide plunged
into the Caribbean and produced a veritable ecological
Armageddon, destroying the dinosaurs and most of the
other species that had walked the earth for 133 million
years. As if to make up for so much destruction, that
catastrophe was followed by the greatest blossoming of
biodiversity in earth's history.
That was when our first ancestors began to live in the
canopy of the great trees, trembling in fear of being eaten
by the dinosaurs. From then on the Spirit intensified its
presence in a unique way, bringing human beings out of the
animal world as the bearer of consciousness, intelligence,
and the ability to love and care for others. That mysterious
event began between seven and nine million years ago, and
a hundred thousand years ago it led to the emergence of
sapiens sapiens: the human ancestors of today's men and
women.
For Christians, the greatest presence of the Spirit was its
coming to Mary. It came and never left. That permanent
presence led to the holy humanity of Jesus. And with Jesus it
became a constant presence in human history, especially
through its incarnation in the life of an itinerant preacher
and proclaimer of a great utopia: the Reign of God. By the
power of the Spirit, Jesus of Nazareth cured the sick and
raised the dead. After his execution on the cross the Spirit
raised him, and made him the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians
15:45).
The Spirit was present in the tongues of fire that suddenly
came down on the community of disciples of Jesus, fearful
and confused, not understanding how someone who “went
about doing good” (Acts 10:38) could die on a cross and
then rise again. It was present when the disciples, uncertain
where to go next, decided to spread the liberating message
of Jesus to all the world. “For it has seemed good to the Holy
Spirit and to us,” they said (Acts 15:28), to turn toward the
gentiles.
We could give many more examples of inspiring
breakthroughs, made possible by the action of the Holy
Spirit. The Second Vatican Council makes the point
emphatically: “God's Spirit, Who with a marvelous
providence directs the unfolding of time and renews the
face of the earth, is not absent from this development”
(Gaudium et Spes, 26). Four breakthroughs in our own time
are worthy of note: the Second Vatican Council, the
Episcopal Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín,
the rise of the Church of Liberation, and the Charismatic
Renewal of the Catholic Church.
Vatican II (1962–1965) brought the Church into step with
the modern world and its freedoms. In particular it
established a dialogue with science and technology, the
labor movement, secularization, ecumenism, other religions,
and fundamental human rights. The Spirit brought new light
into the dark corners of the institutional Church.
At Medellín (1968) the Church began to walk with the
underworld of poverty and misery that characterized the
Latin American continent, then and now. By the power of the
Spirit, Latin American pastors made a courageous option for
the poor and against poverty, and decided to implement a
pastoral practice of integral liberation: not only from our
personal and collective sins, but from the sins of oppression,
the impoverishment of the masses, discrimination against
indigenous peoples, contempt for people of African descent,
and the domination of women that men have practiced
since the Neolithic age.
The Church of Liberation was also born through the power
of the Spirit. We see its face in the popular reading of the
Bible, in the Base Ecclesial Communities’ new way of being
Church, in diverse social ministries (the pastorals of
indigenous peoples, people of African descent, land, health,
children, and others), and in the reflection drawn from all of
these that we call the Theology of Liberation. This Church of
Liberation has shaped Christian commitment to those
oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, and killed by military
dictatorships. Few churches have been blessed by so many
martyrs, lay and religious, priests, theologians, and even
bishops like Angelleli in Argentina and Oscar Arnulfo Romero
in El Salvador.
The fourth irruption of the Spirit, to which we shall return
in greater detail, was the appearance of the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal in 1967 in the United States and in
Latin America in the 1970s. It restored the centrality of
prayer, spirituality, and the charisms of the Spirit by
creating communities of prayer and cultivating the gifts of
the Holy Spirit. That renewal helped overcome the rigidity of
the ecclesiastical structure, doctrinal coldness, and the
clerical monopoly on the word, thus opening the way to free
expression by the faithful.
Finally, a fifth irruption of the Spirit can be seen in the
election of Pope Francis, who came “from the end of the
earth,” from Argentina in early 2013. With him there
emerges another model for exercising the petrine function.
He no longer wishes to govern the church on the basis of
canon law or in an absolutist style, but instead in charity
and collegiality. He has stripped himself of all symbols of
power, abandoned the pontifical palace, making his home in
St. Martha's Guesthouse where he eats along with everyone
else. He prefers to be called “bishop of Rome” rather than
“Universal Pope.” His name, Francis, is more than a name; it
represents the project of a church that is humble, poor,
open to all—a type of “field hospital” in which all can be
healed. Its center is not the church but the historical Jesus,
and its principal mission is not to teach doctrines but to
promote the following of the historical Jesus, who calls us to
love, solidarity, compassion, and to the unlimited
acceptance of all types of people, without questioning their
moral, ideological, or religious condition. He is renovating
the Tradition of Jesus in tension with the institutionalism of
the Catholic religion. His significance overflows the church
and is seen as a light for all the world, especially in the
defense of the poor, in the critique of an economic system
which is, according to him, “evil in its roots” in its lack of
solidarity with the suffering peoples of the world. (For a
closer look at the mission and vision of Pope Francis, see L.
Boff, Francis of Rome & Francis of Assisi, 2014.)
These five events can be evaluated theologically only
from the perspective of the Holy Spirit. It always acts within
history, and with special creativity in the Church, making it a
source of hope and joy in faith and life. The Spirit shows
itself, in the words of the Pentecost liturgy, as pater
pauperum—the father of the poor, inspiring them to
organize and seek the freedom that society denies them.
Today we may be living through the greatest crisis in
human history. It is a very important crisis, because it may
be terminal. In effect we now hold the instruments of self-
destruction in our hands. We have built instruments of death
that may kill us all and destroy our civilization, which has
been built over many thousands of years of creative work. A
large part of the earth's biodiversity may die along with us.
If that tragedy comes to pass, the earth will go on turning
without us, covered with dead bodies, devastated and
impoverished.
That is why we say that our technology of death has
brought about a new geological age: the Anthropocene.
Humanity is coming in like a great, destructive meteor, as if
we would rather destroy ourselves and the living earth,
Gaia, than change our way of life and our relationship with
nature and Mother Earth. Like the Jews in ancient Palestine
who chose Barabbas over Jesus, the enemies of life today
may be choosing Herod over the innocent children he
massacred in the region of Bethlehem, where Jesus was
born. They are becoming like an earthly Satan, instead of
the Guardian Angel of creation.
Now is the time to pray, to plead, to cry out: Veni Sancte
Spiritus et emitte caelitus lucis tuae radium (Come, Holy
Spirit, and send forth the holy radiance of your light).
Without the presence of the Holy Spirit we are in danger
of letting the crisis plunge us into irreversible tragedy,
instead of being an opportunity for cleansing, purification,
and growth.
We who once dared to eliminate the Son of God who
wanted to be one of us, by crucifying him, why should we
not feel a perverse desire to destroy everything in our
reach, including our own future?
But we are convinced that the Giver of life, the Spiritus
Creator, will “cleanse that which is unclean, water that
which is dry, heal that which is wounded” (lava quod est
sordidum, riga quod es aridum, sana quod est saucium). We
shall confront the Anthropocene with the Ecocene
(protection of all ecosystems); we shall replace the
anthropozoic age with the ecozoic age. Instead of the
culture of destructive, unlimited growth, we shall offer a
culture of sustainable life. We shall replace a material
quality of life available only to a few, with the good life
which is available to everyone. God, who is described in the
Book of Wisdom as the Lord who loves the living (11:26),
will not allow life to destroy itself.
The great extinctions of the past did not succeed in
destroying life. Life always survived, triumphed, and after
thousands of years of evolutionary labor, restored its
immeasurable diversity of life forms. Even now, despite our
irresponsibility, life will not be destroyed. There will surely
be a dark, fearsome, and painful Good Friday, but it cannot
block the coming of an invincible, triumphant, and glorious
resurrection.

The Erosion of the Sources of Meaning

It has been truly said that human beings are devoured by
two hungers: for bread and for spirituality. Hunger for bread
can be satisfied, although millions of people are still hungry.
They are still hungry because we have turned food, water,
land, and seeds into “commodities,” that is, products to be
bought and sold on the market. That is a sin against life,
because everything that sustains life—especially water,
which is present in all food—is sacred and cannot rightly be
bought and sold. The table is spread with an abundance of
food, but the hungry do not have the money they need to
buy it. We can satisfy the hunger of the whole world, but we
do not do it, because we do not love our neighbor; we have
lost our sense of compassion and solidarity with suffering
humanity.
But the hunger for spirituality is insatiable. It is a hunger
for communion, solidarity, self-giving love, dialogue, and
prayer to the Creator of all things. These hidden yearnings
never stop growing within human beings. We throb with
desire for the infinite. Only the truly infinite can give us rest.
We do not find it in today's society, which cares for the
material and not the spiritual. Our inner, infinite search is
not for material things. That is why our obsession with
accumulating and enjoying material goods eventually leads
to emptiness and disappointment. We cry out for something
greater, more humanizing. And the Holy Spirit is present,
hidden behind that something.
This is where we begin to ask about the meaning of life. A
coherent sense of life and history is one of the basic human
needs. Emptiness and absurdity produce anxiety, a feeling
of loneliness and rootlessness. Industrial, postindustrial, and
consumer societies, based on cold, calculating reason, have
given primacy to individuals and their private interests.
Reality became fragmented, social norms dissolved, the
sacred became a burlesque, and the great truths—now
called “grand narratives,” metaphysical essentialism, relics
of times past—became targets of derision. The rule today is
“anything goes”; different ways of thinking, different
positions, different readings of reality are seen as equally
valid. We have created a total relativism, in which nothing
really matters because nothing is worth the trouble.
This is sometimes called postmodernism; I see it as the
most advanced and decadent stage of bourgeois opulence.
Not satisfied with tearing down the present, it is also tearing
down the future. Its decadence is marked by a total lack of
commitment to transforming the world or to improving
human life.
This attitude is reflected in a glaring lack of solidarity with
the tragic fate of the millions of people who struggle for a
halfway decent life, for a chance to live better than animals,
with access to the cultural goods that enrich their vision. No
culture can survive without a shared narrative that gives
cohesion, dignity, honesty, value, and meaning to its
collective life. Postmodernity denies the legitimacy of this
fundamental yearning.
Yet against all postmodern expectations, people
everywhere are finding meaning in their toil and suffering,
searching for a north star to orient their lives and open
horizons of hope. We can live without faith, but not without
hope. Without hope we are a step away from meaningless
violence, from the trivialization of death, and eventually
from suicide.
But the resources for ongoing production of meaning that
we once had are now being eroded. No one—not the Pope,
not His Holiness the Dalai Lama—can say with certainty
what is right or wrong for everyone, or what is needed at
this stage in the history of humanity and the planet.
The global crisis of our civilization stems largely from the
absence of a spirituality that shapes a vision of the future, a
vision that points to new ways and gives us strength for the
hardest times. Such a crisis can be overcome only through a
new experience of the essential Being that gives rise to a
living spirituality.
There was a time when this fundamental need for human
meaning could be met through philosophies and other
spiritual paths. But they became formalized and lost their
creative vitality. They developed more sophisticated ways of
rethinking and rearticulating what was already known, but
they lacked the courage to invent new visions, hope-giving
dreams, and inspiring utopias. We are in the throes of a
“cultural malaise” like the one that brought about the fall of
the Roman Empire. Our “gods,” like theirs, are no longer
believable. And the “new gods” that pop up everywhere are
not strong enough to earn recognition and respect, or to
earn a place on the altars of the historical process.

The Spirit in History: The Collapse of the Soviet

Empire, the Emergence of Globalization, the World
Social Forum, and Ecological Consciousness
This is not the place to expound in depth on the complex
activity of the Spirit in history. But any such analysis would
have to include the Holy Spirit's role in the fall of the great
Soviet empire, which was rooted in an atheistic state
socialism with no respect for individual rights. It is
astonishing that the Soviet Union, the second most powerful
nation in the world, with the military capability to destroy all
humanity, collapsed without going through a violent process
of rebellions and civil wars. It began when the Berlin Wall
came down in 1989. Then one after another, like a house of
cards, the other Soviet republics began proclaiming their
independence from Moscow—until finally the Soviet Union
itself collapsed, to be replaced by the Russian Republic.
That event bears all the marks of a transcendent mystery
in history; unforeseen by all the prominent political analysts,
it brought an end to the division between two worlds, the
capitalist West and the socialist East. The Cold War came to
an end. What followed was the Western capitalist process of
globalization, surrounded by a new set of reductionisms.
Despite our valid criticisms of its economic and political
effects, globalization is primarily an anthropological
phenomenon that might better be called planetization. After
living in dispersion in many regions of the world, humanity
has begun to come together in one Common Home, the
planet Earth. We have begun to see ourselves as a single
species, with a common destiny.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin foresaw this phenomenon in
1933, from his ecclesiastical exile in China. We are entering
a new phase of human life, he said: the noosphere, a
convergence of minds and hearts into a single common
history, together with the history of the earth. This also
represents an irruption of the Spirit, which is a Spirit of
unity, reconciliation, and convergence in diversity.
The World Social Forums that began to take place in the
year 2000 also reveal a unique irruption of the Spirit; we
celebrate the Spirit in the liturgy as pater pauperum, the
father of the poor and defender of the humble. For the first
time in modern history—in contrast with the gatherings of
the rich in the city of Davos, Switzerland—the poor people
of the world were able to bring together many thousands of
people, first in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and then in other world
cities, to share experiences of resistance and liberation,
compare notes on creating microalternatives to the ruling
system of domination, nourish their collective dream, and
raise a powerful cry: another world is possible, another
world is necessary.
In the World Social Forums that followed, at the regional
and international level, we have seen the emergence of a
new human paradigm, successfully organizing new modes
of production, consumption, environmental conservation,
and the inclusion of all humanity, beginning with the last
and the least, in a shared project of guaranteeing life and
hope for everyone. That is its importance: out of the depths
of human despair has come a wisp of smoke, pointing to an
inner fire that cannot be extinguished. In time it will become
a blazing torch, illuminating a new way forward for
humanity.
The Arab Spring that has set fire to all of northern Africa
grew out of a search for freedom, respect for human rights,
and the integration of women as equal players in the social
process. Dictatorships were overthrown; democracies are
being tested out; and religion is increasingly valued in
society, apart from its fundamentalist aspects. These
historic events must be interpreted, beyond their secular
and social-political context, as manifestations of the Spirit of
liberty and creativity.
We cannot deny that in a biblical and theological reading,
the crisis of 2008 that shook the center of the world's
economic and financial power—the great economic
conglomerates that feed on the despair of the people—is
also an irruption of the Holy Spirit. As we sing in the Church
liturgy, the Spirit is “cleansing that which is unclean,
watering that which is dry, healing that which is wounded.”
Is this catharsis and cleansing not the place to look for ways
out of the crisis?
Even the movements led by victims of the economic and
financial system in Europe, like the Indignados in Spain and
England and Occupy Wall Street in the United States, reveal
an energetic protest and a search for new forms of
democracy and production—an energy and a search that, in
the eyes of faith, must have been inspired by the Holy
Spirit.
Ecological consciousness is growing in an increasing
number of people around the world. The facts are
undeniable: we have reached earth's limits, its ecosystems
are being exhausted, and fossil fuel, the engine of all
industrial processes, is nearly depleted. Extreme events
come one after another: excessive heat in some places,
freezing cold in others, the melting of the polar ice cap, the
scarcity of water, the extinction of nearly a hundred
thousand species every year (by 2013 data), desertification,
deforestation, and a rate of global warming that may
endanger the biosphere and all humanity in the next few
decades; all these problems are questions of conscience.
The Spirit is calling us to wake up and turn ourselves
around.
We are primarily responsible for this ecological chaos.
Unless we change the course of our economy, our politics,
and our ethics, we may go the way of the dinosaurs. We
urgently need a new paradigm of civilization, like those that
have worked for other human cultures—the “good life in
community” (sumac kawsay) of the Andean peoples; the
“overall happiness index” of Bhutan; eco-socialism; a
biocentric economy of solidarity; a “green economy” in the
best sense of the word; projects focused on life, humanity,
and a living earth, Gaia—all of which our economy, our
politics, our culture, and our ethics were meant to serve.

The Fossilization of Religions and Churches

Religions and churches have always been the privileged
setting for the experience of concrete, existential, ultimate
meaning (the Meaning of all meaning), because they speak
of infinite values. But religions and churches are not
immune to the global crisis of our civilization. Certainly their
nucleus has remained firm over time, but the language,
rituals, doctrines, and discipline in which they express it
have become fossilized. These institutions cling to the past,
with no renewal in the transmission of their messages. They
are still fountains—of dead water.
Sadly, the crisis has even penetrated the official
institution of the Catholic Church. Instead of bravely facing
the global crisis it has turned inward, taking refuge in past
achievements, becoming a bastion of patriarchal,
reactionary conservatism. Christian churches more than any
other institution should dare to step up to the edge of
heresy, because the Spirit is with them. They could propose
solutions, open paths of renewal, and proclaim the newness
around them, but instead they are held hostage by the
monolithic ecclesiastical system and their assumed
exclusivity. They attribute divine right to themselves, and
are therefore untouchable. Moreover, they live on fear,
suspicion, and condemnation. Yet we know that the opposite
of faith is not atheism, but fear.
In recent decades the Catholic Church has been
obsessively fearful of relativism. Its absolutism is as
dangerous as the relativism it opposes: it calcifies history,
enervates the creative drive, and betrays the Jesus tradition
that was described by José Comblin in his monumental
pneumatology. In the real world everything is relative—
except God, hunger, and the suffering of the innocent, as
Dom Pedro Casaldáliga says. The Church needs to find ways
of being present in the world, in our own time, as a source
of meaning and the joy of living. Most Christians seem so
sad that one wonders if they have been redeemed, or if they
believe in the resurrection of all flesh. Everyone has a right
to hear the liberating message of Jesus, in ways that they
can understand and experience. That right is denied them
when we repeat catechetical doctrines from the past,
recodified in the present without using methods of
communication that work in this new age of information and
the globalization of human life.
Everything seems to have changed with the arrival of a
Pope from the new churches in the Third World, Pope Francis
from Argentina. He has energetically brought back the real
tradition, which we call “the Jesus Tradition.” It moves us
toward a de-paganization of the Church, especially the
styles historically adopted by cardinals and popes: the
pagan habits of the Roman emperors, with their symbols of
absolute imperial power and the pomp of Renaissance
palaces and princely fashions.
Pope Francis, who likes to call himself the bishop of Rome,
declined to wear a mozzetta, the richly embellished shawl
worn by Roman emperors as a display of power. “The
carnival is over,” he said. Instead, he wore a simple white
cape over his white robe, everyday shoes, and the black
pants he has always worn.
But the true ecclesial revolution introduced by Pope
Francis was his move to place Jesus, the poor, and real
human beings—whether or not they call themselves
believers—in the center of the Church.
The historical Jesus, not the triumphal Christ Pantocrator
of later theology, has returned to the center of the Church.
This Jesus, the Nazarene, brought a message centered on
the image of a Father-God who also shows the traits of a
mother: God's unconditional love, God's limitless mercy,
God's nearness to the impoverished masses, and God's
special concern for the humble and forgotten ones, to whom
Jesus proclaimed the Reign of God. His words and gestures
give them hope, endurance, and the ability to build a new,
less evil society. He had the prophetic courage to denounce
an economic-financial system that idolizes wealth and
devours whole nations. Thus Jesus of Nazareth becomes a
powerful ally of all who seek another, possible and
necessary, world.
 The poor have also returned to the center. In his first
public interview, Pope Francis told the press: “How I long to
see a poor Church, a Church for the poor.” He was not
speaking rhetorically, as popes have always done when they
talk about an option for the poor without ever entering into
direct contact with the poor. He was reaching out to the
poorest of the poor, which in Europe means the immigrants
from Africa and Eastern Europe. He visited them on the
island of Lampedusa, in the refugee centers established by
the Jesuits in Rome, and in Corsica, which has the highest
rate of unemployment in all Italy.
He lives simply in the Residence of St. Martha, not in the
pontifical palace; he eats in the dining hall with everyone
else, and sleeps in one of the rooms for residents. He travels
in an ordinary car, with only a small security detail, as we
saw when he came to Brazil for the International Day of
Youth. He shows how the Church can live in solidarity with
the suffering people in the world. He has challenged
religious orders not to use their monasteries and convents
for profit-making events and businesses, but for hospitality
to the poor, who are “the flesh of Christ.”
Also at the center is the personal life of the concrete
human person. Pope Francis sees the Church, not as a
fortress to be defended from contamination by the world,
but as an open house from which the ministers can reach
out to the faithful, invite them in, and make them feel at
home. He is in dialogue with everyone. He talked personally
with a great Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, a
nonbeliever, about the relationship between faith, science,
and unbelief.
These words, from a long interview with the Jesuit journal
La Civiltà Cattolica in late September 2013, reveal his vision
of the Church and its mission in the world:

I see more and more clearly that what the Church most
needs today is the ability to heal the wounds and warm
 the hearts of the faithful, from up close. I see the Church
as a field hospital after a battle. It does no good to ask
an injured soldier if he has high cholesterol or blood
sugar. First we have to cure the wounds; later we can
ask about the rest. We have to start at the bottom. The
Church sometimes focuses on little things, petty
precepts. First we have to tell people, “Jesus has saved
you.” Therefore the ministers of the Church should be,
above all, ministers of mercy. People need us to walk
with them; their wounds need to be cured.
The ministers of the Church should be merciful, should
care about human persons, should accompany them as
the good Samaritan did, washing, cleansing, and lifting
up his neighbor. This is the pure Gospel. God is greater
than sin. Structural and organizational reforms are
secondary, they come later; the first is a change of
attitude. Ministers of the Gospel must be able to warm
the hearts of human persons, walk with them at night,
enter into dialogue and even go into the night with
them, into their darkness, without getting lost. The
People of God are looking for pastors, not for
administrators or government clerks.

The quotation is long, but it shows his understanding of

the Church and its liberating mission in today's world. Pope
Francis represents a springtime of the Church, bringing
Christian joy and hope to the world.
One problem remains unresolved in the institutional
revolution introduced by Pope Francis: the tension between
charism and power. Power evolved in the Church, because
the community had to organize and ensure its continuity in
history. This has been called the Petrine moment (after St.
Peter, guarantor of the apostolic tradition). But as we said
before, this power became monarchical and absolutistic,
concentrated in the hands of a minority of Christians: the
clergy, with the Pope at its head. This unequal structure,
which goes against the explicit instructions of Jesus, led to a
fictitious unity expressed in the unconditional submission of
everyone else; that in turn has produced infantile Christians,
lacking in creativity and authenticity. Despite the fact that
according to St. Paul the Spirit is given to all, that its
charisms are shared by the will of the Spirit and not subject
to hierarchical approval, the new ecclesiastical structure has
eliminated the Holy Spirit from common doctrine.
In other words, the Pauline moment was lost (after St.
Paul, the prince of Christian freedom). But the Church is
based on both apostles, Peter and Paul. To exclude or
restrict one of them means deforming the Church, against
the Jesus tradition. It is important to remember that
wherever power prevails—even in the realm of the sacred—
love, compassion, and creativity disappear. It is in the
nature of power to use force, to ally itself with other powers
and subject to its control whatever threatens or opposes its
power. Charismatic leaders, reformers, and innovators
throughout history have been persecuted, condemned, or
eliminated by the powerful.
The institution of the Inquisition (whatever new name we
give it) has always been the great instrument for controlling,
repressing, and condemning any potential threat to
established power. It is perhaps the greatest obstacle to
evangelization and dialogue, because it values order more
than life, discipline more than creativity, self-righteousness
more than openness to others.
“Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul warned (1 Thessalonians
5:19). But in recent centuries the Spirit has often been
quenched by institutional power, which has never been able
to maintain a creative tension between two legitimate poles:
power and charism. This was the theme of my book Church:
Charism and Power, which was criticized by the successors
of the Inquisition. Note that the subtitle was not “Charism or
Power,” but “Charism and Power.” We need power to ensure
the perpetuation of Jesus’ message in history. And we need
charism to uphold power in its servant role, so that the Jesus
Tradition does not become fossilized in doctrines, rites, and
canonical norms. The purpose of charism is to continually
refresh and renew the message in the face of historical
mutations. Unless we hold these two energies together, we
lose the complex, dialectical balance of order and creativity
that a healthy community needs. Without this articulation of
the two poles, power leads to neglect of the Spirit—as often
happened in the Latin Church, where the sacred power of
the hierarchy gained hegemony and ended up subduing the
manifestations of the Spirit.
The great German theologian J. A. Möhler (1838) used to
say in an ironic tone: “God created the hierarchy, and thus
generously gave us everything we need until the end of
time.” That wry comment later became a traditional
teaching, explicitly affirmed by Popes Gregory XVI (1846)
and Pius X (1914): “The Church is an unequal, hierarchical,
and perfect society: on the one hand a hierarchy that
teaches and commands, and on the other the faithful, who
hear and obey.” According to this teaching, the division
between clergy and laity is established by divine right, and
therefore cannot be changed. This view of power soon leads
to hierarchies, discriminations, and inequalities that neglect
the Spirit and its gifts, or create obstacles to its action. This
is where the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) becomes
important; it can strengthen the practice of charism, and it
can (or should) challenge power to fulfill its role of service
rather than domination.
In our time the place of the Holy Spirit is being taken over
not only by the hierarchy, but by the Universal Catechism of
the Catholic Church, published during the pontificate of John
Paul II. As José Comblin has rightly observed: “The Universal
Catechism places everything on the same level, and allows
no further investigation. It imposes a single interpretation
on every continent and every culture. All cultures must
understand revelation as it is understood in Rome. This
interpretation inevitably remains abstract, unaffected by the
light of the historical situation; that is, it is in danger of
becoming irrelevant. The publication of this Catechism
makes the action of the Holy Spirit redundant. Nothing is left
for the Spirit to do, since the Catechism explains everything
for everyone” (O Espíritu Santo, 116).
Apart from this inflation of sacred power, which leaves
little room for the Holy Spirit, we should also be concerned
with the disease of fundamentalism that is weakening
almost all the religions and churches. We see it in their
increased claims to exclusivity, as the only bearer of truth
and the only way to God. Fundamentalism, in political
parties or in religions and churches, always leads to violence
and to structures of exclusion. It tears apart the unity of the
human fabric, and the work of the Spirit in every people and
every heart. The Spirit always arrives ahead of the preacher;
wherever there is love, forgiveness, mercy, and
brotherhood, the Spirit is there with its gifts. And we know
beyond doubt that those gifts are present in every people
and every culture.
One emerging answer to fundamentalism is
“experientialism,” which embraces all kinds of experience.
Experience is a phenomenon of human subjectivity, rich and
fruitful, which deserves encouragement and respect. The
Spirit comes through sensations and perceptions of the
sacred, but if it is not accompanied by discernment,
subjectivity can easily become subjectivism; in that case
experience never reaches out to other subjectivities, looking
for common ground with them. Subjectivism opens the way
to exotic beliefs like astrology, divination according to the I
Ching, superficial shamanism, and other magical practices.
It looks to uncontrollable, suprahuman powers for solutions
to the human drama, solutions that do not require any
personal commitment from the human being.
This has given rise to all sorts of spiritual experiences
from the Orient, from indigenous cultures, and from the
Celtic and other ancient traditions. It offers a mystical-
spiritual pastiche that only increases human alienation,
instead of suggesting autonomous paths to self-realization
based on creativity and freedom. Here the charismatic
character of the Spirit is transmuted into a psychic
character, distorting the essence of humanity. St. Paul was
right to distinguish between the psychicói (psychic
phenomena) and pneumatikói (the bearers of Pneuma).
Self-help literature, promoted by gurus and spiritual
coaches, offers another widely popular way out. This genre
—built out of fragments of spiritual and religious traditions,
depth psychology, and some elements of the new
cosmology and communications theory—gives its adherents
the illusion of an easy path to happiness, immediate
success, and inner peace. It is deceptive because instead of
addressing the real, fragile, and contradictory human
condition, it offers placebos; the reader moves hopelessly
from one self-help book to another in an endless search for
remedies. It does not require us to face the contradictory
challenges of human life directly, by building our own inner
synthesis: struggling with our demons and angels in order to
establish a viable relationship with the world, with nature,
with other people, with ourselves, and with the Ultimate
Reality, which is the only basis of true peace.

The Irrationality of Modern Reason

Modernity is based on in-depth analytical reason, which
led to the creation of modern science based on physics and
mathematics. Everything became an object of knowledge,
which made it possible to change reality. The earth was
reduced to its physical-chemical-ecological substance, its
goods and services to be exploited through the processes of
industrialization. This kind of reason was used by the
political powers as a tool for the domination of other,
technically less advanced, peoples and cultures in Africa,
Latin America, and the rest of the world. It facilitated the
colonization and subjection of nations, whose natural wealth
was made to serve the interests of the European powers.
Their goal is progress, understood as unlimited material
growth, the true obsession of modernity. Growth is falsely
identified as development; in contrast, real development
would promote human life in its many dimensions,
especially in the free choice of lifestyles and goals.
This obsession with growth leads to a desire for wealth
without humanitarian or ethical limits, destroying nature
and generating enormous social inequality, which in turn
leads to injustice at the planetary level. The current
ecological crisis, as seen in global warming and the
depletion of the small planet's limited resources, is
approaching its final paroxysm: a limited earth cannot
withstand unlimited exploitation. The living Gaia must
eventually react, and defend itself however it can. But after
so much exploitation it has lost much of its ability to restore
what has been taken away from it. In other words, earth is
becoming unsustainable. Unless we change our behavior,
the consequence may well be social and ecological disaster.
This behavior has become a paradigm for our rationalistic,
objectivistic, materialistic, and utilitarian civilization, which
has lost its sense of wholeness, fragmenting reality in order
to understand and control it more effectively. Such a
paradigm leaves little room for the Spirit, or for spirituality.
Rather it shows reason run wild, absolutizing itself and
holding itself up as the only criterion of validity and social
acceptance. Here we see the irrationality of reason, which
as we have said, has created the means for exterminating
humanity itself and deeply wounding the biosphere. “Smart”
violence against human communities has wiped out many of
the indigenous cultures of Latin America, led to destructive
wars, and produced the Shoah, the mass murder of Jews,
Roma, and disabled people. Today we possess enough
chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to destroy the
whole human species many times over. This kind of reason
is irrational, brutal, and hostile to life.
Reason ran wild when it made itself absolute,
systematically repressing the emotional, affective, relational
side of human intelligence. Emotions were said to interfere
with the objectivity of knowledge, but since then the new
sciences, beginning with quantum physics and cosmology,
have discovered that all knowledge is entangled with
feelings and other elements of personal and social
subjectivity.
The roots of reason are interwoven with human
subjectivity, through the limbic system which first appeared
in mammalian evolution over two hundred million years ago.
Mammals brought something new to the face of the earth:
affect, care for others, and love. We humans are affective
mammals. At the deepest level we have a capacity to feel,
to care, and to love. Our whole structure of values and
ethics is built on that foundation.
Reason came later, some seven million years ago, when
the neocortical brain began to grow along with the limbic
brain. The neocortex enables us to develop concepts,
rational orders, and worldviews. Above analytical reason is
the intelligence of intuition and contemplation, which we
recognize as wisdom. Analytical reason lies midway
between the most ancient and the most recent levels.
We need analytical reason in order to manage our world
and attend to our needs, but today it needs to be enriched
by relational and affective reason. Relational reason makes
us aware of the gravity of the present crisis; it enables us to
hear the suffering of the poor and the cry of the oppressed
earth. Relational reason, rooted in the heart, leads us to
embrace the earth as our Mother; it also awakens
compassion for all who suffer for, care for, and love
everything that exists and lives.
Through spirituality, the Spirit makes reason whole. It
enlightens reason for the service of life, rather than profit,
and awakens the positive senses that can turn us away from
the abyss we are now reaching.

The Contribution of World Feminism

The French philosopher of science Gaston Bachelard and
the Russian theologian Evdokimov were ahead of their time
in noticing the sexist bias of modern science. That bias
comes from an overemphasis on the dimension of animus,
reflecting power and the will to dominate, and the
repression of anima, reflecting affect, feeling, and
spirituality in relation to vital processes. The most important
contribution to this discussion, however, has come from
feminism and ecofeminism. Women have not only
denounced male domination as a gender issue, but have
gone on to challenge our whole patriarchal culture.
It was feminism that drew attention to the two energies
that make up the human identity, which were so well
described by C. G. Jung: anima and animus. Both are
present and active in all human beings. However, women
are the privileged (though not the only) bearers of anima,
the dimension in both men and women that accounts for
sensitivity, cooperation, the ability to decode the messages
of reality, and the dimension of worship and spirituality.
The rise of women in all spheres of human activity—their
role in the world of labor, knowledge, politics, and the arts,
but especially in their reflections on the condition of women
—has to be seen as a powerful irruption of the Spirit in
history.
We urgently need the feminine dimensions women bring
to light in order to overcome today's global crisis. All life is
in danger. Woman is at the heart of life, for she gives life
and cares for it through all time. Now more than ever she
has a messianic, salvific mission. As we shall see, it was
through a woman, Mary, that the Spirit was embodied in
history. The Spirit has a special affinity with women; in the
Middle Eastern languages, “spirit” is a feminine noun.
The twenty-first century will be the age of women;
through the failure of men with their arrogance and
dehumanizing power, as we see in most countries, women
have been assuming an increasing degree of collective
responsibility. They will make it possible to overcome the
crisis through the irruption of a new paradigm, centered on
the fundamental values that women live by and witness to:
life, humanity, and the earth. These are the pillars on which
another civilizing enterprise can be built, oriented to care,
cooperation, solidarity with the last and the least,
compassion for those who suffer in society and in nature,
and love as the force of cohesion and fulfillment of human
happiness.

Catholic Charismatic Renewal

A Mission for the Renewal of Community
We have seen how the Church of Liberation drew out the
liberating implications of the Christian message, leading the
churches to take the side of the victims, creating new forms
of pastoral action and a new way of being Church,
highlighting practices of transformation and liberation
through the Christian Base Communities and social
ministries. Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR)
complements this experience with a much-needed emphasis
on prayer and spirituality, based on the work of the Spirit in
human beings and in the world. We experience its power
through the spiritualization of Christian life at the personal
and community level.
To contrast the Church of Liberation with the Charismatic
Church would imply a biased, reductionist perspective. They
are both born of the same Spirit, which enables the
transformation of both the inner and the outer world.
 Our prayer “Come, Holy Spirit, come soon” has been
heard. Along with the Church of Liberation, the Spirit has
given rise to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. We must
note, however, that this irruption began more than two
centuries ago, when the Protestant churches felt the
“awakening of the Spirit” and the “baptism of the Holy
Spirit.”
The role of John Wesley (1703–1791), founder of the
Methodist Movement, is especially worth remembering. He
was the son of an Anglican minister and became an
Anglican priest himself. In 1738, reacting against the rigidity
of his church, he decided to become an itinerant preacher
and to encourage others to become lay preachers,
especially laborers who were exploited by early capitalism.
He saw Christianity as a living encounter with God. Wesley
talked about “the religion of the heart,” which he described
simply as “justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” These
realities are not meant to be thought about, but felt in one's
life; otherwise Christianity becomes something dead (see A.
Corten 1995, 56). Wesley's Methodism began to spread
across Great Britain in 1729, and later reached northern
Europe, the United States, Africa, and finally Latin America.
Charismatic Renewal first emerged in Protestant
communities in 1956, in the Catholic Church at Duquesne
University in 1966, and a year later at Notre Dame
University in South Bend, Indiana. There it began with a
weekend retreat from February 17 to 19, 1967, when a
group of students and professors set out to live the spirit of
Pentecost. The Church was born at Pentecost, and this new
Pentecost would give rise to the renewal of the Church.
I emphasized the importance of the Spirit in my doctoral
thesis, presented at the University of Munich in 1968 and
published under the guidance of the theologian Joseph
Ratzinger: The Church as Sacrament of the Experience of
the World. Two long chapters are devoted to the Holy Spirit
as a force in ecclesial organization, based not on potestas
sacra but on the multiplicity and simultaneity of charisms,
especially the charism of leadership and unity-building.
Pope Leo XIII had already anticipated the importance of
the Spirit in his encyclical Divinum illud munus, published on
May 9, 1897. He lamented the neglect of the Spirit by the
faithful and by the Church itself, and called on them to
worship it more faithfully. But it was Pope John XXIII who
most eagerly anticipated the coming of the Spirit, in his
convocation of the Second Vatican Council on December 25,
1961; there he spoke of “a new Pentecost” for the Church.
Echoing this call, Paul VI said at an audience on November
20, 1972, that the Church was in need of “a perpetual
Pentecost.” John Paul II also devoted an encyclical to the
Spirit, Dominum et vivificantem, in 1986.
I shall not undertake a detailed history of the birth and
development of CCR here. I only want to put it in context as
an expression of the coming of the Holy Spirit and note its
contribution to the renewal of the Church.
As I said earlier, at times of great crisis the Spirit comes
down in the midst of the turbulence, to bring order and to
awaken creative minds. Our world society has been marked
by the savage massification of peoples and the destruction
of cultural identities. Personal subjectivity is overwhelmed
by the entertainment industry and the marketing of
products. Bureaucratic regulation and controls have made
the life of societies altogether too artificial. The prevailing
style in the Catholic Church even after aggiornamento, and
in the mainline Protestant churches, is still doctrinal,
ritualistic, and excessively cerebral, leaving little room for
bodily expression and creativity.
In this context the Spirit has irrupted in prayer groups,
through free bodily expression and spontaneous words and
prayers, without control by the clergy.
It began in Brazil in 1969 with the participation of two
North American Jesuits, Fr. Harold Rahm and Fr. Edward
Dougherty, in retreats held in the city of Campinas. From
there it spread across Brazil like wildfire, first under the
leadership of priests familiar with the movement in the
United States, and then independently. Fr. Harold's book,
Seréis batizados no Espírito, became a theoretical and
practical guidebook for the communities of prayer. The First
National Encounter of Charismatic Renewal was held in
Campinas in 1973.
The CCR gained momentum with the Canção Nova (New
Song) Community, under the leadership of the conservative-
leaning Fr. Jonás Abib de Cachoeira Paulista. His followers
reached thousands of believers through their own television
channel, sometimes engaging polemically with other
Pentecostal and evangelical groups, and sometimes with
liberation theology.
There are over fifteen million followers of CCR in Brazil, of
whom about 70 percent are women. Most of its social base
consists of believers from the middle class. People in this
group are often under pressure from the dominant
consumer culture, which weakens social relationships,
generating anxiety, fear, and a painful existential
emptiness. This leads to a search for meaning, to which CCR
is responding effectively. But it is also spreading in low-
income urban neighborhoods and in other economically
poor sectors.
Several characteristics of CCR are (1) the centrality of the
Holy Spirit in its charisms, gifts, and fruits; (2) “baptism in
the Spirit,” expressed as inward conversion and total
openness to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; (3) the mutual
laying on of hands as a way of invoking the Holy Spirit; (4)
love for Jesus Christ and Mary, the principal bearers of the
Spirit; (5) the practice of personal and community prayer;
(6) meditative reading of the scriptures; (7) frequent
participation in the Eucharist; (8) emphasis on God's praise;
(9) speaking in tongues (glossolalia); (10) brotherly love;
and (11) an unconditional acceptance of Church doctrine,
with obedience and devotion to the hierarchy.
 CCR sought to assure its place in the official Church by
seeking approval from the doctrinal authorities of the
Vatican. Their statute—the International Service of
Charismatic Renewal—was adopted on September 14, 1993,
by a decree of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
CCR now has over a hundred million participants around
the world. It represents a new face of the Church. Instead of
emphasizing the cross and the strict rule of traditional piety,
it introduced the joy of the Spirit, spontaneous
expressiveness, creative prayer, and beautiful hymns. Its
liturgies are marked by intimacy with God and celebration of
the life of faith, rather than ritualization. It has helped
overcome the formality, rigidity, and inertia of official
religious conventions and celebrations, by enriching their
symbols and participation.
One of its greatest contributions to the life of faith has
been the retrieval of emotional intelligence and sensitive,
relational reason, which had fallen into disrepute with the
crisis of functional-analytical reason (see L. Boff, El cuidado
esencial, 1999, and El cuidado necesario, 2012). As we
know from anthropology and other sciences, the deepest
dimension of humanity is not found in logos (rationality), but
in pathos (affect). Human beings are made up of feelings,
passions, and “oceanic” experiences, along with their ability
to understand and explain things.
Our sense of reason, always important but never
exclusively so, grows out of this ability. Reason is interwoven
with feelings, interests, and values. The proper place of
religion, spirituality, and ethics is not in reason but in affect,
in the ability to feel in depth and in totality. By emphasizing
the experience of the Spirit in the life of the Church, CCR
has restored this forgotten dimension, so necessary for the
humanization of our relationships with God and nature.
The consolidation of CCR may help the Church enter a
new age, if it is broadened to include other elements of the
Jesus Tradition. Charismatic renewal and the Church of
Liberation can be the two lungs of the Christian community:
one through life and intimacy with God in the power of the
Holy Spirit; the other through following Christ and bearing a
living, Spirit-filled witness to the liberating action of
Christians amid the suffering of human beings and the
devastation of the natural world. Both ways of being Church
come from the same source: from the Spirit and from
following Jesus, who died and is risen.
But everything healthy can also become sick. There are
reductionist tendencies in the overall tone of the CCR
movement. Some important elements of the Christian
message are lost; without them Jesus’ legacy is diminished
and becomes less effective. For example, the movement is
not always sensitive to the drama of the world and the
tragic fate of the poor. That is, the issue of social and
ecological justice at the global level seldom appears as a
theme of reflection and practice.
Spiritual experience, which is so important to CCR, leaves
little room for theological reflection and critique; few of the
outstanding names in theology are associated with CCR.
One exception is the German theologian Heribert Mühlen,
with his very scholarly book Renovación de la fe Cristiana:
Charisma, espíritu, liberación (1974) and his two-volume
Iniciación a la experiencia cristiana fundamental (1976).
A vague fundamentalism prevails in the charismatic
interpretation of biblical texts. It is easy to claim healings
and interventions of the Spirit, without the discernment that
comes from analysis with the currently available resources
of critical theology, the human sciences, and deep reality
(cf. S. Carrillo Alday, A renovação no Espíritu Santo, 1986).
We must remember that in the early Church, Pentecost
was the point of departure and not the end point. The
outpouring of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire was the
beginning of the Church's mission, and it has not yet ended.
The power of evil never comes to an end; it has to be
confronted by the power of good, which is the Spirit.
Pentecost is always an ongoing process. That is why we pray
“Come, Holy Spirit,” and “Renew the face of the earth.”
The evangelization carried out by CCR needs to be
enriched by a social dimension that implies concern for the
poor, who are best understood as impoverished and
oppressed by unjust social relations, and the renewal of
society as it is clearly envisioned in the liturgical Sequence
of the Feast of Pentecost. Bearing in mind that in the best
ecumenical exegesis of the Lord's Prayer is a synthesis of
Jesus’ message in the form of a prayer; we can clearly see it
in two dimensions. The first part expresses praise for our
Father in heaven and prays for the coming of God's
Kingdom. In the second part we pray for our daily bread,
and for the reconciliation of our broken society. We should
never separate what Jesus held together: Our Father and our
daily bread. Jesus’ passion for God, whom he revealed as
Abba, should always go hand in hand with his passion for
those who need bread and reconciliation.
CCR rightly emphasizes the dimension of our Father; it
rejoices in this revelation, by singing and dancing with God's
sons and daughters in the feast of the Spirit. But it gives
insufficient attention to the bread for which so many people
cry out in hunger; hunger cannot wait. To make its
evangelization complete, CCR should embody this essential
dimension of Jesus’ legacy: sharing bread and relieving
hunger.
This is where the theology of liberation, purified of its own
reductionism, can helpfully share its thinking and practice
with respect to our daily bread—which is not truly ours
unless it is made and eaten collectively. CCR can help the
theology of liberation remember that our commitment is to
our Father and the Kingdom. Together the theology of
liberation and CCR can achieve wholeness and offer all
humanity a convincing, integral evangelization.
 A Mission to Evangelize the Hierarchical Church?
But there is another mission that the Catholic Charismatic
Renewal should undertake more intentionally, although it
seems not to have recognized it yet: helping the hierarchical
Church overcome the systemic crisis that has plagued it
since the early centuries. As we discussed earlier, there has
been an unfortunate separation between the clergy and
laity. Power was left in the hands of the hierarchy, with no
lay participation in its decision making.
That trend took shape and gained momentum with Pope
Leo I (440–461). A great lawyer and statesman, he copied
the absolutist and authoritarian power of the Roman
emperor. He applied a purely juridical, rather than pastoral,
interpretation to three New Testament texts about Peter:
Peter as the rock on which the Church would be built
(Matthew 16:18), as the one charged with strengthening his
brothers’ faith (Luke 22:32), and as the shepherd called to
feed Jesus’ sheep (John 21:15). The biblical and jesuanic
meaning of those texts is directly contrary to their juridical
meaning; Jesus was talking about love, service, and the
renunciation of all supremacy.
But the absolutist reading from Roman law prevailed. Leo I
assumed the title of Supreme Pontiff and Pope, which until
then had been reserved exclusively to Roman emperors.
Other popes later began to use purple robes, miters, golden
thrones, staffs, stoles, cloaks, capes, and other imperial
accessories; they also built palaces and introduced courtly
manners that are still practiced by today's cardinals and
bishops.
These styles are a scandal to many Christians, who know
from the Gospels that Jesus was a poor and humble laborer.
It has become increasingly clear that the hierarchy is closer
to Herod's palace than to the stable of Bethlehem.
But one thing is especially hard to understand: in their
zeal to legitimize this transformation and guarantee the
absolute power of the Pope, they issued a series of forged
documents. Among these are the “Donation of
Constantine,” written in France in the sixteenth century, and
the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals,” later incorporated in the
Code of Gratian (the first great codification of canon law),
which strengthened the centralized power of Rome for
centuries. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in the sixteenth century
was the first to prove the forgery of the decretals. But these
documents were used against rival princes to justify the
centralized, monarchical, and absolutist “Roman system.”
The power of the popes kept on growing. Gregory VII ( †
1085) proclaimed himself the absolute ruler of the Church
and the world in his Dictatus Papae (“the dictatorship of the
Pope,” 1075); Innocent III ( † 1216) declared himself the
vicar-representative of Christ, and finally, Innocent IV ( †
1254) took the role of representative of God. With that
authority, under Pius IX in 1870, the Pope was declared
infallible on matters of doctrine and morality.
Curiously, the hierarchical Church never retracted or
corrected these excesses, which have served it well. They
remain in force, to the shame of those who still believe in
the poor Nazarene, the humble artisan and Mediterranean
peasant, who was persecuted, executed on the cross, and
raised in order to resist everyone—even in the Church—who
seeks power and more power. The hierarchical view of the
Church unforgivably fails to recognize that according to the
Gospel (Matthew 25:45), the true vicars of Christ are the
poor, the hungry, and the thirsty.
Here is an opportunity for the CCR to offer a prophetic
criticism, speaking with clarity and not anger, out of love for
a Church increasingly faithful to Jesus’ legacy and open to
the moving of the Spirit. The Spirit is asking the Church to
renounce power for the sake of service, to give up its
palatial apparatus in favor of simplicity and transparency.
Certainly this model of Church, with the hierarchy on one
side and the laity on the other, is now being strongly
criticized by theologians, biblical scholars, the ecumenical
movement, and advocates of global democracy for its great
distance from the Jesus Tradition. The Church is in a deep
and widespread crisis. Unless it undergoes a transformation
—along the evangelical lines foreseen by the Second
Vatican Council, never fully implemented, but now brought
back by Pope Francis—the crisis of the hierarchical Church
will deepen, perhaps irreversibly.
The balance between charism and power has been
broken, in favor of power. This power controls, subdues, and
sometimes suffocates charism. It is not surprising that
authorities in both the Vatican and the National Conference
of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) have taken care to establish
limits and subject the charisma of the CCR to the criteria of
ecclesiastical power. Pope John Paul II did so on November
23, 1980, when he admonished the CCR for its possible
excesses. In 1994 the CNBB published a set of “Pastoral
Guidelines on Catholic Charismatic Renewal” (CNBB
document #53).
Here again we see the temptation of institutional power to
place limits on charism and weaken its transformative
potential. The limits are strict. In both documents we can
see the hierarchical power diminishing the nature of
charism. As often happens in the Latin tradition, it does not
respect the role of the Spirit, which is to create something
new, to be the historical embodiment of God's dream of
continually transforming Jesus’ message into good news.
This is where the CCR's mission comes in. It must see the
future not merely as a continuation of the past and present.
Its mission would be to evangelize the hierarchical Church
to use its services, gifts, and charisms to serve and inspire
the community. The hierarchy claims to evangelize the
world, but who will evangelize the hierarchy? Who will set
limits on its greed for power, which as we know, is the
source of intrigue, ambition, and the quest for privilege and
prestige? And which incidentally leads to reprimands,
reassignments, and canonical penalties.
The Holy Spirit has not only inspired CCR to renew the
spiritual life of the world. Its greater mission, not yet fully
recognized and accepted, should be to live by the charism
of prophecy: gently and energetically to point out the
excesses of sacred power—pedophilia and financial scandals
are among the expressions of power without charism—and
suggest creative methods of leadership and motivation to
service, following the example of Jesus and the Apostles.
This mission must be nourished by love, the supreme gift of
the Spirit, mutual caring, and mercy for those who suffer.
What Jesus asks of us is not hierarchy (the power to
command) but hierodulia (service to others).
If the CCR does not take on this urgent, challenging
mission, who will? It may suffer insults, misunderstandings,
and even persecution. These will have to be faced in the
spirit of the beatitudes, with the gifts of courage,
endurance, resilience, and patience, which are always
promised to the faithful.
In conclusion: the irruption of the Holy Spirit in this new,
planetary age—to make the Catholic Church and other
churches more spiritual, more evangelical, more faithful in
following the poor and humble Jesus, and especially more
ecologically conscious in order to protect human life on this
planet and the future of our salvation—is a heavenly gift
that we must accept with open and grateful hearts. We are
living in what may be the end times. According to the
scriptures, that is when the Spirit will come upon all flesh.
It comes in response to our cry: “Come, Holy Spirit.”
“Come to renew the face of the earth.” “Come soon, come
urgently!”
 2

In the Beginning Was the Spirit

A New Way of Thinking about God

In this long introduction we have called on the Holy Spirit

to come quickly. Now, even before we can fully engage in
theological reflection on the Holy Spirit, we need to deepen
our understanding of the word “spirit.” That word has
become almost meaningless in today's world, both in
literature and in popular culture.

Recovering the Word “Spirit”

In today's educated culture, “spirit” is the opposite of
matter. We know more or less what matter is; we can
measure it, weigh it, manipulate and change it. By contrast,
spirit is intangible, undefined, and even nebulous. Matter is
the source of material values, which have been central to
human experience in recent centuries. Modern science is all
about the investigation and control of matter. It explores the
deepest reaches of material reality: subatomic particles, the
Higgs Field where the first condensation of energy took
place, hadrons, and the elusive “God particle.”
Einstein showed that matter and energy are one and the
same. Matter does not exist in itself; it is energy,
concentrated in a rich field of interactions. Theology has not
begun to take seriously the meaning of this way of
understanding reality; theology is still a primarily
materialist, substantialist discipline.
The state sees itself as the organizer of material
production by means of human labor, technology, and small
and large enterprise in order to meet human needs through
market capitalism and the accumulation of wealth. But the
state is also responsible for overseeing intangible values
such as transparency, cooperation, respect for differences of
culture and gender, and the ecological and social health of
the environment. These dimensions are also related to the
spiritual dimensions of existence.
Spiritual values, in the accepted modern sense, are part of
the superstructure and have no place in our scientific
categories. They belong to the world of subjectivity, to be
overseen by individuals or by religious groups. José Comblin
is not exaggerating when he says: “When someone speaks
of ‘spiritual values,’ everyone thinks it is a businessman at
an elegant, lavish Rotary or Lion's Club dinner washed down
with fine wine. For most people, ‘spiritual values’ are
eloquent but empty words” (O Espíritu no mundo, 9). Or
else they belong to the vocabulary of moralized,
spiritualized ecclesiastical discourse, which has nothing kind
to say about the modern world.
This is why we usually hear the expression “spiritual
values” from conservative-leaning clergy, talking about the
specific role of the Church in society: that is, to protect and
promote “spiritual goods,” which are generally equivalent to
“moral values.” They often describe the crisis of today's
world in terms of its neglect of the spiritual world, rather
than distortions in the political, economic, or environmental
field. And they understand “the neglect of the spiritual” as
failure to attend religious celebrations or to talk directly
about religion.
But the official discourse of “spiritual values” has lost its
legitimacy with the recent scandals of pedophile priests,
first concealed by the Vatican hierarchy but finally
recognized as crimes and brought to the civil courts, and
with the financial scandals associated with the Vatican Bank.
Spiritual values are still important, but the official institution
proclaiming them sounds like a voice in the desert; most
people are no longer listening.
The word “spirit” means a great deal in popular culture. It
conveys a certain magical conception of the world, in
contrast to the rationality people learn at school. For many
people, especially in the indigenous and Afro-Brazilian
cultures, the world is inhabited by good and evil spirits that
act on reality and affect such life situations as health,
illness, intimate relationships, success and failure, good and
bad luck. Spiritism describes this view of the world in terms
of reincarnation: the soul is reincarnated to be purified, to
grow, and after a long cleansing, to reach God. This belief is
more widespread than we realize, not only in the popular
sectors but at all levels of society; some of its adherents are
highly educated, and some are Christians, including
members of the Catholic Church.
In recent years there has been a surprising loss of
enthusiasm for the material world and its promises, which
are now recognized as false. The overemphasis on
rationality in every sphere of life and the rampant growth of
consumerism have generated existential saturation and
disillusionment. Happiness is not to be found in material
things, but in the domain of the heart: affect, love,
solidarity, and compassion.
People everywhere are looking for new spiritual
experiences, that is, feelings that go beyond immediate self-
interest and the day-to-day struggle for life. These feelings
bring a new perspective of light and hope into the
marketplace of ideas and conventional answers, offered by
the communications media and by “institutions of meaning”
such as religions, churches, and philosophies. They draw
strength from television and from massive religious
spectacles, which by their very nature undermine the
reverent and sacred aspect of all true religion. In a market
society, religion and spirituality have also become
commodities available for general consumption.
Despite the marketization of the religious world there is
growing interest in spirituality, although it usually takes the
form of exoticism, mysticism, and even the literature of self-
help. Cracks are developing in the banality of the world and
the grayness of mass society. Movements are arising in the
Christian world, revolving around the Holy Spirit. Pentecostal
churches and charismatic movements are focusing on the
third article of the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” After
centuries in the “Age of the Son,” are we perhaps, as some
people believe, moving into a new and longed-for “Age of
the Holy Spirit”?
These changes suggest a retrieval of the positive, even
antiestablishment, meaning of the word “spirit.” It is a
hopeful meaning, no longer diminished by the modernist
suspicion of everything that is not filtered through the
screen of reason. Reason does not have all the answers.
Some things are irrational; some are arational. In every
human being there is a world of passion, affect, and sincere
feelings, expressed through relational and emotional
intelligence. The spirit is not opposed to reason. The spirit
needs reason but goes beyond it, carrying it to a higher
level of intelligence, contemplation, and a higher sense of
life and history.

Spirit-Laden Realities
Let us look at some experiences of life and spirit that can
help us better understand the reality of the Spirit of God.

The Power of Nature, Howling and Trembling

Scene one: We hear the distant rumble of rain falling on
the dense Amazon jungle, like a fierce animal shaking itself
in the wind. The dark sky roars. The enormous blossoms
shudder. The branches wail, rubbing against each other.
Then the rain comes in a loud rush, as if someone had
opened the floodgates of heaven. A deaf, terrifying fear
invades the soul. There is nowhere to run.
Suddenly we realize that we are shaking, howling,
weeping, and wailing with everything around us. Then,
slowly, everything stops, and a tenuous mist rises from the
drenched soil. Nature comes alive; it has been renewed with
all its pulsating majesty. We have experienced something of
what I call the spirit as movement, life, a whirlwind.
Scene two: The sertão of northeastern Brazil is dry and
barren. Here and there one sees animal bones bleached by
the dog-day sun. Only a few cacti keep watch over the
parched landscape. In the distance a reddish cloud emerges
and grows larger. A soft breeze begins to blow, sending dust
devils scudding across the ground. The breeze becomes a
wind. The cacti bend like ghosts. The wind blows harder,
whistling across the rocks. Now it is a squall, and then a
powerful storm.
The dry bones blow around and gather in mounds. A red
dust cloud covers the horizon. Thunder crashes; fierce
lightning slices across the sky. Heavy raindrops begin to pelt
the ground. Suddenly they become a flood, crashing noisily
down on the wounded land. The whirling wind forms a
moving wave and disappears into a patch of caatinga
bushes.
This is the pain-racked sertão, gasping for breath. After a
little while, and another little while, we hear the rain falling
eagerly on the thirsty ground. After a day, and another day,
delicate green shoots begin pushing up everywhere. The
gentle breeze is like the breathing of a child who lies
satisfied on his mother's breast.
The spirit is like the breathing of nature, a wellspring of
life, the power that turns the dry caatinga patches of the
northeastern sertão into a copious garden.
 Life as an Expression of the Spirit
Life is always a mystery, although we can describe the
complex conditions in which it emerges.
Ilya Prigogine, winner of a Nobel Prize for his work in
thermodynamics, has shown that life was born when the
elements reached a high degree of complexity and
disequilibrium. It came about as a way of overcoming chaos
(Order Out of Chaos, 1984), establishing a new dynamic
equilibrium. Christian de Duve, a Nobel laureate in
medicine, added that at a certain high level of complexity,
life emerges as a cosmic imperative everywhere in the
universe (Vital Dust, 1996).
But science also recognizes the mysterious character of
life (Schröder, De Duve, Capra). We can describe the
conditions in which it emerges, but we have no idea what it
really is. Finally we realize that we cannot define life; we can
only live it, defend it, embrace it, locate ourselves within it.
We only experience life and understand it by living it fully.
Life begins with an organism, a composite of many factors
and elements revolving around a center. An organism is
complex matter, but it is also something else entirely; it is
laden with information (the genetic code) that has none of
the characteristics of matter. Matter and energy are always
interacting with their surroundings, self-regulating and self-
creating.
Biologists talk endlessly about the unique and mysterious
character of life. It is an evolutionary emergence, the
supreme outcome of the cosmic process. For instance,
bacteria—the most primitive life forms, which evolved 3.8
billion years ago—display the same intrinsic vitality they
had then. They do not lose their structure even at
temperatures close to absolute zero (–273º Celsius); rather
they keep their vitality, regardless of the passage of time.
They can recover all their functions, even after many
thousands of years frozen in deep ice. Bacteria, frozen in
the hide of a mammoth ten thousand years ago in Siberia,
revived when they were brought back to normal
temperatures. Other bacteria have been found after millions
of years in deposits of mineral salts; they too returned to life
and began to reproduce as they had before.
We know that viruses, bacteria, algae, and protozoa are,
in a certain sense, immortal. They can clone themselves
with absolute perfection. Thus death is not a natural and
necessary mark of organic life. These primitive life forms do
not die, except when they are directly attacked. We can
even say that the reproductive cells of biologically
developed beings, like ourselves, in some way constitute a
horizontal line of immortal life. Sexuality may have led to
individual death, but the species goes on indefinitely.
These observations show that life cannot be fully
explained by the increasing complexity of matter and its
mutation through energy, the reproduction and
maintenance of equilibrium, and the loss of equilibrium
through illness and death. Not even oxygen is essential.
Some organisms have survived at the dark bottom of the
oceans, for millions of years without light or oxygen. The
bacteria of sulfate, nitrate, and nitrite, perhaps the oldest on
earth, live without oxygen; indeed its presence might kill
them.
So then, what is life? The mystery defies all our attempts
to understand it. Life is spontaneity, movement, interaction,
presence, energy, luminosity, and power. We respond to all
of this by saying as the ancients did: we are in the presence
of something not material, but spiritual. As we shall see
later, life—especially human life—is the most amazing
manifestation of the Holy Spirit in all creation.
Let us look first at life in the plant and animal world, and
then at human life.

The Vitality of Plant and Animal Life

 Scene one: Two kittens are playing with a ball. They run,
spin around, tease each other. Then they forget the ball, and
twist and turn together. They jump at each other with
playful bites. They pull at the edge of a tablecloth; a vase
crashes down and scares them away.
Their great exuberance and vitality show the real meaning
of the word “animal”: they are bearers of anima, the source
of life and energy.
What we see in this familiar, everyday scene is life with all
its vibrancy.
Scene two: In the Amazon rainforest, the pulsating energy
that we saw in the kittens becomes a truly dionysian orgy of
life. We feel it on our skin when we walk into the forest. We
are awed and thrilled by the endless profusion of shades of
green, seized and fascinated by the layers on layers of
forest growth. Down below, small shrubs reach upward in
their struggle for light. Climbing vines wrap their tentacles
around tree trunks, weave in and out of the branches, rise,
wave about, bend down and rise again, stretching out arms
like long ropes, while their roots dig hungrily into the soil.
Above us are huge, strong, grown trees, free of parasites.
And above them, trees hundreds of years old thrust their
heads proudly upward, held up by a mass of roots spreading
out from three or four meters above the ground. The crowns
of the high canopy hold court at the top, nodding at the
clouds and raising proud faces toward heaven. Each of
these great trees produces up to 300 liters of moisture
every day, like airborne rivers that the wind will carry in
different directions, bestowing rain or forestalling drought in
faraway lands.
Amid all this strong, vibrant greenery the drama of animal
life is exuberantly played out. There are myriads of
butterflies, insects pollinating the flowers, every kind of
animal. In the morning, at midday, and when they settle
down in the evening, we hear the songs of birds, the roar of
wild beasts, the chatter of parrots, the ineffable call of the
uirapuru, the howl of monkeys, and the low growl of jaguars.
The people of the rainforest, small, frail, but brave, slip in
and out among the rubber trees, watching out for the heavy
Pará chestnuts that fall from the trees. They are filled with
fear, reverence, and at the same time a sense of
acceptance in the embrace of Mother Nature.
Life overflows everywhere around us, penetrating our
being and forming with us an immense, vital, mystical body.
This is the experience of life and the spirit that we find in
nature.

The Radiance of Human Life

Life breaks through most intensely in the form of human
life. We are amazed to find in it the most diverse dimensions
of reality: physical-chemical, organic, psychic, emotional,
rational, and spiritual. These dimensions are not layered on
top of one another, but woven into a complex and
multifaceted unity.
The whole history of life is present in different parts of the
brain. The reptilian brain, over 300 million years old, is the
seat of our involuntary movements: defense mechanisms,
blood circulation, the beating of the heart, and the blinking
of the eyes. Linked to that is the limbic brain, over 200
million years old; it emerged in the age of mammals, which
carry their young until birth and build intimacy with them.
The limbic brain brought something new into the universe:
feelings, care, compassion, and love. We humans are
rational mammals, charged with emotions and passions.
Finally the neocortical brain evolved between 5 and 7
million years ago, giving rise to ideas and to the rational
order of the world.
Human life is inhabited by energies, some of death, some
of life and resurrection. On one side the power of self-giving
love prevails. On the other is the negative power of
aggressiveness and exclusion.
These energies coexist within us, because we are at once
sapient and demented beings. Our ethical challenge as
human beings is to strengthen the energy of wisdom and
light over that of dementia and shadow, kindness over
malice, hope over despair. For that reason human life is not
linear but complex; sometimes we follow ennobling paths,
while others lead us into shame.
The same dynamic is operative in social relations:
different powers and interests coexist, sometimes in
harmony, sometimes in conflict, and always in tension. In a
way we reflect the whole evolutionary process, including
chaos and cosmos, orders, disorders, and new orders.

The Human Being as Privileged Bearer of the Spirit

But the principal characteristic of human beings is our role
as bearers of consciousness, of intelligence—in a word, of
the spirit. The spirit infuses the whole universe from its very
beginning, but in human beings it becomes self-aware and
free.
The phenomenon that most particularly represents the
spirit is human speech. Only humans, of all the higher
beings, are endowed with language. We can even be
defined as “the speaking being,” as the Chilean biologist
Humberto Maturana points out (El árbol del conocimiento,
1995). Speech recreates the whole universe of things, giving
them names, codifying experience in phonetic and graphic
symbols. In modern linguistics we can see the strict logic
that regulates all language, even in the smallest child. We
speak without needing to think about grammar and syntax.
The spirit is especially present in the language of love, in
the poetry of nature, and in the rhetoric of persuasion. At
such times, discourse is more than speech. It is transformed
into pathos, logos, eros, and ethos, that is, into realities that
move us, inspire us, convince us, and motivate us to take
action.
In poetry the spirit irrupts as creation. Poets do not speak.
They are spoken, by an inspiring energy that seizes their
whole being. They sing life, they weep misfortune, they
express secret experiences and reveal hidden intentions.
They transform reality by means of metaphors and figures
that evoke and bring life to amazing experiences.
An artist takes a piece of wood, cuts it, shapes it, and
draws out of it an image that transports us to other worlds
by conveying feelings of beauty and admiration. It is the
transfiguration of matter. Especially in dance, bodies are
transformed into spirit by the lightness of their steps and
the delicacy and elegance they evoke.
But nothing shows the presence of the spirit in human life
as well as love does. In love we seek to fuse our being with
the “other.” It is an act of unconditional self-giving that
somehow resembles death, as it merges the identity of the
“I” and the “thou.” When love is expressed as compassion,
the spirit enables us to come out of ourselves, put ourselves
in the other's place, bend over the person fallen by the
wayside. In forgiveness we transcend ourselves, so that the
past does not have the last word and cannot close off the
present and the future.
The highest expression of the spirit is the one that opens
us to the Great Other, in love and trust. It establishes a
dialogue with God, listens from the conscience to God's call,
and delivers us trustingly into the palm of God's hand. This
communion can be so intense, say the mystics of every
tradition, that the soul of the beloved is fused with the Lover
in an experience of nonduality; by grace we participate in
God's very being. Here the human spirit is touching the hem
of the Holy Spirit's garment.

Brilliant Flashes of Charisma

 We see the presence of the spirit most vividly in
charismatic believers. Charisma seizes them like a cosmic
force. No one can find charisma, or build it. Charisma is like
poetry: either it possesses us or it doesn't. Charismatics are
inhabited by an energy that they cannot manipulate or
control. It emerges and manifests itself through them. Some
people are politically charismatic; they can carry away the
masses by their fiery words, inventive metaphors, and
startling gestures. In Brazil, former president Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva was an example of political charisma. Wherever he
went, he could galvanize thousands of listeners with his
powerful, creative words. There have been others. The
charismatic influence of Gandhi, Che Guevara, and Nelson
Mandela has lasted long beyond their lifetimes.
Charisma is expressed in the many activities of life,
including the arts, music, theater, and film. The bearers of
charisma naturally draw attention and produce fascination
in the people around them.
Religious charismatics stand out from the others. By their
very presence they transport us into the world of the
Sacred; they make it possible to speak credibly about God
and God's action in the world. There is an aura around
religious charismatics that fascinates and gently draws
people into their message. Dom Helder Câmara, Pope John
XXIII, Pope John Paul II, and Martin Luther King Jr. were great
charismatic figures. Religious charismatics renew old
structures and give new life to ancient rituals. They nourish
hope, recover the meaning of life in the midst of
catastrophe, and become “the comfort of the people.”

Spirit-Possessed Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is one of the richest signs of possession by
the spirit. There are two kinds of enthusiasm, as the ancient
Greeks knew. One is a deeply human phenomenon, linked to
exuberance for life and the love of life. An enthusiastic
person takes initiative, overcomes obstacles, opens up new
paths. Nothing great can happen without the power of
enthusiasm.
The other is a power that possesses a person, a power
that cannot be built up but only accepted. There is
something of the divine in enthusiasm, as its etymology
shows: it comes from the Greek enthousiasmos, which
means to have a god (theos) within (en-). This energy en-
thuses a person, that is, fills and moves the person with
divinity.
Enthusiasm makes us sing, dance, laugh out loud,
celebrate. Enthusiasm takes possession of poets, writers,
actors, sculptors, musicians, painters, and makes them work
by the power of creativity and inventiveness. That is the
work of the spirit: transforming matter, borrowing sound to
produce a melody, turning a chunk of marble into
Michelangelo's Pietá or Moses. Out of the artist's enthusiasm
come the works that inspire enthusiasm in their viewers.

The Irruption of the Prophetic Spirit and Poetic Inspiration

We see another great manifestation of the spirit in the
prophets. These men and women are seized and driven by
the Spirit. Their power is in the word that denounces the
injustice perpetrated by the powerful on the weak and
vulnerable. They attack unjust wages (Jeremiah 22:13),
fraudulent business dealings (Amos 8:5, Hosea 12:8), the
venality of judges (Micah 3:11, Isaiah 3:15, Amos 2:6–8 and
8:4–5), cruelty to debtors (Amos 2:8), economic exploitation
(Isaiah 3:15, Amos 2:6–8 and 8:4–5), lives of ostentation and
dissipation (Isaiah 3:16–23, Amos 6:5). They accuse kings of
being bad shepherds (Ezekiel 34; Jeremiah 23:1–4). The
prophet Nathan accused King David of having murdered
Uriah in order to take his wife (2 Samuel 12). Jesus spoke as
a prophet when he denounced the scribes for “devouring
widows’ houses” (Mark 12:40).
 For this prophets have always been persecuted,
imprisoned, tortured, and assassinated (Jeremiah 26:20–23,
1 Kings 18:4–13 and 19:10–14). But they also proclaim a
new world, a new humanity and a new heart (Jeremiah
31:33–34), and a different spirit (Ezekiel 36:26). They
comfort and encourage the people (all of Second Isaiah,
Ezekiel 37), in order to strengthen their faith and hope
(Sirach 49:10).
Above all, the prophets are interpreters of crisis. They are
extraordinary people who come into extraordinary situations
(P. Bourdieu). They call attention to situations of social
chaos and threats of war, and appeal for a change of life
that can transform the situation. Prophets innovate; they
seek to renew God's eternal covenant with God's people
(Micah 6:1–8), and to transform a perverse reality with a
right spirit and a new heart (Ezekiel 36:16–38). This is why
prophets are always mixed up in politics: that is where
injustice occurs and the needed transformations are
possible.
Some modern prophets in the religious sphere have been
Dom Helder Câmara of Recife, Brazil; Archbishop Oscar
Arnulfo Romero, slain at the altar in El Salvador; Dom Pedro
Casaldáliga in Amazonas; Dom Paulo Evaristo Cardinal Arns
of São Paulo, the defender of human rights, especially for
the poor; and Pope Francis, who has made life, tenderness,
and compassion his central themes. In the social sphere,
Leo Tolstoy preached active nonviolence and became a
follower of Gandhi; Senator Teotônio Vilela denounced the
Brazilian military regime and preached democracy; and the
Brazilian Catholic thinker Alceu Amoroso Lima made public
the practice of torture by the agents of repression.
There have been prophets in every age: in ancient Egypt,
in Babylonia and Mesopotamia (Balaam in Numbers 22–23),
and in every generation including our own. Wherever crises
leave the people stunned and disoriented, prophetic voices
are raised to point out new paths and build courage and
hope. That is where we see clearly the transforming energy
of the spirit.

The Power of the Spirit in the Face of Oppression

The spirit shows through in the courage of those who, like
the prophets, denounce the powers that oppress society and
marginalize the poor, and who also become their victims.
Some engage in resistance and commit themselves to
movements of liberation. Without passing ethical or
practical judgment on all their tactics, we have to
acknowledge that they have chosen the hardest path, filled
with compassion for the victims of oppression. They are the
ones “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38),
having suffered imprisonment, barbaric torture, and violent
assassination. They did not bow down to the powerful. They
did not compromise their ideals. They were faithful, and
gave their lives for the sake of values that transcend life
itself.
The Christian scriptures speak of parrhesia, that is,
courage to stand up to the authorities, speak the truth
boldly, and denounce injustice, in the name of the God of
life and compassion for the poor. Like the prophets, many of
these witnesses have suffered every kind of humiliation and
sacrifice for their fearlessness. They spoke by the Spirit,
with a power that could not be silenced.

Flesh and Spirit: Two Ways of Being

All these examples, and there are many more, help us
recognize the presence of the spirit as life and energy. Some
of its meanings can be mentioned only briefly. For example,
we talk about the spirit of a people, the kind of life and
culture we see in them. Or the spirit of the law: the deep
meaning that goes beyond its letter. Or the spirit of an
artistic form, such as the Gothic genre which points beyond
itself to divine transcendence. Or we talk about a spirited
person: one who is sharp, who draws unexpected
connections and expresses a fine sense of humor. Or about
the spiritual life, a life based on intangible values like
communing with God, cultivating virtues, practicing love,
solidarity, and compassion.
But there are forces opposed to the spirit, so we must
always think about it dialectically. For every value there is
an anti-value. The force opposed to spirit is not matter, but
another spirit: an anti-spirit ruled by selfishness, hardness of
heart, legalism, irreverence, and self-interested
manipulation of the sacred. Scripture calls this “the flesh.”
People of the flesh live by an existential project that
excludes the spirit of life, the spirit that shines with
goodness and seeks whatever is right and just. The spirit
and the flesh represent two different life projects.
People of the flesh are closed in on themselves, without
concern for others; everything revolves around their inflated
sense of self. The fate of the flesh is loneliness,
rootlessness, and death. In contrast, people of the spirit live
for others, open to love, and above all open to God and to
everything sacred.
As we can see from this description, the concept of
“spirit” is one of the highest that cultures have created to
express humanity at its best, its capacity for transcendence
and for life in all its forms. It shows us reality as becoming
rather than being; it conceives of God as Energy and
Dynamism, acting in the world, in history, and in every
person. Traditional theology, in contrast, is based on a
substantialist concept of God. It focuses on God's nature
and essence as eternal, infinite, and immutable.
The concept of spirit invites us to see God as a process, as
becoming, as the Energy that upholds the universe,
humanity, and every person. This God is Action rather than
immutable Substance; a God who makes a future by
entering into history. History is not something apart from
God; rather it exists to receive God, who does new things
that have never happened before, such as incarnation.
Through the incarnation God became what he had never
been before, a God who steps out of mystery and reveals
himself in the man Jesus of Nazareth. God the spirit is an
open-ended reality, always in communication with
everything. We also call God the primal Mystery, always
knowable and always unknowable. Thus the Mystery
expresses a dynamism that never does the same thing
twice, but is always in the process of becoming.
All this evidence of dynamism and continual action leads
us to think about the action, rather than the essence and
nature, of God. God is always in relationship, a source of life,
love, and unconditional self-giving. New manifestations of
God are always being revealed in this endless ocean of
energy.
Now we need to reflect theologically on these phenomena,
in order to speak of the Spirit of God, of God as Spirit, and of
the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
 3

Spirit
Interpreting the Foundational Experiences

The phenomena discussed in the preceding chapter,

which we call foundational experiences, call for
interpretation. Each one has many interpretations, and none
of them can fully explain or take the place of the
experience. But the interpretations are part of the
experience itself. Experience without interpretation is left
incomplete, and in a way, silent. Interpretations reveal
hidden dimensions that enrich the experience itself. They
open a window to help us understand the spirit and the Holy
Spirit. Let us look at some approaches to these foundational
experiences.

Animism and Shamanism Are Still Relevant

Animism and shamanism are meaningful ways to
understand our foundational experiences. According to a
well-known expert on the subject, E. B. Tylor (Primitive
Culture), they express “a well-ordered, well-articulated
rational philosophy” (see also van der Leeuw, L'homme
primitive, 25–162; van der Leeuw, Phänomenologie, 77–86;
and Salado, La religiosidad mágica, 255–80).
Animism is a primitive mentality, not because it is old, but
in the anthropological sense: it reflects one of the deepest,
primal structures of the human psyche. Piaget showed that
animism is the natural worldview of children (The Child's
Conception of the World, 1926). In the winter a child sees
the sun shining into the room and says: “How wonderful, the
sun is coming in to warm our house!” Objects have life and
intelligence. A child asks, “Why does the boat stay on top of
the water, but a stone sinks?” Another child answers, in the
best animistic style: “Because the boat is smarter than the
stone” (Piaget, 210).
We modernists are also animists; we operate in the same
primitive mentality when we express our experience of the
world symbolically. Artists, poets, and painters know that
very well. We experience our reality affectively, in a
unifying, globalizing dimension, feeling ourselves part of the
whole. Then we use metaphors like this one, from an
Argentine tango: “I do not sing to the moon just because
she shines; I sing to her because she knows how far I have
walked.” Here the moon becomes a companion, sharing our
fate. We are animists, says the Dutch anthropologist van der
Leeuw, “no matter how hard we try to forget it”
(Phänomenologie, 82).
Everything speaks to us or sends us messages:
mountains, forests, landscapes, colors, animals, our favorite
household objects. Something radiates out of them and
affects us, nourishes our imagination and enriches our
experience. Objects have spirit because they belong to our
Lebenswelt, our lived surroundings. The radiant energy of
objects is well described by the word mana in Melanesian
culture. Nagô tradition speaks of axé as the cosmic force
that penetrates everything, which as we shall see later, is
carried especially by the fathers and mothers of holiness.
The ancients spoke of the spiritus loci, the spirit of a place, a
landscape rich in memories. The fact that objects can live
and talk is what makes poetry, painting, and all kinds of
inspiration possible, even in formal philosophy.
Shamanism comes from the interpretation of reality as
energy (Drouot, O xamã, 60–73). The shaman is not merely
an enthusiastic person who does extraordinary things. He or
she is infused with cosmic energies and, being so united
with them, is led by them to do good things. Shamanism is
perhaps the oldest cosmovision of humanity, through which
human beings gave meaning to the forces of nature and felt
deeply united with them.

The Biblical Ruah: Spirit That Fills the Cosmos

The biblical writers described the energy of nature—wind,
breath, storm, upheaval—as ruah. Ruah is spirit. Its
manifestations are signs of life, vitality, movement, and the
unpredictable, uncontrollable explosion of the forces of
nature. What especially characterizes ruah is that human
beings cannot predict or control it. Like all energies, it can
have both good and bad effects. There is the Holy Spirit
(found only twice in the First Testament: Isaiah 63:10–11
and Psalm 51:13), and there is also the spirit of falsehood
and death (H. Duhm, Die bösen Geister im Alten Testament,
1904; P. Volz, Das Dämonische in Jahwe, 1924).
The story of Saul's prophetic frenzy shows the dominating
power of the spirit. Saul is “turned into a different person” (1
Samuel 10:6). He pursues David to kill him. Three times he
sends messengers. But the spirit comes upon them, and
they are seized by a prophetic frenzy. Finally Saul himself
goes out after David. But on the way the spirit also comes
upon him: “He too stripped off his clothes, and he too fell
into a frenzy before Samuel. He lay naked all that day and
all that night” (1 Samuel 19:18–24).
Something similar happened with Moses and the seventy
elders; they prophesied when the spirit rested upon them
but had trouble coming out of their prophetic frenzy
(Numbers 11:24–30). The spirit came upon Balaam, and he
spoke an oracle describing God's plan for Israel (Numbers
24:3). 1 Samuel 16:23 speaks of “the evil spirit from God”
that came upon Saul; other sinister, malevolent forces are
also attributed to the spirit (Judges 9:23, 1 Samuel 18:10
and 19:9). The Lord even put a lying spirit in the mouths of
Ahab's prophets, to entice him (1 Kings 22:21–23). As we
see, the energy of the spirit can be either good or evil.
Nonetheless, the spirit gives Samson the incredible power
to dismember lions, kill thirty enemies singlehandedly, and
break his shackles (Judges 14–16). As Eduard Schweizer
rightly observes, “Human beings possess a soul, but they
are possessed by the spirit” (El Espíritu Santo, 23).
As we have seen, the spirit is manifested as a primitive
force that breaks the conventional patterns of human
behavior. It introduces the new, the unexpected, and the
surprising. It is not a principle of institutional order and
reinforcement, but of rupture and surprise.
Scholars have noted that the most ancient strata of the
Bible are not very concerned with distinguishing among
different spirits. Anything that can be truly described as a
power, whether for life or for death, is called ruah.
Amazingly, this spirit is called the spirit of Yahweh. We
have to remember that people came to this understanding
within the animistic, mystical discourse that sees the world
as filled with all kinds of energy. There is no moral judgment
here. They simply observe that among all these energies
there is a divine power, which in different circumstances
may work for good or for harm. They are not thinking yet of
a transcendent God, a foundational Energy that creates all
the good energies that struggle against the evil energies in
history. Later, Israel would slowly come to experience God
the spirit as mercy and judgment, but always sovereign and
transcendent, not a part of the comings and goings of this
suffering world.
Thus the concept of ruah opens a window and a door to
our understanding of the divine reality. In this sense spirit is
used as an adjective, a characteristic used to describe
something. This particular characteristic is found in nature,
in history, in human beings, and also in God.
 Two great French scholars, H. Caselles (“Saint-Esprit,”
1990) and Jean Galot (L'Esprit Saint, 1991) have traced the
roots of the word ruah. They found that its original meaning
in ancient Semitic languages like Syriac, Punic, Akkadian,
Samaritan, Ugaritic, and Hebrew was not wind, as had
always been thought, but “the atmospheric space between
heaven and earth, which may be calm or agitated”
(Caselles, 131). This space later became the vital sphere
from which all living beings, animal and human, derive life.
This is the source of all the other meanings of ruah.
Its original meaning, therefore, is cosmological. Later it is
expressed physically, as wind. Then it takes on
anthropological meaning as the way human beings feel in
their lived environment; in modern usage, a person might
be in high or low spirits. In other words the spirit represents
a divine vital energy, as we read in Psalm 104:29–30: “When
you take away their breath, they die and return to their
dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created.”
Still later, God is described as spirit, because that is God's
nature; and finally, the spirit becomes the Third Person of
the Holy Trinity.
We shall come back later to the reality of the spirit in its
theological sense, as the Holy Spirit.

Pneuma and Spiritus: An Elemental Force of Nature

The Greeks had their own way of describing this
foundational experience of cosmic energy. They called it
pneuma, spirit as an elemental force in everything that
exists and moves. It appears in nature as wind, in living
beings as breath, and in human beings as logos, meaning
an ordered, rational understanding of reality.
In this sense, pneuma is directly connected with life. It is
also associated with the enthusiasm expressed in eros,
which imparts life and love, inspires poets, and enlightens
the thoughts of philosophers.
 The Stoics in particular developed a worldview based on
pneuma. It penetrates the whole universe, in the same way
that the soul enlivens the whole body. It has the
characteristics of divinity, because it cannot be controlled
by human beings; rather, they are dependent on its
manifestation. It is always present, but at the same time it is
ineffable. Thus we speak of pneuma as theion or theon, a
reality that carries divinity within it. Or more directly, as the
Spirit of God (pneuma tou Theou). God appears as Spirit, as
the source of life, intelligence, passion, and enthusiasm
(Kleinknecht, Kittel, 7, 55). But pneuma is always seen in
contrast with matter. It is immaterial.
Latin philosophy uses the word spiritus with the same
meanings as the Greek pneuma and the biblical ruah: wind,
breath, movement, and life. But like the Greeks, they
understand spiritus as something immaterial.

The Axé of the Nagô and Yoruba Peoples: Universal

Cosmic Energy
Nagô is the Brazilian name for the Sudanese African
slaves from the Yoruba region, now a part of Nigeria (from
Lagos north to the Niger River) and Dahomey. Many of them
were taken by force to Bahía, where they became a
hegemonic group whose language dominated those of the
other African nations present in Brazil. Everyone who spoke
the Yoruba language was called Nagô. Nagô was also a
religion, syncretized in Bahía with Christian elements of the
colonial and indigenous cultures. The core of this syncretism
is not Christian but Nagô, because their identity so
thoroughly prevailed over the other religious traditions.
It is a well-developed religion, with systematic theological
concerns. Its central concept is axé, which parallels the
Greek pneuma, the Latin spiritus, and the biblical ruah.
Axé is the energy that makes possible all the processes of
nature and the emergence of human beings. People and
objects can be the bearers of axé. It gives access to
supernatural entities, or orishas, and keeps the community
alive and active. More than substantive entities, orishas are
the symbolic principles and models that rule over cosmic,
social, and individual phenomena. These orishas (powerful
energies) can be incorporated in people, who then go into a
trance and become “horses,” that is, the privileged bearers
of axé.
Axé cannot be grasped. It is received, and it grows as its
bearers become more open to it, as they enter into the
world of their ancestors, celebrate the rituals, and are
guided by the ethics and behavior of each orisha.
The supreme being is the greatest bearer of axé. His
name is Olorum or Alabá l'axé, which means “the one who
has the power of creation and realization.” Below him are
the different orishas and exus.
The figure of the exu in particular has been misinterpreted
by Christians, especially by evangelicals, who see him as
the embodiment of the diabolic. Because his axé is so
intense, the exu is the principle of transmission, expansion,
and diffusion of axé. The fathers and mothers of holiness,
the priests and priestesses of the community, are imbued
with a great power of axé and radiate it to others, producing
beneficial effects.
Axé has a cosmic dimension. It penetrates all beings and
processes, and it is transmitted to individual human beings
in accordance with their openness and faithfulness. The
blood spilled in the ritual sacrifice of animals is an
expression of life, which must be defended, healed,
enriched, and transfigured by axé. The density of axé in
individuals leads them to cultivate a spiritual lifestyle and
shape their lives in accordance with the virtues and
behavior of their personal orisha (Elbein, Os nagô e a morte,
1976; Elbein, “A percepção ideológica,” 1977, 543–554;
Cacciatore, Dicionário de cultos afro-brasileiros, 1977).
 Everything Is Energy: Modern Cosmology
Finally, let us turn briefly to the interpretation from
modern cosmology. In that interpretation there is no such
thing as matter. Everything is energy. To speak of energy
takes us to the heart of spirit, as we have broadly described
it.
This is obvious to anyone with a minimal understanding of
Einstein's theory of relativity, which equates matter with
energy. Matter is highly condensed energy that can be
released, as we saw to our sorrow in the atomic bomb and
in the nuclear disasters of Ukraine, the United States, and
Japan.
Science has followed an investigative path more or less
like this: from matter it began to focus on atoms, then on
subatomic particles, then on the Higgs Field, which gives
mass to virtual particles like bosons and hadrons; these led
to “wave packets” of energy, and then to supercords which
vibrate in eleven dimensions or more, represented as music
and color.
Thus an electron vibrates about five hundred billion times
per second. All vibration produces sound and color. In other
words, the universe is a symphony of sounds and colors.
Finally, the supercords led scientists to the underlying
energy, the quantum vacuum, a boundless ocean of energy
with all possible virtualities and ways of being.
In this context the words of W. Heisenberg, one of the
fathers of quantum mechanics, are worth remembering:
“The universe is not made of things, but of networks of
vibratory energy, emerging from something still more
profound and subtle.” Thus our focus is no longer on matter
but on energy, organized in fields and networks. The spirit is
becoming our central interest.
What is that “something more profound and subtle” that
gives rise to everything else? Quantum physicists and
astrophysicists call it “underlying energy” or a “quantum
vacuum,” which isn't quite right because it means just the
opposite of a vacuum. Here the vacuum is the fullness of all
possible energies, intensified in beings. Scientists today
prefer the expression “pregnant void,” or “the original
source of all being” (Brian Swimme). It is not something that
can be represented in conventional space-time categories,
because it is prior to everything that exists, before space-
time and the four fundamental energies: gravitational,
electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear.
Astrophysicists imagine it as a vast ocean, without shores,
unlimited, ineffable, indescribable, and mysterious, where
all the possibilities and potentialities of being are kept as if
in an infinite womb. From there, we don't know why or how,
that tiny, pregnant point of incredibly hot energy exploded
in the “big bang” that gave birth to our universe. It is
entirely possible that that underlying energy could give rise
to other tiny points, creating other singularities, other
parallel universes, perhaps in another dimension.
Space-time came into being at the same time as the
universe. Time is the fluctuating movement of energies and
the expansion of matter. Space is not a static vacuum within
which everything happens, but an open-ended process that
allows the networks of energy and beings to become
manifest.
The stability of matter presupposes a powerful underlying
energy that maintains it in that state. Indeed, we perceive
matter as solid because the energy vibrates too fast to be
perceived with our corporal senses. But quantum physics
helps us, because it reveals the particles, quanta, and
networks of energy that show us this different vision of
reality.
Energy is everything and in everything, just as spiritus,
mana, and axé are in everything. Nothing can survive
without energy. As conscious and spiritual beings, we are a
complex, subtle, and extremely interactive manifestation of
energy.
 What is the underlying energy that manifests itself in so
many ways? No scientific theory has been able to define it.
Furthermore, we need energy to define energy. This leaves
us in an inescapable redundancy, as Max Planck has pointed
out.
As we shall see later, this energy is perhaps the best
metaphor to describe the meaning of Spiritus Creator, God
the Spirit as the Originator of everything. We may give it
different names, but they all portray the same underlying
Energy. The Tao Te Ching (§4) said something similar: “The
Tao is like the eye of a whirlwind, always in motion,
inexhaustible. It is a bottomless well, the origin of all things,
and the power that unifies the world.”
The uniqueness of humanity is our ability to enter
consciously into contact with this primal Energy. We can call
on it, accept it, and see it as life, radiance, enthusiasm, and
love.

The Spirit in the Cosmos, in Humanity, and in God

We humans are unique bearers of this great energy, and
therefore of spirit. In the perspective of the new cosmology,
the spirit is as old as the cosmos. Spirit is the ability of all
beings—even the most fundamental ones like Higgs bosons,
hadrons, quarks, protons, and atoms—to relate to one
another, to exchange information, and to create the
networks of interconnection that make possible the complex
unity of the whole. It is the spirit that creates ever higher
and more elegant units and orders of existence.
The spirit exists first in the world, and only later in us.
There is not a difference of principle between the spirit of a
tree and our spirit. Both are bearers of spirit. The difference
lies in the way we deploy it. In human beings, the spirit
appears as self-awareness and freedom.
The human spirit is that moment of consciousness in
which we become aware of ourselves as part of a larger
whole, begin to grasp its wholeness and unity, and realize
that there is a thread binding everything together and
bringing a cosmos out of the chaos. By establishing a
relationship with the Whole, the spirit within us turns human
beings into an infinite project, wholly open to others, to the
world, and to God.
In this way life, consciousness, and the spirit belong to the
overall framework of things, to the universe, and more
specifically to our galaxy, the Milky Way, the solar system,
and the planet Earth. All this was made possible by a subtle
calibration of all the elements, especially through the so-
called laws of nature (the speed of light, the four
fundamental energies, the electron charge, atomic
radiation, the space-time curve, and others). If it hadn't
happened that way, we wouldn't be here writing about it.
The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking explains it this way in
his classic A Brief History of Time: “If the electron charge
had been slightly different, it would have thrown off the
balance of the gravitational and electromagnetic force of
the stars, and either they would not have been able to
convert hydrogen and helium or they would have exploded.
One way or the other, life could not exist.” Life is a unique
moment in the cosmogenic process.
“The anthropic principle” (having to do with humanity)
has been defined to help us understand this delicate
balance of factors. It tries to answer the question that
comes up naturally: Why are things the way they are? The
only possible answer is that if they were different, we would
not be here. But does that answer not lead us into
anthropocentrism, the assumption that everything has to
revolve around human beings, the center of everything,
kings and queens of the universe?
That is a real risk. To avoid it, cosmologists distinguish
between a strong and a weak anthropic principle. According
to the strong anthropic principle, the initial conditions and
cosmological constants were organized in such a way that
at some given moment in evolution, life and intelligence
would necessarily emerge. This interpretation would make
human beings central. The weak anthropic principle affirms,
more cautiously, that the initial conditions and cosmological
constants were organized in such a way that life and
intelligence might emerge. This formulation leaves the path
of evolution open-ended, increasingly subject to
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and to Maturana-Varela's
autopoiesis.
In any case, what we know is that after billions of years it
did happen that way: life emerged 3.8 billion years ago, and
intelligence between 7 and 9 million years ago. This is not a
way of proving “intelligent design” or the intervening hand
of Divine Providence. It only shows that the universe is not
absurd; it is full of purpose.
There is an arrow of time that points forward. In the words
of the astrophysicist and cosmologist Freeman Dyson, “It
seems that the universe somehow knew that someday we
would arrive,” and was getting ready to receive us and set
us on our way up through the evolutionary process.
The great mathematician and quantum physicist Amit
Goswami supports the theory of a self-aware universe (The
Self-Aware Universe, 1995). Something unique happens in
human beings, he says, in which the universe looks at itself
through us, contemplates its majestic greatness, and
reaches a certain degree of fulfillment.
We should also remember that the cosmos is undergoing
a process of genesis and self-construction. All beings have a
propensity to emerge, grow, and flourish. That is also true of
human beings. Humanity appeared on the stage after 99.96
percent of everything else was here. It is an expression of
the cosmic impulse toward higher, more complex forms of
existence.
Some people ask, but isn't it all by chance? We cannot
exclude the role of fate, as the biologist Jacques Monod
showed in his Nobel Prize-winning book Chance and
Necessity. But chance does not explain everything.
Biochemists have shown that it would take many billions of
years for amino acids, and their two thousand constituent
enzymes, to join together by chance in an organized chain
and form a living cell. That is longer than the age of the
universe and the earth. Perhaps our reliance on
explanations from chance simply shows our inability to
understand such higher, more complex orders as
consciousness, intelligence, affect, and love.
In this sense, perhaps the most appropriate way to
express the dynamic of the universe is the vision of Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin: the increasing complexity of the
universe gives rise to consciousness, and to our perception
of an evolutionary Omega point toward which we are
moving.
Should we not fall silent, filled with reverence and respect,
before the mystery of existence and the meaning of the
universe?
After these reflections, we are now ready to consider the
theological dimension of the spirit as Spirit of Creation.
 4

Moving from the Spirit to the

Spirit of Holiness

In previous chapters we have looked at the various

meanings of the word “spirit” (ruah, pneuma, spiritus,
mana, axé, and vital energy). All these meanings are related
to life, which emerges in unexpected ways. It is one of the
highest concepts that all cultures have developed, and it
has been applied both to humanity and to Divinity. They are
spirit, or bearers of the Spirit.

The Spirit Acts in Creation

God also belongs to the domain of the spirit; it could not
be otherwise. God above all. The Spirit is present on the first
page of the Bible, which tells the story of the creation of
heaven and earth. There it says that an impetuous ruah
from God (wind, energy) swept over the face of tohuwabohu
(chaos, the primordial waters) (Genesis 1:2). It brought
everything out of nothing: inanimate beings, living beings,
and human beings. Like everything else, humanity was
formed from dust; God “breathed into his nostrils the ruah
of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
The vital force of the spirit breaks through even more
dramatically in Ezekiel 37: God's breath comes into the dry
bones, covers them with flesh, and they come to life.
 The noblest expressions of human beings are attributed to
the presence of the spirit in them: poetry (in the Psalms and
the Song of Songs), wisdom and strength (Isaiah 11:2), the
richness of ideas (Job 32:8), artistic skill (Exodus 28:3), the
ardent desire to see God, with the consequent sense of guilt
and repentance (Exodus 35:21, Jeremiah 51:1, Esdras 1:1,
Psalm 34:19, Ezekiel 11:19 and 18:31).

God Has Spirit

This creative, energizing force belongs especially to God.
The scriptures often speak of the spirit of God (ruah Elohim).
Samson receives his great power from God's spirit (Judges
14:6, 19:15); God's spirit also gives prophets the courage to
denounce the injustice suffered by the earth's poor, to
confront the king and the powerful, and to proclaim God's
judgment on them.
Jews of the intertestamental period expected the
outpouring of the spirit on all creatures (Joel 2:28–32, Acts
2:17–21). The strong spirit of the Lord, with all its gifts,
would rest on the Messiah (Isaiah 11:2).
In this context of later Judaism, a tendency arose to
personify the spirit. It was still a quality of nature, human
beings, and God, but its action in history was so intense that
it began to take on an autonomous character. Thus, for
example, the spirit was said to exhort, grieve, cry out,
rejoice, console, rest on a person, purify, sanctify, and fill
the universe. It was never described as a creature but as
something divine that can become manifest in life and
history, with transformative consequences.

God Is Spirit
This understanding began to change with the acceptance
of a stronger expression: “spirit of holiness” or “holy spirit.”
This term is somewhat ambiguous, since it might be a way
to refer to God directly without speaking God's name; Jews
have always shown respect for God by avoiding the use of
that name. “Holy” is the highest name for God in Jewish
thinking, just as Greeks would call God transcendent, that is,
different from every other being in creation.
We can say, however, that when the Jews described God
as ruah (God has spirit, God sends God's spirit, the spirit of
God), they were expressing the following experience: God is
not tied down, but breaks in at will, upsets human plans,
acts with irresistible power, reveals a wisdom that
confounds all human understanding.
God comes in that way to the political leaders, prophets,
sages, and the people, especially in times of national crisis
(Judges 6:33, 11:29; 1 Samuel 11:6). God as spirit enables
King David to rule with wisdom and prudence (1 Samuel
16:13)—and gives the same power to the suffering servant,
who is utterly lacking in grandeur and majesty (Isaiah 42:1).
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has
anointed me…to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind
up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,”
the servant affirms in Isaiah 61:1. Jesus would later apply
that text to himself in his first public appearance at the
synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:17–21).
Finally, the term “spirit of God” describes not only God's
innovative action in the world, but God's very being. The
spirit is God, and God is Spirit. Because God is holy, the
Spirit becomes the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit penetrates everything, embraces
everything, exists beyond all limitation. “Where can I go
from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I
ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol,
you are there” (Psalm 139:7–8). Evil itself is not beyond the
reach of the Holy Spirit. Everything that has to do with
change, rupture, life, and newness, has to do with the spirit.
The spirit is so much a part of history, that history itself is
transformed from profane to sacred history (Westermann,
“Geist im Alten Testament,” 229).
 5

The Leap from Spirit of Holiness

to Holy Spirit

The revelation of the Spirit in history is a continuous

process, which culminates in the Second Testament (New
Testament). There the revelation reaches a level that has
not been surpassed since then: God is revealed just as God
is, personally, as a communion of divine Persons.
Revelation at this level is more than the communication of
a particular understanding or a truth. It is the self-
communication of the divine Persons. They step outside
themselves, give themselves totally to others, and come to
us just as they are, taking on our reality. The Father is
personified in Joseph of Nazareth; the Son becomes
incarnate in Jesus; and Mary is filled with the Holy Spirit.
Or we could say it differently, thinking about how God is
internalized in creation: the Father slowly emerges in the
evolutionary process until he finds a righteous, God-fearing
father who can receive him. That is Joseph. The Son acts
within the cosmic energies and then emerges fully in the
man Jesus of Nazareth. The Spirit has always been moving
things from one order to another, until it finds a woman
“blessed among women” (Luke 1:42) who can receive it:
Mary.
Let us retrace the main steps of the self-communication
and externalization of the Holy Spirit, leading to its full
recognition by the Christian community as God the Spirit.
We will not analyze all the biblical passages, but they can be
found in the theological writings of Congar, Schweizer,
Moltmann, Kittel, Comblin, and others.
In the Second Testament we can see the different
meanings that were identified earlier. Thus, for example, the
anthropological meaning of the spirit (pneuma) describes
the conscious, intelligent dimension of human beings: “At
once Jesus perceived in his spirit that [the scribes] were
discussing these questions among themselves” (Mark 2:8).
Mary sings in her Magnificat: “My spirit rejoices in God my
Savior” (Luke 1:47).
Pneuma also describes what the biblical writers called the
heart, the essence of life. Thus, “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
That is: happy are they who have a humble heart, a self-
giving attitude, and an openness to God and other people,
unlike the Pharisees, who are depicted with a mean,
contentious, and arrogant spirit.
Pneuma-spirit is also the vital principle of human life.
When Jesus raised the daughter of Jairus who had just died,
“her spirit returned, and she got up at once” (Luke 8:55);
that is, she returned to life. At the death of Jesus, the gospel
writers say he “gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50, Mark
15:37, John 19:30); that is, he stopped living and died.
In the intertestamental period there was a popular
meaning of “spirit” as a ghost, a tormented soul. Thus at
Jesus’ resurrection, Luke reports that the disciples thought
they were seeing a ghost (pneuma). Jesus reassured them,
saying, “See that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a
ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have”
(Luke 24:39). Here a spirit is an imaginary, unreal, and
disembodied phenomenon. “It is I myself” expresses the
whole reality, life in flesh and in spirit. Similarly, an “evil
spirit” is a synonym for the devil, the great adversary of life
and the Kingdom (Mark 1:23, 3:11; Luke 8:27; Matthew
12:43, and many other parallels).
 What Does Jesus Say about the Holy Spirit?
The historical Jesus says surprisingly little about the Holy
Spirit in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). He
has the same attitude toward the Spirit that he has toward
himself and God the Father. He does not proclaim himself as
the incarnate Son, the Messiah, and the Son of God. That is
the message of the disciples, expressed in the gospels, but
not the message of the historical Jesus. He does not talk
about the Son, but acts as the Son of the Father; he is not
proclaiming himself but the Kingdom of God. But he acts
with the authority and displays the attitudes that reveal him
as the Son of the Father, filled with the power of the Spirit
and representing the coming Kingdom.
The same is true of his relationship with God. He does not
proclaim a doctrine of God, but his behavior and his
parables reveal an experience of God so intimate that he
calls him Abba, or Father. This God is alive and active in
history, on the side of the captives and those whose life is
diminished. In the same way, Jesus is on the side of those
whom society condemns, the sinners, the poor and invisible,
such as women; he shows unconditional love and mercy to
“the ungrateful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35). He calls God
Abba, Father, because he knows himself to be God's Son.
That is the self-perception of the historical Jesus.
Jesus seldom uses the word “Spirit,” but when he does, it
is to uphold life and liberation. If we understand the Spirit as
the concrete and liberating presence of the God of life, Jesus
did indeed live in the power of the Spirit, filled with its
energy. He does not say much about the Spirit, but he lives,
acts, talks, relates, and prays in the Spirit. He is fully the
bearer of the Spirit, as foretold in the messianic prophecies.
He does mention the Spirit directly in his first appearance
at the synagogue in Nazareth, where he introduces his
liberating program with the text of Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor”
(Luke 4:18–19).
Let us remember that this text comes immediately after
Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan, where he
had his foundational experience: “and the Holy Spirit
descended on him” (Luke 3:22 and parallels). John the
Baptist said clearly: “I baptize you with water for
repentance…. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
fire” (Matthew 3:11). Luke adds that “the Holy Spirit
descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice
came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved’” (Luke
3:22). Later he says that “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit,
returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the
wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the
devil” (Luke 4:1–2).
The narrative suggests that the Spirit inspired Jesus’
vocational experience, as he said at the synagogue at
Nazareth. That was where his messianic consciousness
came through clearly. The prophets said that the fullness of
the Spirit would be upon the Messiah. He is the Anointed,
the one designated as the Messiah, the Christ, not endowed
with political, priestly, and prophetic power, but as a
persecuted Prophet and suffering Servant. It is the Spirit
that enables him to carry out his messianic task—the
liberation of the oppressed, for which the people yearned so
anxiously—but with none of the conventional means of
power and domination.
We should mention the proclamation of “the year of the
Lord's favor,” the holy year which by biblical tradition should
be celebrated once every seven years (Leviticus 25:8–54,
Deuteronomy 15:1–11, Exodus 21:2–11). It was later
postponed to once every fifty years. And finally, because it
had never really been observed, the “year of grace” was
projected into messianic times.
 In that “year of grace” slaves were to be set free, debts
were to be forgiven, and everyone forced by economic
conditions to sell their land would be free to return to it. Also
in that year, the land itself was to be allowed to rest. Jesus’
promise to inaugurate the jubilee year, by the power of the
Spirit, brought great joy to the Galilean people; they were all
in debt, either through the taxes required by the empire and
the temple, or through mutual exploitation among
themselves. As a carpenter and peasant, Jesus must have
experienced that harsh reality himself. What he was
proclaiming amounted to a true, courageous, political, and
social revolution.
There is another important reference to the Spirit in Jesus’
reply to the Pharisees, who challenged his liberating
practice: “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons,
then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Matthew 12:28,
Luke 11:20). Here the Spirit of God is the powerful presence
and the divine energy that are inaugurating the Kingdom of
God.
In a similar challenge to his practice of exorcism, Jesus is
accused of casting out evil spirits “by the ruler of the
demons” (Mark 3:22, Matthew 9:34, Luke 11:15). Here his
messianic act is misinterpreted as a work of evil and
wickedness. Jesus replies with one of his harshest and most
mysterious sayings: “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven
for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, but
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28).
In this context, blasphemy is a direct insult to God or to an
act of God. Jesus’ hearers may have been offended by his
humble origin, by his claim to be a bearer of the Kingdom,
or by his disregard for the laws that forbade eating with
sinners and touching lepers. That insult to the Son can be
forgiven, because human beings do make mistakes and can
be led into wrong judgments.
 But the blasphemy of the Pharisees is that they know
Jesus is an emissary of God, but refuse to acknowledge him
as such. Their offense is not only their failure to recognize
Jesus, but that they have attributed his works to the “ruler
of demons,” that is, the anti-Spirit. They also refuse to
acknowledge the Spirit's ability to act on a man who has no
power or material resources, but only his word and his call
to conversion. Jesus appears in their midst as an
insignificant man from the backwoods town of Nazareth.
How can the Spirit work through a humble, powerless man
like that? That is why his challengers demand an
incontrovertible sign (Mark 8:11, Matthew 16:1).
Their attitude amounts to a dishonest, malicious, hard-
hearted, and arrogant attempt to control the limits within
which the Spirit is allowed to act. In fact, the Spirit blows
where it chooses, and it chooses to act through the smallest
and most vulnerable (Luke 10:21). As long as they persist in
that obstinacy, they cannot be forgiven. God does not
refuse to forgive them; God's mercy is offered to everyone,
but they have emphatically refused to accept it (Congar
1974, 138–51). Only conversion can lead to their
forgiveness. Without that, there can be no communion with
God.
Another saying, which probably comes from the historical
Jesus, occurs in the midst of a debate with the Pharisees.
Jesus quotes the scriptural teaching that “David himself, by
the Holy Spirit, declared, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my
right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’” (Mark
12:36, Matthew 22:43–44). Rabbinic Judaism held that the
scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit to encourage a
holy life, to exhort, console, and strengthen faith in the God
of the Covenant. Jesus belonged to that culture and affirmed
that conviction: that the Spirit transforms human words into
divine words, to produce the gifts of the Spirit. King David
was speaking out of that divine power.
 In another saying, certainly from the historical Jesus, we
are told that “Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I
thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you
have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and
have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was
your gracious will’” (Luke 10:21). One of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit is joy over God's action, which favors the smallest and
least-noticed of God's people. Jesus was feeling that joy of
the Spirit.
These words about mission and persecution are also
certainly from the mouth of the historical Jesus: “Do not
worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say
whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who
speak, but the Holy Spirit” (Mark 13:11, Luke 21:14–15). The
Spirit inspires those who are unjustly persecuted and taken
to trial, with the words they need for their defense.
When Jesus sends out the Twelve (Matthew 10:5–20), or
when he challenges the disciples to speak boldly (with
parrhesia) before the tribunals, he says: “The Holy Spirit will
teach you at that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke
12:12). The Spirit inspires the scriptures and also inspires
people to live courageously what the scriptures teach.
Finally, these words are attributed to Jesus in his hour of
temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Keep awake and
pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mark 14:38,
Matthew 26:41). This reflects the Hebrew understanding of
spirit and flesh. The spirit gives strength and shapes the
whole response (body and soul) of those who are faithful to
the Covenant; the flesh (the whole human being) is subject
to weakness, temptation, and sin.

The Spirit Comes to Dwell in Mary of Nazareth

The Spirit was present in the original creation, which later
entered into decline. We are sons and daughters of Eve and
the old Adam. The same Spirit is present in the new creation
that begins with Mary, the new Eve (Revelation 12:1), and
with her son Jesus, the new Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). For
this reason the gospel writers attribute Jesus’ origin to the
Holy Spirit: the angel tells Joseph that “the child conceived
in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20). Luke says that
the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary; it follows that the child
to be born of her will also be holy (Matthew 1:35). As we
shall see later, Mary becomes the bearer of the Spirit
because she is filled with the Holy Spirit. Later we shall
comment on this unique relationship of the Holy Spirit with
Mary, and by extension, with women in general (L. Boff, Ave
María: O feminino y el Espiritu Santo, 2003).

The Holy Spirit Forms the Community of Disciples

The community of Jesus’ followers fell apart after his
judicial execution. They all returned home in disillusionment,
as we know from the young couple from Emmaus, probably
a husband and wife (Luke 24:13–35). The women, however,
never abandoned Jesus but stayed faithful, at the foot of the
cross and in their attempt to care for his body at the tomb.
It is the women who proclaimed his resurrection (Luke 24:9–
10, Matthew 28:10), and their announcement of that
blessed event was the beginning of the renewal of the
community.
But the power to rebuild the community was the work of
the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2, Luke tells about the restoration of
the group of the Twelve, whose number carried an important
symbolism: the regathering of the twelve tribes of Israel,
representing all the peoples of the earth.
Luke's gospel has already introduced us to characters
filled with the Spirit (Luke 1:41 and 67, 2:25–27). When
Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, she “was filled with the
Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41). At the birth and circumcision of
John the Baptist, Zechariah “was filled with the Holy Spirit”
and prophesied, singing the Benedictus (Luke 1:67–79). It
was said of John the Baptist that “even before his birth he
will be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:15). Thus Luke tells
us about the coming fullness of time, when the Spirit will be
poured out on all flesh. The prophetic dry spell is over; the
Spirit has returned and is active again. Luke describes Jesus
as the Messiah, filled with the Holy Spirit, rejoicing in the
Spirit because the Father is revealed to the little ones (Luke
10:21).
Luke summarizes his thesis in the prologue to the Acts of
the Apostles: the Spirit that came to reside permanently in
Mary (Luke 1:35) and then in Jesus will now be given to the
disciples. “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5).
The Spirit that came upon Jesus will now come upon the
messianic community. Later it will come upon everyone
—“Even upon my slaves, both men and women,” as Joel
prophesied (Joel 2:28–32, Numbers 11:29, Acts 1:5; see Lina
Boff, Espírito e missão na obra de Lucas e Atos, 102–27).
The Spirit is poured out, not only on communities but on
individual prophets like Agabus (Acts 11:27–28), Philip (Acts
8:39–40) and his daughters (Acts 21:9), and Paul (Acts 13:9–
11, 20, 23). It is the Spirit who inspires Philip (Acts 8:29) and
Peter (Acts 10:19–20) to evangelize even people of pagan
origin. The same Spirit leads Barnabas and Paul into mission
(Acts 13:2–4), and leads Paul to Macedonia in Europe (Acts
16:6–10). Luke interprets all these events as signs that the
new times have begun, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit.
That interpretation sets the stage for Luke's story of
Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13), although we don't know what
historical sources he is drawing on. To Jews, Pentecost is the
culmination of the great feast of Passover. For seven weeks
they have been offering to God the first fruits of their
harvest. Rabbinic Judaism had developed the idea of
Pentecost as a time to celebrate the gift of the Sinai
Covenant and its renewal for all the Jews dispersed through
the vast Roman Empire.
Luke is drawing on different symbols from that feast. First,
he uses the presence of many peoples, listed in the Jewish
zodiac, to express the universality of the new message.
Then he mentions the confusion of languages (Genesis
11:1–9), which left the peoples unable to understand one
another. Now the Spirit comes down in the form of tongues
of fire, and everyone understands the same message in
their own tongues.
This nascent community, raised up by the Spirit, grows
out of the story of Jesus. At the end of the Pentecost story,
the people ask the disciples: “Brothers, what should we do?”
Peter replies: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven;
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
There are several important elements here. To enter into
the community they must make a clean break, expressed as
conversion. The Church is not an extension of the
synagogue or of the human community as it now exists, a
confused and divided Babel. Conversion leads to a new
beginning of human history on a different pattern, in the
Risen Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.
Why baptism for the remission of sins? Hasn't John already
done that? Isn't the Holy Spirit enough? Here we see Luke as
a perceptive theologian. Christians are called to follow the
path laid out by Jesus. He accepted baptism and, in so
doing, entered the messianic community (the original
meaning of Jesus’ baptism by John). More than a cleansing
from sin, baptism meant that this new messianic people is
holy, by the holiness of the Holy Spirit. That is why they
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit comes even
before baptism; the Spirit is free, as we know from the case
of the Roman officer Cornelius (Acts 10:44–48), or the
Samaritans (8:17), or the disciples of John in the diaspora at
Ephesus (19:6). But later they are baptized, because
baptism is the sign of incorporation into the community.
Pentecost is the beginning, but not the end in itself. It
continues and accompanies the community's mission at
each step (Lina Boff, Espírito e missão na obra de Lucas e
Atos). Luke is describing a bold vision: “But you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Spirit spreads
Pentecost in every direction. It does not distinguish between
Jews and pagans. It is poured out on everyone who hears
the message and is open to it, as happened in Caesarea
when Cornelius and his whole family received the Spirit
even before they were baptized. Perplexed by this, Peter
tells the other Apostles in Jerusalem: “The Holy Spirit fell
upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning” (Acts
11:15).
The Spirit is in the foundations of the new community that
is being born. It introduces a new practice of life together,
which we call primitive communism: “All who believed were
together and had all things in common; they would sell their
possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as
any had need” (Acts 2:44–47). Luke adds with appreciation
that “the whole group of those who believed were of one
heart and soul…. There was not a needy person among
them” (Acts 4:32–34).
The Spirit also establishes another way of living together:
the missionary Church, which breaks through the narrow
boundaries of Judaism and pushes out into the wide cultural
world of Rome and Europe. The Apostles hold a council in
Jerusalem to decide on the future course of the Church.
Their decision is beautifully expressed: “For it has seemed
good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” (Acts 15:28). It is the
Holy Spirit who inspires functions (Acts 20:28) and assigns
tasks (Acts 6:6, 13:2).
 Who is the Holy Spirit for Luke the evangelist? Certainly he
is not thinking in terms of the Council of Constantinople
(381 CE), which defines it as the third person of the Holy
Trinity. For Luke the Spirit is always the Spirit of Christ. It is
connected to Christ, but it possesses a relative autonomy; it
takes initiatives, irrupts as a powerful force to create new
relationships, and inspires alternative economic practices
(Lina Boff, Espírito e missão na obra de Lucas e Atos, 61–
68). It is separate from the Son, sent by the Father and the
Son, and always in communion with them. This shows
clearly that for Luke, the Holy Spirit is God.
By affirming that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
are God, we are not multiplying God; each person is unique,
and unique entities cannot be added or multiplied. Rather it
shows the centrality of the communion and love that swept
into the world as a unique torrent of life, holiness, and
liberation. Later theology formalized this idea as the
doctrine of one God in three divine Persons, always
interconnected, always in infinite communion and love
(perichoresis).

The Holy Spirit Is God

It is in the Gospel of John that we find the most emphatic
affirmations of the full revelation of the Spirit as Holy Spirit.
First, John emphasizes the theological fact that the Spirit
descended on Jesus and remained on him (John 1:32–33).
This is his way of saying that Jesus is a permanent, not
sporadic, bearer of the Spirit. John affirms that God gave the
Spirit to Jesus fully: “He gives the Spirit without measure”
(John 3:34). Because Jesus is full of the Spirit, he can also
communicate it to others. He tells Nicodemus, “No one can
enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and
Spirit” (John 3:5). He says something similar to the
Samaritan woman (John 4:10, 13–14), and later in the
temple: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the
one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out
of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” John
explains that “he said this about the Spirit, which believers
in him were to receive” (John 7:37–39). Water is the great
symbol of life. The Spirit is that life.
After his resurrection, Jesus breathes on the disciples and
says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they
are retained” (John 20:22–23). Here again the Spirit is linked
to the new life that replaces life in the flesh. Jesus gives the
Spirit, and promises that it will be fulfilled after his
glorification. In this context he is speaking of the Spirit as
the “Paraclete,” or advocate. In the language of his time,
“paraclete” means the defender of a judicial cause, or an
intercessor before God for the achievement of a goal; it also
means a helper in times of need or vulnerability.
John also calls it the Spirit of truth, which defends the
accused and comforts the helpless (14:16, 16:7–11). In
short, the Spirit upholds the testimony of Christians in a
hostile world (15:26–27).
In his farewell discourse (John 14:15–31), Jesus promises
(1) another Paraclete who already abides with the disciples
(14:17); (2) that the Paraclete “will teach you everything,
and remind you of all that I have said to you” (14:26); (3)
that “he will testify on my behalf” (15:26–27); (4) that “he
will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and
judgment” (16:7–11); and (5) that “he will guide you into all
the truth…. He will declare to you the things that are to
come…. He will take what is mine and declare it to you”
(16:13–15) (see Congar, El Espíritu Santo, 82ff.).
John adds, anticipating a trinitarian reflection that would
come later, that the Spirit will be sent from the Father at the
request of the Son; the Son will send the Spirit in his name
(15:26, 14:16). The Spirit will not come until the Son goes
away (16:7). Jesus also tells the disciples that the Spirit will
always be with them (14:16) and will guide them into all
truth (16:13). It is the Spirit who leads us to accept Jesus:
“Every (human) spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:2). “By this we
know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has
given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13).
Finally, John says explicitly that “God is spirit.” This
declaration comes in a polemical context, in the story of
Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. Her challenge
is: Should we worship God on Mt. Gerizim, the holy city of
Samaria, or in Jerusalem, the holy city of Judaea? Jesus
objects to such a specific location, and says: “God is spirit,
and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth”
(John 4:20–24). In other words, God is not in any one place,
because as Spirit he is everywhere. The important thing is
not the geographic location, but the ability of the soul to
worship in communion with the Spirit who fills all things and
acts in history.

The Two Arms of the Father: The Son and the Holy
Spirit
Now we turn to St. Paul's contribution to reflection on the
Holy Spirit. He develops a clear distinction between the
Risen One and the Holy Spirit. In his view, salvation comes
through the dead and risen Jesus, and through the Holy
Spirit. Human beings are called to be part of Christ and of
the Spirit. The two are so united that we cannot speak of
two economies, one of the Son and another of the Holy
Spirit, as Joachim de Fiore and the Franciscan spiritualists
would later try to do. They are the two arms of the Father;
through them God reaches out to us and carries out what St.
Irenaeus called God's plan of salvation.
Before we explore the pneumatology of St. Paul in more
detail, let us emphasize the conviction shared by all the
early Christians: we have come to the end times, and the
new age of God is breaking in. Thus we are facing an
imminent apocalypse. This is clearly stated in the earliest
writing of the Second Testament, Paul's letter to the
Thessalonians, written in 51/52 CE. In these end times,
according to the ancient promises, the Spirit will be poured
out on everyone as a divine power that will revolutionize
everything, cleanse the world of all wickedness, and
transfigure life and the cosmos.
Jesus’ resurrection was the great sign that the Spirit was
in action, inaugurating the new times foreseen by the
prophets, especially Joel. The Spirit had made a dead man
live, and had transfigured the living man. The apostles were
preaching the fulfillment of the Reign of God in the person of
Jesus, eliciting joy and commitment from many people.
Pentecost must have been an extremely powerful, collective
experience of the Holy Spirit in their midst. They saw the
Holy Spirit as the source of their deeper understanding of
Jesus’ powerful act, and of their new vision of God as Abba-
Father (1 Corinthians 12:3, Romans 8:15).
All Christians saw themselves as temples of the Spirit,
who had raised Jesus from among the dead. They were sons
and daughters in the Son: “For all who are led by the Spirit
of God are children of God” (Romans 8:14, 8:29).
This framework of beliefs forms the basis of Paul's
reflection on the Holy Spirit. Paul does not know the Church
that was born at Pentecost, as Luke tells us in the Acts of
the Apostles. He never refers to it. His experience of the
Spirit comes from the existential shock of his encounter with
the Risen One on the road to Damascus.
There he comes to understand that the crucified Jesus is
the risen Christ, the Lord. “Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9). What
most impresses him is the new form in which Jesus now
exists: not as flesh (kata sarka) but as spirit (kata pneuma).
That is, the risen Jesus has taken on the characteristics of
God, present everywhere in the cosmos and full of life. Later
we shall see that Paul understands the spirit, with all its
charisms and gifts, as the central axis of the Christian
community, the Church.

Two Kingdoms and Two Projects: Flesh and Spirit

We can better understand Paul's reflection on the Spirit by
looking briefly at the way he understands the human
condition. We have done that in chapter 2, but it needs to
be seen from St. Paul's perspective. He uses two categories
from the biblical tradition: flesh and spirit.
Paul says we live between two force fields, which are
really two existential ways of living, each with its own
direction or project.
The first force field is the flesh, the mundaneness of the
world in its own terms, with no reference to anything else or
to God. Life is socially organized in this domain, but it is
marked by individualism and the pursuit of self-interest.
The other force field is the spirit, in which community life
is lived with openness to others, centered on service and
love. In his Letter to the Galatians, which was probably
written in Ephesus around 56/57 CE, Paul emphasizes that
the flesh and the spirit are opposed to each other:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of

the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the
Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the
flesh…. Now the works of the flesh are obvious:
fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery,
enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions,
factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like
these…. Those who do such things will not inherit the
kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians
5:16–23)
 He says it more clearly in the Letter to the Romans: “To
set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on
the spirit is life and peace…. Anyone who does not have the
Spirit of Christ does not belong to him…. If the Spirit of him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also
through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Romans 8:6, 9, 11).
If we live by the flesh, we are children of this world with all
its decadence. If we live by the Spirit, we are children of God
in God's glory.
According to the great biblical scholar Rudolf
Schnackenburg, “The term according to the flesh refers to
our earthly, natural origin; the term according to the Spirit
refers to our heavenly status, that is, the way of life of the
risen Lord” (Cristologia do Novo Testamento, 40). To say that
the Risen One is Spirit means that he belongs to the sphere
of the divine and is the Son of God. Jesus lived in the flesh
when he sojourned among us; that is, he shared our weak,
mortal human condition. Paul tells Timothy that “he was
revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit” (1 Timothy 3:16); he
uses the term Spirit to express the divinity of Jesus.
Similarly, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy
Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).
“Lord” was the preferred name for God, as early as the
Septuagint. It has many nuances: theological (Jesus is God),
cosmological (lord of creation), and political, because the
Roman emperors gave themselves the title of Lord, and
demanded to be worshiped as such. Paul was confronting
the pagan theology and entering into direct conflict with the
imperial ideology. We can see how dangerous it was to take
that position.
Paul is expressing the divinity of Jesus when he calls him
“the last Adam, [who] became a life-giving spirit” (1
Corinthians 15:45). He is also placing Jesus on a level with
the Spirit, for as the Christian creed tells us, the Spirit gives
life. Thus the Holy Spirit is God.
 To live according to the Spirit is to live in the new reality
inaugurated by the Risen One and confirmed by the
manifestation of the Spirit at Pentecost, a reality open to all
the people and languages of the world. Paul establishes a
direct equivalency between living in the fullness of Christ's
deity (Colossians 2:9–10) and being filled with the Spirit
(Ephesians 5:18); between speaking in Christ (2 Corinthians
2:17) and speaking in the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3);
between “the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39)
and “your love in the Spirit” (Colossians 1:8).

The Spirit, the Church, and Charisms

Being in Christ and in the Spirit is also at the heart of the
Christian community, the Church. “For in the one Spirit we
were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
Therefore, our unity is built on the Holy Spirit, which gives it
vitality and enables it to overcome any kind of
bureaucratization. The community is described as a spiritual
house (1 Peter 2:5). Each of us is a temple of God: “Do you
not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit
dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19; 2 Corinthians
6:16). This means that human beings have something of
divinity in them.
God is not far away, but in our life as a “sweet guest of
the soul,” as we sing in the old Pentecost hymn. Just as the
risen Lord lives in us, so also the Spirit lives in and
establishes communion with us (2 Corinthians 13:13).
This presence is made manifest in the different roles and
activities of the Spirit in the Christian community. “We were
all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13). The
Spirit allots its gifts to each one individually (1 Corinthians
12:11). “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). No one in the
community is useless. Everyone has some gift and performs
some service.
 For Paul, charism is not opposed to the institution. He sees
the institution itself—a reality ordered and encouraged by
its leaders to assure their cohesion—as a charism, for it
offers a permanent service to the community. What is
opposed to charism is not the organization but selfishness,
arrogance, the dominance of a few over the community.
That is why he warns, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1
Thessalonians 5:19).
Finally, we need to ask: Does St. Paul see the Spirit as a
divine power, or as God acting in the world, in communities,
and in each person? Although Paul is not yet consciously
thinking in trinitarian terms, the reality he describes is
indeed trinitarian. In some formulations we see the divine
personality of the Holy Spirit, who “searches everything,
even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10); who is sent
into our hearts (Galatians 4:6); who “bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God,” so that we cry, “Abba,
Father! (Romans 8:15–16).
When Paul says the Spirit lives in our hearts, he means it
is something personal, living, divine, inside us (1 Corinthians
3:16, 6:19). It is God's free gift for us (Romans 5:15), the
presence of God, giving himself to us and giving us life. Paul
places the Spirit on the same level as the Father and the
Son, which means that for him the Holy Spirit is God (1
Corinthians 12:4–6; 2 Corinthians 13:13).

From Signs to the Full Revelation of the Spirit

In this brief review of texts from the Second Testament—
the synoptics, the Gospel of John, Acts of the Apostles, and
the letters of St. Paul—we can see that the concept of spirit
is used in different ways: as vital energy, breath, a divine
transforming power in the cosmos, in history, in the people,
in individuals, and finally in its full divinity, as God.
This created a problem for Christians from the Jewish
tradition, whose monotheism was so strict that they would
not even speak God's name; now they needed to rethink
their understanding of God. Without abandoning
monotheism—there cannot be more than one God—they
began to develop a new way of naming God, not in static,
substantialist concepts, but in terms of process, a way of
life, always one but at the same time diverse (as in
biodiversity). They learned to think of God as a communion
of love, not in the loneliness of a single nature. This
communion in love is so intimate and so radical, that the
divine Three are unified (become one) in a single God-
communion-love-gift-relationship.
The Spirit is something hidden in the heart of everything
that happens in the cosmos, in history, in the life of every
person, and in the poor; something that upholds,
encourages and expands us, drawing us upward and
forward, toward a final convergence in the Kingdom of the
Trinity.
 6

From God the Holy Spirit to the

Third Person of the Holy Trinity

Studying the sources of our faith, we can see growth and

development in the early Church's reflection and discourse
on the Holy Spirit, toward accepting its divinity. The Spirit is
placed on a level with the Father and the Son in doxologies,
at the end of prayers, in baptismal rites, and in the
eucharistic epiclesis (invocation). The Church was not yet
reflecting consciously and thematically on the divinity of the
Holy Spirit, as we do today. It lived in a different time.
Its language is biblical, and thus focuses more on the work
of the Holy Spirit than on defining its nature. The affirmation
that the Holy Spirit is God comes out of the practice of faith
and prayer. Let us look at some of the high points in this
development.

The Baptismal Formula

The Gospel of Matthew, written around 90 CE, contains
the formula for baptism: “Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). According
to the best biblical scholars, this wording was added later
and reflects early Church practice. The same formula also
appears in chapter 7:1 of the Didache (around 50 CE); in St.
Justin (Apologia I, 61); in St. Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses III,
17; Epideixis 3, 6); and in Tertullian (de Baptismo 13). The
trinitarian formula was so essential to the faith that St.
Irenaeus, a great defender of orthodoxy against the heresies
of his time, said that heterodox doctrines always denied one
article or another of this trinitarian baptismal faith.

The Eucharistic Epiclesis

An epiclesis is a prayer of invocation to the Holy Spirit to
transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of
Christ. This invocation of the Holy Spirit to transubstantiate
or transform the eucharistic species appears in ancient
anaphoras, or rites of consecration: for instance in
Hippolytus (our second canon), St. Basil, Serapion, the
catecheses of St. Cyril (V, 7), and the liturgy of St. John
Chrysostom. Only God can transform material elements like
bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, that is,
into something divine. This is the work of the Holy Spirit,
whom the early Church believed in and affirmed as God.

Mission and Martyrdom

As Christianity expanded into different regions of the
Roman empire in the post-apostolic period, suffering
discrimination, persecution, and martyrdom, it often
referred to the Holy Spirit. Believers prayed to the Spirit to
give them courage to face the police and civil authorities
and stand firm under persecution; and to give them wisdom
and words of inspiration during their judicial trials, where
they were accused of atheism and wickedness for denying
the gods, especially those of each city, and for refusing to
worship the emperor. Experience of the Spirit was a way of
life for these Christians.
But as the persecution subsided, as Christianity came to
penetrate the highest levels of society and even the army,
and as it comfortably put down roots in the local cultures, it
became increasingly forgetful of the Spirit. In general it is
always that way: whenever the institutional Christian order
and sacred power (sacra potestas) are dominant, then the
community feels less need to invoke the Spirit to strengthen
it. Routine takes the place of the creativity that comes from
the Spirit.
Montanus of Phrygia was one of the Christians who
noticed the change. In the year 156 CE he claimed to have
been “sent by the Paraclete,” and sought to arouse the
enthusiasm of the Spirit in all the communities. He saw
himself and his group as the fulfillment of the promised
outpouring of the Holy Spirit and its spiritual gifts. He
expected the age of the Paraclete Spirit to break through
with him, which would mean the end of history and the
fulfillment of the eschatological end times.
Montanism came to Rome from Phrygia, one of the most
remote Roman provinces, and from Rome it traveled to
Africa in the third century. Tertullian, the most creative and
intelligent lay theologian in North African Christendom,
became a fervent adherent. The montanists were very
strict; they required brutal penances and long fasts,
accompanied by extraordinary and convulsive phenomena
(Congar, El Espíritu Santo, 94).
Tertullian introduced a distinction that would later become
famous, between a Church of the spirit (ecclesia Spiritus),
on the one hand, and a Church-number-of-bishops (ecclesia
numerus episcoporum, on the other. The Church-Spirit was
known for its enthusiasm and flights of ecstasy, the Church-
number-of-bishops for its hierarchical organization and its
power. Today we would say, a charism-Church and a power-
Church.
St. Irenaeus went to Rome in 177 to talk to Pope
Eleutherius, seeking advice on how to confront this
framework of church models, which could lead to division.
Their agreed-on solution was to strike a balance between a
Church organized for different tasks and ministries, and a
Church renewed by the gifts of the Spirit. Irenaeus said that
“the Spirit is like a precious liqueur: served in a glass of
good quality, it is renewed and brings renewal to its
container (the Church).” He went on: “Wherever the ecclesia
is, that is, the community, there the Spirit of God is also;
and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all
grace” (Adversus Haereses III, 24, 1).

Monasticism: Men and Women of the Spirit

Monasticism was the most important source of spirituality
in the post-Constantinian period (325 CE), in which the
Church assumed political responsibilities and set out on a
great and turbulent cultural venture, based on power. These
were times of peace, because Christianity had been
declared the official religion of the empire.
In veiled protest, fervent Christians such as St. Anthony,
Pachomius, and others—led by the Gospel, the crucified
Jesus, and the suffering Servant—left their everyday tasks
and went into the desert. They wanted to live the spirit of
the martyrs, since martyrdom no longer existed. They chose
the desert because, in an old tradition, that was where the
new earthly paradise would begin.
These men lived by the Spirit, cultivated the experience of
God, and gave guidance to the faithful who came to visit
them in their retreat. Even the Syrian stylites, who lived on
the top of pillars, were known for their prophetic gifts and
for their wise counsel to the faithful.
This movement gave rise to the religious life of men and
women; in the West they were organized by St. Benedict of
Nursia (480–543), now known as the father of monasticism.
It took on new relevance with the rise of the great medieval
movements emphasizing poverty, such as those founded by
St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, the seven Florentine saints,
and the Servites in the eighteenth century.
 Today we see an infinite array of religious congregations
for men and women. These spiritual men and women are
living the Gospel more as charism than as institution;
among themselves they are creating conditions for the
realization of the utopia promised in Jesus’ blessings.

Theological Disputes: Is the Holy Spirit God?

The Holy Spirit had to “struggle” through many years of
contentious debates before it was officially recognized as
God and as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. As long as
people were praying and celebrating Eucharist, it wasn't a
problem. The problems arose when reason became
involved, attempting to reflect on and clarify the complex
issues behind the prayers. That often happened far away
from devotion and prayer, which are the best places to talk
about the living, true God, and about the Spirit of life.
Debate over the divinity of the Holy Spirit began with the
christological disputes that arose in the fourth century with
the followers of Arius (250–336), the bishop of Alexandria,
who could not accept that Jesus is divine in the same way
that the Father is. The debate became radicalized between
342 and 360 when Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople,
the primary see at the time, challenged the divinity of the
Holy Spirit. They were called pneumatomachians (Spirit-
fighters).
They were influenced by a kind of biblical
fundamentalism, literally interpreting some words from the
First Testament. There, as we have seen, the Spirit is viewed
as an attribute—the power and vital energy—of God, but not
directly as God. Thus they understood the Spirit as an
intermediary or intercessor sent by God, with supreme
dignity and holiness, to help us on the way to salvation; but
for them the Spirit was not God, only God's most excellent
creature.
 The Cappadocians, who were among the greatest
theologians of the orthodox Church (St. Basil, his brother
Gregory of Nyssa, and his fellow student, St. Gregory of
Nazanzius), energetically opposed this teaching by the most
important bishop of the time. They wrote extensive treatises
on the Holy Spirit, emphatically affirming that the Holy Spirit
is truly God. St. Basil the Great wrote about the conflicts,
and even death threats, provoked by the dispute (Tratado
sobre o Espírito Santo, 182–83).
Another eminent theologian, Bishop Athanasius, entered
the controversy with a letter to Serapion between 356 and
362, in which he based the divinity of the Holy Spirit on the
baptismal formula. That formula expresses the formal entry
of the Christian into the community, he said, and therefore it
could not be mistaken. He concludes that the Holy Spirit is
not of a different substance. It is God in the same way that
the Father and Son are God, with the same substance. Basil
the Great (330–79) carried Athanasius's argument further, in
a treatise on the Holy Spirit that is still regarded as
unsurpassed.
In September of 374, at a liturgical festival in Caesarea of
Cappadocia, Basil composed a doxology that we still sing
today: “Glory to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy
Spirit.” He also wrote, in a more theological formulation,
“Glory to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.”
Because St. Basil wanted to make it easier for the faithful
to understand, and to save them the theological disputes
about the word homoousios (of the same substance with the
Father and the Son), he taught that by giving the Holy Spirit
the same glory we give to the Father and the Son, we would
be affirming the divine nature and equality of all three. He
reasoned that if the Holy Spirit is not God, then we are not
made fully divine, since that is God's will. But the truth is
otherwise: the Holy Spirit dwells in us, works in us,
enlightens us, comforts us, and inspires us in following Jesus
Christ. Therefore, the Spirit must be of the same substance
with the Father and the Son. They are all three, equally,
God.

The Holy Spirit Is God: The Council of Constantinople

In order to settle the theological debate, which was still
enflaming the communities and their pastors and disturbing
the public order, in 381 the emperors Gratian and
Theodosius I convened a council in Constantinople, the
capital of the empire. The emperors had given themselves
the title of pope and demanded unity of doctrine for the
sake of political cohesion in the empire.
The council brought together 150 bishops of the Eastern
Church. After extensive debate they prepared a document
(Tomos), which was later lost. We know about it indirectly,
through a letter that the synod of bishops sent to Pope
Damasus in Rome. He convened a western synod in 382,
which reaffirmed the doctrine of Constantinople.
The bishops prepared a creed based on the one approved
at Nicaea in 325. They began with a formula written by St.
Epiphanius in his book Anacoratus, and added an affirmation
of the divinity of the Holy Spirit: “We believe in the Holy
Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the
Father, who in unity with the Father and the Son is
worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the
prophets.”
Note that they did not use the expression ratified by the
Council of Nicaea (325), which referred to the Son as
homoousios (of the same substance) with the Father, but
rather used language that presupposed that expression. In
this declaration the Spirit is described as Lord, the name of
God in the Septuagint. Another expression, “Giver of life,”
also emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is
not only the gift but the giver of life, a role that can only be
attributed to God.
 The phrase “Who proceeds from the Father” was a way of
opposing the heretical affirmation that the Holy Spirit was
merely a creature of the Father. The Holy Spirit's relationship
to the Son was not mentioned, since that was not yet
involved in the debate; it would later become the center of
the schism between the Orthodox and the Latin Churches.
The creed says simply that the Spirit is “worshiped and
glorified” with the Father and the Son. The Spirit has the
same honor and glory, since it is on the same level with the
other two divine Persons.
This all began with the doxology that had been prayerfully
introduced by St. Basil the Great. The doxology led to
theology, as an attempt to understand what was being
celebrated; now we need to bring it back to worship and
glorification, that is, to doxology. That is the only way to
bring the mystery of the one and triune God out of the
domain of abstract speculation, and transform it into what it
should be: an invitation to love, glorify, and worship God in
the best way possible.
Finally, the creed says the Holy Spirit “has spoken through
the prophets.” This affirmation brings the Holy Spirit back
into history, which as we have said, is its privileged field of
action. It refers to the prophets, because it is in the prophets
that we see the Spirit's action most clearly. Of course, its
action goes beyond the prophets, into human hearts,
history, and all creation. But the council did not discuss that
wider picture; as a result, the creed focuses narrowly on the
action of the Spirit in the religious domain (the prophets)
rather than in history and the cosmos.
Now we have the Christian way of talking about God
clearly delineated in trinitarian form: three divine Persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all one God. That leaves a
great, challenging question for theological reflection: How
should we understand this diversity-in-unity? This question
forces us to set aside the Greek way of thinking about God
and the world as separate substances, and think instead of
the inclusive relationships and open-ended processes that
characterize life in an evolving cosmos (L. Boff, Trinity and
Society [1988] and Christianity in a Nutshell [2013]).
 7

Paths for Reflection on the

Third Person of the Holy Trinity

The creed of Constantinople (381) brought about a Church

consensus on the divinity of the Holy Spirit, together with
the Father and the Son. All the historic churches, East and
West, old and new, accepted this doctrine, making it the
center of Christian faith beyond all the theological and
organizational differences in the Christian communities.
Those who accept the trinitarian God are Christians; those
who deny it are not.
But we still have different theologies and ways of
theologizing, because each community is thinking within a
different cultural environment, sensitive to different
concerns. Thus there are several kinds of theology on the
Holy Spirit. We not only think in concepts, but clothe those
concepts in cultural images and symbols that guide our
theological reflection and nourish our devotion. This reality
is evident in our different liturgies.
Théodore de Régnon, a great historian of the mystery of
the Holy Trinity, explained it well: “We are accustomed to
thinking of the Greek and Latin churches as two sisters who
love each other and visit each other, but have separate
homes and different ways of living (Études de théologie,
3:412). Alexandre de Hales, the first medieval Franciscan
teacher, wrote in his Summa: “The Greeks and Latins
believe the same thing, but they each say it differently”
(idem credunt greci et latini, sed no eodem modo
proferunt).
For this reason it is customary to describe the differences
schematically, despite the inherent risk of
oversimplification. Such categories do facilitate our
understanding, especially in the very demanding area of
reflection on the Holy Trinity, which requires carefully
chosen words and rigorous thinking.

Two Models of Understanding: The Greek and the

Latin
The Greek theologians begin with the concept of divine
Persons, especially the Person of the Father, and move
toward the nature of God. The Latin theologians begin with
the divine nature, and move toward the concept of divine
Persons. Thus the Greeks say, “Three Persons in God”; the
Latins say, “One God in three Persons.”
Both are expressing the same truth, but from different
perspectives. The Latin theologians also say “one nature,
personalized,” whereas the Greeks say “three Persons in a
single nature.”
These expressions reflect different sociopolitical
experiences. The Greek experience is marked by the
centralization of power in the figure of an emperor, a satrap,
or a tyrant. For them, God is fundamentally the Father. The
Father has everything. He is the source and origin of all
divinity (fons et origo totius divinitatis), which he transmits
to the other two Persons. The Son and the Holy Spirit
proceed from the Father, but in a way that does not envision
the Father having two Sons. That would run the risk of
subordinationism, making the Son and the Spirit subordinate
to the Father, which the Greeks deny; they are trying to
avoid that risk, as we shall see.
The Latins are coming from their experience with the
Roman Senate, which divides and sometimes subdivides the
power of the state.
They tend to think of God as a single, original nature,
divided into the Persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. This leads to the risk of modalism: a single nature
expressed in three different modes. It may also lead to the
risk of tritheism: three “Gods.”
The Greeks prefer to approach a mystery, especially the
mystery of the Holy Trinity, by means of meditation, prayer,
and liturgical celebration. They prefer an emotional line of
reasoning, which respects the ineffable nature of the
mystery rather than claiming to have grasped it rationally.
They also use reason, primarily in an apologetic sense, as a
way of defending the faith against heresies. But for the
Greeks, divine truth itself is best attained in ways that go
beyond reason, through devotion and worship.
The Latins have more confidence in rational analysis. They
define theology as “faith seeking understanding” (fides
quaerens intellectum, or fides quaerens quaere). Their
theology, as exemplified by St. Thomas Aquinas and his
followers, is more speculative than emotional. Thus they get
wrapped up in endless debates that end up turning the
mystery of the Trinity into an enigma, which interferes with
worship and meditation.
Many of the theological differences between the Eastern
and Western Churches are rooted in these different ways of
feeling and thinking.

The Importance of Images for Doctrine

Abstract reasoning is always best understood and
communicated by means of images and symbols, which
help us grasp its content. Both Latins and Greeks use
images to describe the divine Persons and the relationships
among them.
The Latin theologians adopted the images of spirit and
love as their primary reference points. The spirit helps us
grasp the reality and shape it into an image. We distill this
image into concepts (conceptum), which come from taking
reality and spirit together as a way toward true
understanding. Then we use words and voice to
communicate what we have taken in and understood.
The medieval theologians applied this process to the
mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Father is the absolute Spirit,
with absolute self-knowledge. He projects an image of
himself, through a word that expresses it totally. The Son is
this image and this word. The Father not only recognizes
himself in the Son; he loves the Son and wants to be one
with him. The Son in turn recognizes the Father and wants
to be one with him. The Holy Spirit is the union of Father and
Son, the bond that ties the Father to the Son and the Son to
the Father. A theologian of St. Augustine's time, Marius
Victorinus, went so far as to call the Holy Spirit “the
intercourse between the Father and the Son” (Congar, El
Espíritu Santo, 115). Thus we have a circular image of the
divine Persons. The Holy Spirit completes the circle of
understanding and love between the Father and the Son.
The Spirit is the creator of unity par excellence, the
sweetness and joy of the union between Father and Son.
Another image used by some Latin theologians, developed
by St. Augustine and continued by St. Bonaventure and
others, is love. There is love, the lover, and the loved one.
God is love (1 John 4:8). Love is always effusive, self-giving,
and expansive. The Father is totally self-giving love. The Son
receives the Father's love, and loves the Father completely.
It is the Holy Spirit that unites the Father and the Son in
love. The Spirit is also loved by the Father and the Son, and
loves the Father and the Son. The Spirit is called
condilectus, beloved by both the Father and the Son;
together they constitute a single God-love-communion,
mutual and eternal self-giving.
This image evokes the dynamic of love that goes outside
itself, rests on the other, and because it is love, returns to
itself.
The Greek theologians, preferring simplicity, use the
image of human communication. The Father pronounces a
Word that reveals him totally. This Word comes with the
Breath that transmits it and makes it audible,
understandable, and acceptable. There is no word without a
simultaneous breath. In the Trinity, therefore, the Son is the
Word that the Father speaks eternally to communicate
himself. This Word is always accompanied and conveyed by
the Breath (spiritus in Latin), or Holy Spirit. Thus the Son
and the Spirit come from the same Father but in different
ways, one as Word and the other as Breath.
The Greek way of thinking is more linear. The Father is the
source and origin of all divinity, which he transmits in its
totality to the Son and the Holy Spirit (Breath) in different
ways. Because this self-communication is total, we know
that each of the Persons is the bearer of the same divine
nature. The only distinction among them is that one is not
the other. They are different so that they can relate to one
another in love, a love so absolute that it unifies them into a
single God.

The Controversy over the Origin of the Holy Spirit

The Latin and Greek churches accepted both these ways
of understanding the Holy Trinity and the place of the Holy
Spirit, without polemics of any sort. The controversy arose
when they lost the sense of devotion and veneration, and
began to develop a speculative theology that soon
hardened into rigid, unbending doctrine. The cultural
nuances within each formula were forgotten, and it became
a struggle over the meaning of the words, as if everything
depended on the words—and as if the words had only one
meaning, the same meaning in all times and places.
The person of the Holy Spirit became the apple of discord.
According to the Greeks, the Son and the Spirit come
directly from the Father; according to the Latins, the Spirit
comes from the Father through the Son, or with the Son, or
by the Father and Son together. The Latins used the word
Filioque, meaning “and through the Son.” The Holy Spirit
comes from the Father and from the Son. The Son,
therefore, plays a part in the exhalation of the Holy Spirit.
The Greeks objected to this formula because it seemed
that the Spirit would not have a single cause, source, and
origin, the Person of the Father alone. The Son was also
cause and origin; that was the reason for the Filioque. St.
Thomas, an astute theologian, had tried to avoid this
problem by saying that “the Holy Spirit proceeds mainly
(principaliter) from the Father through the Son.” But the Son
still had a part in the origin of the Holy Spirit, and that was
the Greek theologians’ objection. Bear in mind that the
focus was so heavily on the relationship between the Son
and the Holy Spirit, that they forgot that the Spirit is also
the Spirit of the Father. The Father is always the Father of
the Son. And it is as Father of the Son that he breathes the
Holy Spirit.
So far the debate had remained peacefully at the
theological level, but it became an ecclesial conflict at
Christmas, 808, when French monks from the Mount of
Olives in Jerusalem inserted the Filioque (and from the Son)
into the creed. The Greeks vehemently protested this
violation of the agreement reached by all the Churches at
the Council of Ephesus in 431, enshrined in canon 7: “Not
one word of the common Creed may be changed, inserted,
or taken away.” The Latins were apparently not abiding by
that agreement. An appeal went up to Pope Leo III. He
forbade the insertion of the Filioque in the creed, although
he supported the theological legitimacy of the term; thus
the debate remained alive.
That relative peace was broken, however, in 1014 when
Pope Benedict VIII crowned the emperor Henry II, and added
the Filioque to the creed at the express request of the
emperor. This reaffirmed the Western position with the
support of the highest papal authority, which in turn was
responding to the political power of the emperor.
Even the great protest that followed did not lead to a real
split between the two sister Churches. The schism came
about in 1054 in Constantinople, when the Latin cardinal
Humbert accused the Greeks of having suppressed the
Filioque in the creed. Not knowing the history, the cardinal
forgot that the Filioque had been included in the creed
through the arrogance of Pope Benedict VIII, to please the
emperor. The Greek patriarch Photios, a better theologian
than cardinal Humbert, denounced the collapse of the
agreement reached at the Council of Ephesus in 431, and
broke off relations with the Church of Rome.
The two patriarchs, Western and Eastern, then
excommunicated each other. The two sister Churches
became enemies and closed the doors and windows of their
houses, until recent times when the excommunication was
reciprocally annulled.
Later ecumenical councils, like Lateran IV (1215) and the
Council of Lyon where St. Bonaventure was present (1274),
reaffirmed the Western position on the Filioque: the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. From the Latin
perspective, the Son's role in the exhalation of the Holy
Spirit does not mean there were two principal causes. There
is only one, the Father, but the Father transmits his own
generative power to the Son. The Son only has what the
Father has given him.
The aim of the Western position is to highlight the
sameness of the divine nature. It emphasizes the equality of
the nature of the three divine Persons. This avoids any risk
of subordinationism. The Holy Spirit functions within the
Trinity as the bond of unity between the Father and the Son.
The Greeks saw this as breaking up the unity of God the
Father, which could lead to tritheism (three gods) or to
binarism (Father and Son). For this reason Photios
strengthened the Greek formula, saying that “the Holy Spirit
proceeds only from the Father.” In his view the divine
Persons are not differentiated by their origin, which they all
have in common—the Father—but only by the individual
properties of each one. The result was a rigorous
monopatrism, which complicated the dialogue with the Latin
Church for centuries. It also gave added strength to
centralizing, even tyrannical, political regimes, which
became an extension of the monopolizing figure of the
Father.
On the other hand, the Eastern theologians objected to
the Filioque because it identified the Holy Spirit too closely
with the Son, when as we said, the Spirit is also the Spirit of
the Father and is always free by nature. This overly close
association between the Holy Spirit and the Son had led to
christomonism in Latin theology, that is, focusing only on
Christ, to the neglect of the Holy Spirit.
Such an interpretation favored the centralization of power
in the Church hierarchy, especially in the pope as
representative of Christ and even of God. That in turn
reinforced his jurisdictional primacy over all the churches of
East and West, and finally his infallibility.
This interpretation was and is harmful to ecumenical
dialogue, because it attributes exclusive authority to the
pope. He is seen as a member of the college of bishops, but
he is also above it and can act ex sese, that is, on his own
behalf, without consulting anyone. This is called the
cephalization of the Church (from the Greek kephal-): all
power resides in the head. The sovereign, all-powerful head
is represented by the figure of the pope.
To sum up the debate: the Latin theologians want to
emphasize the unity of the divine nature, equally present in
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Greeks want to
protect the unity of the divine principle and origin, which
resides in the Father (the source and origin of all divinity),
without diminishing the specific qualities of each one of the
divine Persons.
There are advantages and limitations in each
interpretation. For the Latins the Spirit is always the Spirit of
Christ; they forget that it is also the Spirit of the Father of
the Son, who can act independently apart from Christ. The
Greeks focus exclusively on the Father; this can lead to
subordinationism, making the Son and the Spirit subordinate
to the Father as their only source and origin.
In theological reflection today, especially in an ecumenical
context, this addition of the Filioque—that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son—is considered
superfluous. The basic reasoning is that when we say that
the Spirit proceeds from the Father, we are always talking
about the Father of the Son; there can't be a Father without
a Son, or a Son without a Father. Father and Son are always
together, and together they give shape to the Holy Spirit.
It follows that Filioque adds nothing to our understanding
of the Spirit; we would do better to just leave it out
(Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 284). The circle of love and
self-communication among the three divine Persons is
already complete, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit as God-communion-love-self-giving.

Modern Efforts to Rethink the Holy Trinity

Modern trinitarian theology understands the traditional
terms (the Father as source, the Son as generativity, and
the Holy Spirit as exhalation) as analogies and descriptions,
rather than as objective realities. The indisputable reality of
faith is this: God is not the loneliness of the One, but the
communion of the Three.
Our words cannot describe such an august mystery. St.
Augustine, the greatest teacher in this domain,
acknowledges that “when we refer to the three divine
Persons we must recognize the extreme poverty of our
language; we say three Persons in order not to remain
silent, not so we can claim to have identified the Trinity” (De
Trinitate V, 9, 10).
But it is important to acknowledge that in speaking of the
Father, Son, and Breath (Holy Spirit) we are assuming a logic
of relationship. There can only be a Father because there is
a Son. The Son leads us back to the Father, and they are
both connected in communion and in love. The Spirit is the
relationship between them, the love that unites, the Breath
that goes from one to the other.
It is appropriate to begin with the Second Testament,
which testifies to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Each
one is separate from the other. They are irreducible. They
are unique. To call each one God is not to multiply God;
since each one is unique, they are not a number and cannot
be multiplied.
But can they be three unique realities? God times three?
That would be the heresy of tritheism. The important thing
is to affirm that they are three unique realities. Unique
realities cannot be added together, precisely because they
are Unique. But they are always in relationship, mutually
interpenetrated in communion and love. It is like a single
wellspring that flows in three directions, each one a spring
in itself.
Theologians use the term perichoresis to mean the
interrelationship of the divine Persons among themselves, or
their complete reciprocity (L. Boff, Trinity and Society, 134–
36). In the beautiful words of St. Augustine: “Each one of
the divine persons is in the others, and together they are
only one God” (De Trinitate VI, 10, 12).
There is no hierarchy, no precedence, no causal order
among them. They are simultaneously eternal and infinite.
They emerge together, each one unique but always
connected to the others, in such a profound and radical way
that they become one. Together they are one God-love-
relationship-communion.
 They are different so that they can relate to and be with
each other. Their relationship is one of revelation and
recognition. Thus the Father reveals himself through the Son
in the Spirit. The Son reveals the Father in the power of the
Spirit. The Spirit reveals itself to the Father through the Son
(ex Patre Filioque), just as the Son is recognized in the
Father through the Spirit (a Patre Spirituque). The Spirit and
the Son meet in the Father (ex Filio et ex Spirito Patreque).
Thus their relationships are always tripartite and circular.
Where one person is present, the other two are also
(Evdokimov, L'Esprit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe, 1969;
L. Boff, Trinity and Society, 145–47).
Other theologians, such as O. Clément, T. G. Weinany, and
R. Cantalamessa (O Canto do Espírito, 389–90), who do not
think in terms of perichoresis and full reciprocity but seek to
extend the tradition, prefer to use a different preposition in
referring to the Spirit: not “from” but “in.” The Son is born of
the Father in the Spirit. It is in the Spirit that Christ cries
Abba. The Son is always the Son in the Spirit.
But we should recognize that the concept of perichoresis
is a better way to understand the relationship of the three
divine Persons; it fits well with modern cosmology, which
sees everything related to everything else in an intricate
web of inclusion and reciprocity.
However we approach it, our goal is an inclusive,
ecumenical interpretation that shows the circularity of
trinitarian life, in which the Holy Spirit together with the
Father and the Son make up the Kingdom of the Trinity.
 8

Philosophers of the Spirit: Men

and Women

Culture, history, philosophy, and theology have always

been accompanied by reflection on the spirit and on the
Holy Spirit. Many people have written about it. Here we shall
mention the names of only a few men and women who
planted the seeds, and who continue to influence
contemporary thinking on the subject.

Joachim of Fiore and the Age of the Holy Spirit

Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202) was a Cistercian monk in
Calabria. St. Thomas Aquinas called him an unpolished
theologian, but he had great theological and spiritual
insight. He gave voice to a perennial quest of the human
spirit, a desire to understand the course of history and its
transcendent meaning. One of his works is especially
important, although it received little attention in his day: “A
Harmony of the New and the Old Testament” (Concordia
Novi ac Veteris Testamenti, begun in 1184). It was widely
circulated after 1240, when a radical group of Franciscans
called the “Spirituals” or “Little Brothers” (Fraticelli) adopted
his ideas. They saw St. Francis as an embodiment of his
thesis, the inbreaking age of the Holy Spirit.
Joachim de Fiore looked for symmetry and harmony in
everything, in order to project a coherent vision of history.
His basic thesis was this: “Because there are three divine
Persons, there are also three states of the world.” He and
his later readers called these states “ages.”
The first was the age of the Father, which began with
Adam and continued through the patriarchs. This was the
age of the laity. Then came the age of the Son, from King
Josiah to Jesus Christ. This was the age of the clergy, the
Church, hierarchies, and sacraments. The third was the age
of the Holy Spirit, which began with the monk St. Benedict
and would soon come to fulfillment. Then the eternal reign
of the Gospel would be inaugurated; human beings would
be completely spiritual and free. This was the age of the
monks. The first was the age of the flesh; the second, of
flesh and the spirit; the third, of the spirit alone.
This reading was adopted by the radical Franciscans who
sought to live in strict poverty and saw themselves as sent
by the Holy Spirit to implant the Eternal Gospel. They felt no
obligation to the age of the Son, as expressed in the existing
Church, its sacraments, and the Pope. In their view, all that
was over; it had lost its legitimacy. Now was the time of the
Spirit, which released them from all material, social, and
ecclesial bonds, in order to establish the kingdom of
complete freedom for the sons and daughters of God. The
Eternal Gospel is the present and future of the world.
Of course, this view led to persecution and condemnation
by the Church of the Popes, but that did not stop new,
highly idealistic groups from forming. One of these was the
“Brethren of the Free Spirit,” whose masculine and feminine
communities were called beghards and beguines. They lived
completely apart, in extreme quietism, but enflamed by the
idea of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. Some of
them boldly claimed that “the Spirit is incarnate in us every
day” (Spiritus Sanctus quotidie in nobis incarnature).
Joachim de Fiore pioneered the idea of renovatio mundi,
the renewal of the world, the break that would lead to the
inbreaking of a new order. Since then the idea has never
disappeared from the Church and from history. It draws
hostility from supporters of the existing order, but it
continues to inspire revolutionary groups, most of whom are
associated with the oppressed and excluded sectors.

G. W. F. Hegel: The Spirit in History

The theories of the great German philosopher Hegel
(1770–1831) draw explicitly on Joachim de Fiore. Hegel
shared the same goal of formulating a total perspective,
offering a coherent vision of history in all its aspects, from
the history of nature and humanity to the history of the
Absolute Spirit. He first attempted this systemic project as a
young theologian in Tübingen with his book The Spirit of
Christianity and Its Fate, which anticipated the basic theme
of his famous book Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807): the
reconciliation of human beings with nature, the objective
spirit with the subjective spirit, and the universe with the
absolute Spirit.
This fundamental theme came to him during a Holy Week
in Tübingen, on a day he would later call his “theoretical
Good Friday.” The paschal mystery inspired the idea for
which he is most famous: dialectical reasoning. In Holy
Week we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Hegel saw that as the fulfillment of a dialectic: thesis (the
life of Christ), antithesis (his death on the cross), and
synthesis (his resurrection). Thesis and antithesis are not
simply opposites; they are surpassed (Aufheben) by
becoming integrated into a higher synthesis. The synthesis
in turn becomes a new thesis, which provokes a new
antithesis, leading to integration in a new synthesis, and so
on indefinitely. That is how the historical process works.
As we can see, there is a permanent movement here, an
all-encompassing, uninterrupted dynamic. Hegel's
philosophy begins with a theological affirmation, God as
Absolute Spirit, but he places the Absolute Spirit in the
dialectic that takes place in nature and in history. He rightly
affirms that the meaning of life is not to be found in
abstractions, but in the concrete reality of nature and
history.
Nature and history are the scene of revelation, and also of
the fulfillment of the Absolute Spirit and the human spirit.
The Absolute Spirit, which exists in itself and for itself, is
expressed in history, which encompasses the whole
creation: nature, the human being, and the universe. The
Spirit itself is enriched by going into exile from itself,
because it reveals itself and creates a kind of mirror in
which to contemplate itself. In this way it comes to absolute
consciousness of itself. Finally it returns to itself, bringing
with it all the reality that it has taken on. This totality is
truth (Das Ganze ist die Wahrheit).
To put it in dialectical terms: the Absolute Spirit, in itself
and in its reality for itself, is the thesis. Its manifestation in
nature and history is the antithesis. And its return to itself,
bringing with it all the achievements and embodiments of
nature and history in which it has been totally submerged, is
the synthesis which becomes a new thesis, creating an
antithesis with which it forges a synthesis, and so on
indefinitely.
This Hegelian insight introduces the idea of evolution as
an underlying perspective. But it is not a mechanical
evolution; it is animated by the Spirit, which moves it to
increasingly higher, more meaningful orders, toward a
supreme integration in the Absolute Spirit.
When Hegel speaks of the Absolute Spirit, he is not
referring specifically to the Holy Spirit but to God the Trinity,
which in itself is an expression of the divine dialectic. The
Father is the thesis, the Son is the antithesis, and the Holy
Spirit is the synthesis, the union of the divine persons in
love and reciprocal communion.
Hegel's influence was and is still enormous. Everything is
part of his synthesis, including the negative aspects of
history (which belong to the antithesis). His language is hard
to understand, but his goal is clear: to project a dynamic
and all-encompassing view of reality which includes God,
nature, history, law, aesthetics, and ethics, revealing to
humanity its own grandeur and dignity. He once famously
said, on becoming a professor of philosophy in Berlin: “We
have been entrusted with the task of preserving, nourishing,
and protecting the mystery of the Holy Light, so that what is
most sublime about the human being will never be snuffed
out and disappear.”
Some theologians (Congar, El Espíritu Santo, 163; Welker,
El Espíritu de Dios, 279) have criticized Hegel for borrowing
excessively from Christian ideas of the Spirit, not making
clear the role of the Third Person but subsuming it in the
Absolute Spirit (God), and thus neglecting its close
relationship with the liberating, redeeming work of the
incarnate Son. Despite these limitations, Hegel's
interpretation challenges pneumatology to think of the
Spirit's relationship with the universe and its vulnerability,
which has been practically absent from Latin theology.
Historically, Hegel's philosophy has given rise to two
interpretations: the materialistic one of Marx and Engels,
and the idealistic one that has nourished theology and the
study of religions. The latter interpretation helps us
understand history as the scene of the manifestation and
fulfillment, not only of the Absolute Spirit, but also of the
human spirit with its freedom and its ability to shape reality.

Paul Tillich: The Spirit and Life without Ambiguity

Paul Tillich, the German-born US theologian and
philosopher (1886–1965), is the Protestant thinker (he was a
Lutheran) who has most strongly emphasized the Holy
Spirit. He belonged to the Frankfurt School of philosophy
and sociology. His life was committed to fundamental
questions of culture and politics, along with specific issues
in sociology, philosophy, and theology. As a member of the
movement called “Religious Socialism” he drew suspicion
from the emerging Nazi leaders, and was forced to emigrate
to the United States in 1933. He taught at several
universities, including Harvard from 1955 to 1962 and the
University of Chicago from 1962 to his death in 1965. His
way of doing theology appealed to many North Americans in
different fields, with whom he organized open seminars and
dialogues. Tillich was a prolific author. The Courage to Be
and The Shaking of the Foundations are often quoted, but
his best-known work is his three-volume Systematic
Theology (Teología Sistemática), 1951–63.
Three of the most fundamental points in Tillich's theology
are his method of correlation, the purpose of theology, and
the ambiguity of all reality. Throughout his work he tried to
translate theological concepts into the discourse of
existentialism, creating a theology in secular language.
In Tillich's view there is always a correlation between the
existential questions of human beings, and the answers
given by the Christian message. The questions and answers
are always related to each other. The Christian message is
not “the sum of revealed truths dropped into the human
situation like foreign bodies from a strange world…. The
Bible is not a book of supernatural ‘oracles,’ completely
apart from human reception” (Teología Sistemática, 61).
There has to be a correlation between the human search
and the divine response. That means we have to begin with
the existential human search, in order to discover the power
of enlightenment and transformation that comes from the
Christian response. Thus as we have seen, Tillich's work is
marked by a conscious existentialism that takes human
questions seriously; without them theology cannot give a
fully adequate response. The method of correlation is
fruitful, and is similar to the method used by the theology of
liberation; it too begins by looking at reality, examining it
critically, and using the word of revelation to shed light on
the needed process of transformation.
Tillich's second point is related to the first, on human
questions and divine answers: to define the purpose of
theology. Throughout his vast bibliography, he emphasizes
that human beings are always seized and pursued by one
question: What is unconditionally important in our lives?
What is our ultimate concern? He avoids using ultimate,
unconditional, and infinite in an abstract sense. Rather he
prefers to speak of our ultimate concern, our unconditional
interest, our infinite quest.
This leads to his definition of the object of theology: “The
object of theology is what concerns us at the deepest level;
a proposition only becomes theological when it refers to its
object in such a way that it can become a fundamental
concern for us” (Teología Sistemática, 20). That is true of
the question, “to be or not to be” (22). The word “God” only
has meaning if it means what is most important to us, if it is
the ultimate meaning in our life, the life of the world, and
the life of the universe.
This understanding keeps us always united with God and
with human beings in their concrete reality, full of anguish,
in their discovery of meaning that makes them happy and in
the failures that make their existence tragic. God is in this
question, because it has absolute importance for our lives.
This is where theology should begin thinking about God and
the Christian message; this is where it can generate
meaning out of other meanings, and lead us to the
perception of an ultimate reality.
Tillich's third point is the ambiguity of everything real. This
represents the most philosophical dimension of his thinking.
As a philosopher in the great Western tradition, he says that
everything has an essence and an existence. Essence is the
ideal, the pure aspect of every reality. It exists in our
understanding. In other words, essence establishes the
constellation of possibilities of a reality. The essence of a
tree—its treeness—represents an almost infinite number of
ways of being a tree. That is where existence comes in.
Existence gives reality to one of the many possibilities
offered by essence.
Thus there is an internal difference between essence and
existence, which means that any concrete reality will always
be ambiguous. It is not an essence, but only one of its
possible expressions. Only one of the potentialities of the
essence becomes real in history; the essence always
remains latent and open to other possible expressions. This
is the ambiguity of all reality: it reveals its essence in
different forms of existence. It is Being made real in
different beings, even though the essence and the Being are
always hidden.
There is also ambiguity in the specific situation of a
human being before God. Human beings exist in a situation
of decay, corrupted by the fall and by disobedience to God.
On the other hand, we are open to and in dialogue with God,
because we never stop raising the question of ultimate
concern, of what is unconditionally important. We are
divided beings, torn between our corrupted existence and
the endless search for God which inhabits our essence.
Applying this interpretation to life, Tillich affirms: “All the
processes of life contain an essential and an existential
element mixed together, goodness and alienation, so that
neither one nor the other prevails exclusively; life always
includes essential and existential elements; that is the root
of our ambiguity” (Teología Sistemática, 466).
This situation raises the question: how to overcome our
ambiguity? Can we ever hope for an unambiguous life? That
is where, in Tillich's method of questions and answers, we
hear the Christian message loud and clear: yes, we can
hope for life without ambiguity. Tillich says: “The Christian
message has produced three important symbols to express
life without ambiguity: the Spirit of God, the Kingdom of
God, and eternal life” (Teología Sistemática, 467).
 The whole fourth section of his Systematic Theology is
devoted to the Holy Spirit, the presence of Divine Life in the
life of the creature. The Spirit is the presence of God.
Presence is a key concept for understanding the action of
the Spirit in history. Presence is more than just being there.
It is the density of being, the being that always is, always
becoming, seeking fulfillment, dispelling ambiguity. The
Spirit penetrates the concrete reality; Tillich calls this
“Spiritual Presence” (470–505).
This spiritual presence is manifested, first of all, in the
human spirit which lives in the dimension of faith and love,
and in this way is able to overcome ambiguity. It is also seen
in human history, in the presence of Jesus Christ, the new
Being.
In this context Tillich develops a suggestive christology of
the Spirit (495–99). We see it in the spiritual community,
mainly in the Church, which is penetrated by the new Being
of Jesus. This is the space in which the unambiguous life
becomes real.
He then discusses spiritual presence in three important
areas: religion, culture, and morality. All three are functions
of the human spirit; in each one he describes the inherent
ambiguity of life, and the human desire to overcome it.
Beyond these human, personal, and collective
dimensions, he also discusses spiritual presence in the
organic and inorganic world. This leads to a kind of cosmic
pneumatology (596). However, he explains that “the
universe is not yet transformed; it is still ‘awaiting’
transformation, but the Spirit is working the transformation
in the domain of the spirit. Human beings are the ‘first
fruits’ of the new Being; the universe will come later” (596).
The doctrine of the Spirit leads to the doctrine of the
Kingdom of God as eternal fulfillment. The Presence of the
Spirit prefigures this Kingdom, which is gradually being built
by the ambiguous efforts of human beings, especially
through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This gives rise to an
unambiguous reality in history, guaranteed by the Risen
One and by his Spirit.
Tillich offers an excellent vision. We are always challenged
by his way of entering into dialogue with the anthropological
reality that he explains in the light of faith; many readers
have found common sense and wisdom in his reflections.

José Comblin: The Spirit as Liberating Life and Action

In Latin America the stage was set for a powerful
reflection on the Holy Spirit by the irruption of the poor on
the political scene; by aggiornamento in the Church, which
began at Vatican II and was creatively pursued by the
bishops at Medellín (1968) and Puebla (1979); and by the
renewal of faith through the charismatic movements.
The most outstanding theologian in this area is José
Comblin (1923–2011), a Belgian who lived in Chile and
Brazil. He broke new ground in reflection on the Holy Spirit,
at a time when the classical textbooks were focused mainly
on its intratrinitarian relations, and on its presence in the
Church. Comblin spent more than twenty-five years
exploring the Holy Spirit, “trying to understand what it is
doing on Earth and where it is working” (A vida: em busca
da libertad, 8).
Seven of his books focus on the action of the Holy Spirit in
the cosmos, in the world, in cultures, in religions, in persons,
and in the Church: O tempo da ação: Ensaio sobre o Espírito
e a historia (1982); A força da Palavra (1986); O Espírito
Santo e a libertação (1987; The Holy Spirit and Liberation,
1989); Vocação para a liberdade (1999); O povo de Deus
(2002); A vida em busca da liberdade (2002). His swan
song, O Espírito Santo e a tradição de Jesus (2012), was left
incomplete and published posthumously. In that one he
confessed: “Almost all my books have been commissioned
by others. The only thing that came directly from me is this
one, which I wanted to leave as a treatise on the Holy Spirit,
that is, my small contribution to pneumatology” (O Espírito
Santo e a tradição de Jesus, 23). Summing up all his work on
this topic, it is fair to call him one of the great thinkers of the
Spirit in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
This is not the place to discuss his practical pneumatology
in detail. Here I will focus on the three volumes that directly
address the topic of this book. Comblin discusses in depth
the centuries-long tension between the Christianity that
turned the Jesus Tradition into a religion (the Catholic
Church, hierarchically structured around the sacred power)
and the original Jesus Tradition (his evangelical legacy, the
legacy of freedom, and the experience of God as Abba and
unconditional love). The Jesus Tradition is a movement,
rather than an institution which emerged in history with all
its limitations and was later expressed in terms of power.
Jesus did not come to establish a new religion; there were
already enough of those. He came to teach life. His legacy is
a practice, designed to engender new men and women, not
to create pious members of a religious institution.
Comblin sharply criticizes “the class that has taken over
all decision-making power, and marginalized the role of the
Holy Spirit. In official theology the Holy Spirit governs the
Church by means of the clergy…. The clergy has taken the
place of the Holy Spirit…. But in the New Testament the Holy
Spirit was given to all, and everyone receives inspiration,
courage, and guidance from the Holy Spirit, even when they
are not always faithful. That is the case with the clergy;
history tells about enormous errors committed by popes,
bishops, and priests, and Christians witness those errors
every day” (161).
The challenge to Christians and to the whole Church is
how to keep rescuing the Tradition of Jesus, which is not
made up of doctrines and precepts. That Tradition has
largely been lost or hidden by Christian concepts that distort
or dilute it. Instead of a doctrine, Jesus left us a practice, a
way of being before God (Abba), before others (everyone is
a neighbor), and before the law (freedom), in the context of
a great dream: the coming Kingdom, a Kingdom that will
free creation from its decay, help lost human beings find
their way, and reconcile the world with God. In other words,
Jesus left us an absolute revolution that cannot simply be
proclaimed, but that is being built with the help of those
who try to follow the practice of Jesus.
Comblin analyzes the comings and goings of this Jesus
Tradition: how it was diminished, and in some ways
betrayed, when the clerical institution assumed imperial
powers and became a power of domination rather than of
service to life, especially the life of the poorest. Yet some
people have always kept it alive, from the desert fathers
and martyrs to the Christians today, inspired by the Jesus
Tradition, who are committed to the cause of justice and
dignity for all who have suffered injustice.
The titles of his two great studies summarize the themes
we have just mentioned: O tempo da ação: Ensaio sobre o
Espírito e a historia (A Time of Action: Essay on the Spirit
and History, 1982), and O Espírito Santo e a libertação
(1987; The Holy Spirit and Liberation, 1989).
The theology of liberation has developed a detailed
christology, holding up Christ as the liberator of the poor
and oppressed, and Christian practice as following the life,
the cause, and the destiny of Jesus. It did not yet have a
pneumatology, a more in-depth reflection on the Holy Spirit.
That was Comblin's goal, which he accomplished in its
fundamental aspects.
His greatness lies in his consistent pursuit of this theme,
which is unique in the self-revelation of the Spirit: its
creative, libertarian, revolutionary action in the Church, in
society, and in the world. He places the theme in the
context of “Liber-action Theology,” that is, theology leading
to action, action that makes freedom free at last from its
captivity. This historic action is the work of the Spirit.
 In fact there has been an undeniable, fundamental change
since the 1960s: an irruption of the Spirit. It began in the
evangelical churches, almost always in the poorer sectors;
then, as we mentioned in chapter 1, it spread to our own
Catholic Church.
Whether we like it or not, the charismatic movement
represents a break from religious formalism, doctrinalism,
and the clerical monopoly on the Word. Now the people are
beginning to speak and act, to have experiences and
ritualize them.
Comblin dwells at length on signs of the Spirit in the
diverse actions carried out by the people, especially those
who were historically humiliated and offended (Holy Spirit
and Liberation, 51–75). For centuries they were enslaved,
marginalized, and neglected, reduced to mere echoes of the
voice of the powerful. Suddenly, surprisingly, they began to
speak freely, in their own voices, with their own words.
Dissident and revolutionary movements arose across Latin
America, refusing to accept submission and silence any
longer. There were and are thousands of Christians in those
movements.
As they go on developing a strategy of resistance,
especially in projects of liberation, their action is becoming
more organized. They are courageously confronting military
regimes and structures of national security (which really
means the security of capital). They are no longer afraid.
They are experiencing freedom and fearlessly suffering
persecution, imprisonment, torture, exile, and assassination.
This experience of freedom goes beyond the political
dimension; it is also religious. They are emancipating
themselves from ecclesiastical laws, the instrument of
control by the clergy; they are establishing Biblical Circles
and Ecclesial Base Communities in which they are the
subjects of their own action, and other movements of action
and reflection on human rights, faith and politics, and the
role of women, indigenous peoples, peasants, and
marginalized women (prostitutes).
One great sign of the presence of the Spirit is the creation
of Ecclesial Base Communities. Says Comblin: “The
community is a new discovery for all Latin Americans…a
true miracle…. Its members are aware of a radical change in
their way of life; this creates new personalities and enriches
them in every way” (Holy Spirit and Liberation, 28). The
primary experience of these communities is life, a new life,
lived for the common good, for the transformations that can
lead to a better, more just, and fraternal life. The goal is not
to have more, although that is important in view of their
widespread poverty, but to be more.
The people do not usually call this an irruption of the Holy
Spirit. The oral tradition and catechesis they have received
do not encourage that kind of deduction. What matters is
not what they call it, but their experience of being seized by
a new power, by an enthusiasm they have never felt before,
which leads them to action. In theological language, it is the
presence of the Holy Spirit. To bring it to consciousness and
to interpret it to the communities are what theologians can
contribute to the new evangelization. And they are learning
the lesson. They invoke, accept, give thanks, and praise the
Spirit present within them. That is why they often sing: “Let
the divine Light come down on us,” as we shall see in the
final chapter.
Unfortunately we do not value the action of the poor, their
work of life and survival, as highly as we should. They have
been subjugated for centuries, as Comblin points out,
turned into pew-sitters at church and workers for the
powerful. They could never come forward with their own
experiences, their situations, their words. What is new in our
time is the irruption of the poor, so well described by
Gustavo Gutiérrez and the liberation theologians. Comblin
writes at length about this new reality, expressed in
generative words such as transformation, revolution, and
liberation (see all of chapter 7 of O tempo da ação, 268–98).
The poor no longer accept the discrimination and oppression
of the old order. And Christianity has become their ally, by
siding with the poor against their poverty. All this is the work
of the Spirit in history. The role of theology is to grasp this
newness and create a language capable of describing its
spiritual nature—which cannot be grasped in static,
substantialist categories but must be described as
processes, movements, and new life, as we are trying to do
in this reflection. That is Comblin's challenge to theology,
not only in Latin America but in all churches.

St. Hildegard of Bingen: Prophet, Theologian, and

Physician
So far we have mentioned only men among the great
thinkers of the Spirit. The male-dominated theological
culture seldom paid attention to the women who were
inspired by the Spirit. Perhaps they wrote less than the
theologians, since it is only in the past two centuries that
women have been able to come forward, attend theological
schools, and write their own reflections. Today our
experience of God and God's grace has been enriched by a
vast theological literature, written by women from a
woman's perspective.
St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), who was perhaps
the first feminist inside the Church, deserves special note
here. She came from a noble family in southern Germany, at
a time of great political struggle among popes and
emperors. It was also the time of the first crusades
throughout Europe.
She was a genial, outstanding woman, not only for her
time but for all times. She was the abbess of her
Benedictine convent, Rupertsberg von Bingen am Rhein, a
German prophet (profetessa germanica), mystic, theologian,
a powerful preacher, composer, poet, naturalist, healer,
dramatist, and writer.
Her biographers and other scholars still wonder how this
woman accomplished so much in the constricted, male-
dominated medieval world. Everything she did revealed her
excellence and enormous creativity. Here are some
examples from her works.
Theological and mystical writings: Scivias Domini (Know
the Ways of the Lord), Liber vitae meritorum (Book of the
Rewards of Life), Liber divinorum operum (Book of Divine
Works).
Natural science: Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum
creaturarum (Book of the Subtlety of the Diverse Natures of
the Creatures), in two parts: Physica and Causae et curae
(Causes and Cures).
Music and poetry: Symphonia armonie celestium
revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly
Revelation, 77 pieces), Ordo virtutum (The Order of the
Virtues), Litterae ignotae (Unknown letters), and Lingua
ignota (Unknown language, an alphabet of her own
invention).
Also miscellaneous works including a commentary on the
Gospels, the Rule of St. Benedict, the life of St. Rupert, and
almost 400 letters to popes, bishops, princes, monks, and
family members.
Above all Hildegard was a woman with the gift of heavenly
visions. She says in her autobiography: “In the 1,141st year
of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Son of God, when I was 42
years and seven months old, the heavens opened and a
blinding light of great brilliance flooded into my brain. Then
it burned my whole heart and my breast like a flame, not
burning but warming…and suddenly I understood the
meaning of the expositions of the books, that is, the Psalms,
the Gospels, and the other Catholic books of the Old and
New Testament.”
 Elsewhere she writes: “I simultaneously see, hear, know,
and quickly learn what I know.” She explains that her words
are not like the words that come from one's mouth, but take
the shape of a flame that goes deep in the spirit (Termolen,
Hildegard von Bingen Biographie, 115).
How she acquired her knowledge of cosmology, medicinal
plants, anatomy, and human history is a mystery. The kind
of theology that comes as a gift of the Spirit is sometimes
called “infused science.” That term fits Hildegard perfectly.
She developed a curiously holistic vision, always mingling
the human being with nature and the cosmos. In this
context she speaks of the Holy Spirit as the energy that
gives viriditas to all things. Viriditas comes from “green”; it
is her word for the fresh greenness that marks everything
penetrated by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes she speaks of “the
immeasurable sweetness of the Holy Spirit, whose grace
surrounds all creatures” (Termolen, 122; Flanagan,
Hildegard of Bingen, 53). She has an evocative drawing of
the Holy Spirit suspended above a harp. Beside it she wrote
in Latin, “In You: Symphony of the Holy Spirit.” Below, in
German: “You are the harp of the Holy Spirit” (Termolen,
202).
She developed a humanizing image of God, ruling the
universe “with might and gentleness” (mit Macht und
Milde), walking hand in hand with all beings and watching
them lovingly (Fierro, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of
the Feminine, 187).
In one text she refers directly to the Holy Spirit: “The
sweetness of the Holy Spirit is immense and totally
surrounds all creatures in its grace, so that no corruption in
the integrity of its justice can destroy it, and shining, it
shows the way and gives rise to rivers of holiness in the
clarity of its power, without a stain of unreason. Therefore
the Holy Spirit is a fire whose burning serenity, igniting the
fiery virtues, will never be destroyed and will thus chase
away all darkness” (Ordo virtutum, Fourth Vision).
 She is especially known for her medicinal methods, which
are still followed by some doctors in Austria and Germany.
She reveals a surprising knowledge of the human body, and
of the active ingredients of medicinal herbs as applied to
different maladies.
Naturally her theological and prophetic activity drew the
attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. Pope Eugene III
read and approved her book Scivias. The bishop of Mainz
said that “her doctrine comes from the Spirit, and her gift of
prophecy is the same as that of the ancient prophets”
(Termolen, 118).
Hildegard was not only educated and wise; she was able
to organize her convent in the smallest details. For a time
she directed two convents, her own in Rupertsberg and the
ancient Disibodenberg, near Bingen, which she had entered
as a young girl.
Her fame endures to this day, and her canonization was
ratified by Benedict XVI in 2012.

Julian of Norwich: God as Father and Mother

Another woman of note was Julian of Norwich (1342–
1416), in England. We know little of her life, whether she
was a nun or a lay widow. We do know she lived in seclusion
in a walled cloister in the Church of St. Julian. At thirty years
of age she nearly died of a serious illness. At some point she
had visions of Jesus Christ, which lasted five hours.
Immediately she wrote a summary of her visions, and
twenty years later, having thought deeply about their
meaning, she wrote a long and definitive version:
Revelations of Divine Love. This was the first text written by
a woman in English.
Her revelations are surprising because they are filled with
unbreakable optimism, born of the love of God. She speaks
of love as joy and compassion. She does not understand
illness as a punishment from God, as many people did then;
it is still a widely held belief in some groups. For her,
illnesses and plagues are opportunities to know God.
She sees sin as a kind of pedagogy, in which God forces
us to know ourselves and to seek God's mercy. Moreover,
behind what we call hell there is a greater, always victorious
reality: the love of God.
Because Jesus is merciful and compassionate, he is our
beloved mother. God is also a merciful Father and a Mother
of kindness. Says Julian: “The omniscient God is our sweet
Mother; together with the love and kindness of the Holy
Spirit they are one God and one Lord” (Revelations, 119).
For her, “the Holy Trinity has three properties: paternity,
maternity, and lordship. Maternity belongs to the Second
Person who is our Mother in nature and grace; she is our
Mother in the form of our substance, in which we are rooted
and grounded; she is our Mother in mercy and in our
feelings. She is the Mother in many ways, and we are totally
surrounded by her” (Revelations, 120).
The following quotation from her book shows the
originality of her theology, the basis of a feminine theology:
“God our Father is also our Mother. Our Father loves, our
Mother fulfills, and the good Lord, the Holy Spirit,
confirms…. It is good to pray eagerly to our Mother for
mercy and compassion, and to pray to our Lord, the Holy
Spirit, for his help and grace” (Revelation, 146).
Only a woman could use such loving, compassionate
language, and call God a Mother of infinite kindness. Here
again we see the importance of the feminine voice for a
fuller understanding of God and the Spirit, who constantly
surround us with their movement and their grace.
We could mention many other women: St. Teresa of Avila
(1515–1582), Simone Weil (1909–1943), Madeleine Delbrêl
(1904–1964), Mother Teresa (1910–1997), Sister Dorothy
Stang (1931–2005), and so many others, bearers of the
Spirit, moved by the Spirit.
 We must also remember the anonymous bearers of the
Spirit: those who comfort and wipe away tears, who offer
words of consolation and discernment, who inspire and
encourage others to do good works. They may not know
that the energy acting in them is from the Spirit. The Spirit
often works quietly from within, secretly penetrating the
minds and hearts of people and groups, in order to fan the
sacred flames of love, justice, brotherhood, and compassion,
which are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
In short, all these men and women and many other
thinkers, bearers of the Spirit—such as Paul Evdokimov,
Vladimir Lossky, and Olivier Clément in the Orthodox
Church, and Jürgen Moltmann, Paul Tillich, and José Comblin
in the Latin Church—have helped us capture the dynamis,
the secret and mysterious Energy that penetrates the
evolving universe and pushes it past setbacks and detours,
toward a great irruption in the human spirit. It does so by
anticipation and then fully, in Jesus, Mary, and the diverse
religious, cultural, and moral expressions of humanity—
throughout our life wounded by ambiguity, but already
penetrated by the transforming Power of the Spirit, which
guarantees a happy end for all creation. Then the Kingdom
will be fulfilled, without ambiguity, in all its splendid glory.
 9

The Spirit, Mary of Nazareth,

and the Pneumatization of the
Feminine

The self-revelation of God the Trinity is a self-

communication: God's whole self is given over to the
receiver, unconditionally. The receiver in turn is drawn in,
made one with God. That is a top-down way of looking at it,
from the Trinity to the human being and the universe. But
we can also look at it from the bottom up, and from the
inside out.
From the heart of the evolutionary process, always
sustained and inhabited by the Trinity, the divine Persons
well up in those bearers who have been prepared by the
universe and by God's action to take one of the divine
Persons into themselves.

The Spirit Comes and Dwells First in Mary

The culmination of the Holy Spirit's action came when it
welled up in the life of a simple, devout village woman
named Mary. The Spirit stepped out of its transcendence
and took Mary into itself so radically that she was
spiritualized (from the Latin term Spiritus) or pneumatized
(from the Greek Pneuma). From then on she belonged to the
Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit formed a single reality with
her, without blurring the difference between Creator and
creature. This unique event has a parallel in the self-
communication of the Son to a man, Jesus of Nazareth,
which led to the incarnation of the Son or the divinization of
the man.
Luke's gospel describes this culminating event in the
history of the universe and humanity: “The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy;
he will be called Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Let us explore the
meaning of this testimony.
In the first place, it shows us that the first divine Person to
come into this world, to break into the evolutionary process,
was not the Word or the Son but the Holy Spirit. The third
Person in the order of the Trinity comes first in the order of
creation. This is not my affirmation, but Luke's. It challenges
us to overcome the christomonism that prevails in most
churches and in scholarly theology, with its excessive
emphasis on Christ, the incarnation of the Son, in the history
of salvation.
The Spirit breaks in first, and is taken in by Mary. In the
original Greek it pitches its tent (episkiásei) in her, comes to
live with her permanently. This is not a prophetic irruption in
which the Spirit seizes the prophet for a particular mission,
and then leaves him. Here the Spirit comes to stay. Luke
uses the image of a tent (episkiásei comes from skené,
tent): the Spirit pitches its tent (skené) over (epi) Mary and
dwells with her forever (Richard, “Conçu du Saint Esprit, né
de la Vierge Marie”; Lyonnet, “Le récit de l'Annonciation et la
maternité divine de la Sainte Vierge”).
The same expression appears in the Gospel of John: “And
the Word became flesh and lived [eskénosen] among us”
(John 1:14). Here the Son breaks into the holy humanity of
Jesus, which he received from Mary, and never leaves him;
in Jesus of Nazareth the Son becomes one of us, like us in
every way except in sin.
 In the second place, it is only because of Mary's “yes,” her
“let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38),
that we can speak of the coming of the Son to receive
human flesh from Mary. The Son comes after, and is enabled
by, Mary's full acceptance of the coming of the Spirit.
In the third place, we need to emphasize that “therefore
(dià óti) the child to be born will be holy; he will be called
Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The logical sequence is perfect: the
Holy Spirit is taken into her person; she is raised to the level
of God the Spirit; only God can beget the Son of God. Only
Mary, taken into and identified with God the Holy Spirit, can
bear a Holy One, a Son of God.

The Intellectual Blindness of Churches and

Theologies
It is strange that none of the great theologians of our day,
in formulating their detailed theologies of the Holy Spirit,
even mention Luke's text about the coming of the Spirit to
Mary. Jürgen Moltmann's excellent The Spirit of Life (1992)
and Michael Welker's interesting God the Spirit (1994) leave
this important passage (Luke 1:35) out entirely. Heribert
Mühlen, a specialist in the Holy Spirit, cites the text three
times in his 760-page El Espíritu Santo en la Iglesia (1974),
but without mentioning Mary; he refers only to the Spirit's
role in begetting the Son. Yves M. J. Congar, who wrote the
most massive treatise on the Holy Spirit, I Believe in the
Holy Spirit (1997, three volumes in French and one in
English with 728 pages), mentions the text only in passing;
he too never refers to the coming of the Spirit upon Mary,
but only to the begetting of the Son of God.
It is true that our distinguished Belgian-Brazilian colleague
José Comblin—in his intriguing O tempo da açao (1982), in
the more systematic O Espírito Santo e a libertaçao (1987),
and in his great posthumous work O Espírito Santo e a
tradição de Jesus (2012)—does refer to the feminine and
maternal dimension of the Spirit, but even he does not
mention the Lucan passage on the
spiritualization/pneumatization of Mary, or present her as
the one who reveals the feminine, maternal face of God.
My point is simply to observe the blindness of a
masculinizing, patriarchal theology to these texts, which
speak of Mary and the feminine side of God. Some very
outstanding theologians are affected by it. Their masculine
blinders keep them from seeing these realities, rendered
invisible and unimportant by our culture and our churches,
which are only concerned with men and masculinity. God is
masculine, Jesus is a man, and the Roman Catholic Church is
led exclusively by men, usually men of advanced age. The
anthropological categories of masculinity and femininity
have not yet been discovered as important principles in the
life of both men and women, and in our understanding of
God.
Thus the great theological erudition of the European
writers on the Holy Spirit is not enough. We also need a self-
critical awareness of our social location and of the ways our
masculinity conditions all our theological reflection.
More seriously, even most women theologians have
internalized a masculine image of the Divine; thus they
become hostages to the christology of the Son of God made
man and fail to grasp the divine element in their reality as
women. They have become dependent on the theology of
men. They have not discovered, or known how to express,
the relationship of the Holy Spirit to women's life and the
role of Mary in the mystery of salvation, which shows us the
face of God the Mother, of infinite tenderness and
compassion. This omission on the part of women
theologians only strengthens the excessive patriarchalism
and machismo of the hierarchical Church, and holds back
the struggle for the full liberation of women in society.
 The Dwelling of the Spirit in Mary: Her
Spiritualization/Pneumatization
The most immediate theological basis for identifying the
affinity of the Spirit with the feminine, specifically with Mary,
is on the first page of the Bible: “So God created humankind
in his image, in the image of God he created them; male
and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). That is,
something in God is responsive to both male and female;
and something in both male and female refers back to God.
The masculine and the feminine are both places for the
revelation of God's nature; both are human paths that lead
us to God, and divine paths that lead us to humankind, male
and female.
We know that male and female should not be understood
in genital, sexual terms (God is beyond sexuality), but as
fundamental principles of human existence, qualities that
are present in every man and every woman (animus and
anima).
In Hebrew and Syriac, the word Spirit (ruah) is feminine. In
both the First and the Second Testaments the Spirit is
associated with some actions that are primarily (but not
exclusively) considered feminine, relating to motherhood:
conceiving, caring, helping, inspiring, protecting, accepting,
forgiving, comforting. Even tenting or dwelling, shekinah in
Hebrew and skené in Greek, was considered part of the
feminine reality. In the First Testament, wisdom is identified
with the Holy Spirit (Wisdom of Solomon 9:17), loved and
sought after like a woman, a source of life, intimacy, and
serene joy (Sirach 14:20–27).
The French theologian A. Lemonnyer has rightly said: “The
Holy Spirit is the Divine Person who was ‘given’ to us in a
special way, and is called the Gift of God par excellence. In
the Trinity one of its names is love. These qualities belong to
a mother more than anyone else, and in a way they define
her. The Holy Spirit is the personification of love at its most
selfless, most generous, most self-giving, like the love of a
mother” (quoted by Congar, El Espíritu Santo, 597).

The Spirit Engenders the Holy Humanity of the Son

By the intimacy and density of its presence in Mary, the
Holy Spirit revealed what it has always been in creation: the
Spiritus Creator, the Creative and Generative Spirit that
brought order out of chaos and penetrated all the creative
movement of evolution. Just as the Spirit set the first
creation in motion, now it engendered a definitive creation
in the novissimus Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), the Son of
God in our human condition. The holy humanity of Jesus of
Nazareth comes from Mary through the generative power of
the Holy Spirit.
Let us not indulge our indiscreet curiosity about how this
sacred event happened. We should reverently respect the
biblical witness, which chooses not to go into such details.
The surprising and wonderful thing is that at this moment
in history, a woman is at the center. A simple woman,
uneducated like all the women of her time, but responsive
to God's call and openly accepting the Spirit. Suddenly the
Spirit draws her into itself, and she is pneumatized. She is
the Spirit-bearer par excellence, for it has come to dwell in
her permanently. The Spirit is acting through her. Therefore
(dià óti) the humanity taken on by the Son, Jesus of
Nazareth, is growing within her. Mary is the temple where
the Spirit and the Son will dwell by the will of the Father of
infinite mercy, who is also present in Mary's husband Joseph
of Nazareth; in my view the Father was totally personified in
him (L. Boff, St. Joseph, 2009). We can see the whole Divine
Family, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in that humble, hard-
working and devout family.

The Spiritualization/Pneumatization of Mary Radiates

Out to Womanhood and All Creation
 The spiritualization/pneumatization of Mary is not only
about her. Mary belongs to the human community, men as
well as women. We are all touched by this trinitarian event
of infinite tenderness and mercy, revealed through the
Person of the Holy Spirit. Something in us has become
divine, brought into the Kingdom of the Trinity by Mary.
Something of our warm, mortal humanity has become
eternal.
Womanhood in all its expressions, ever since the
emergence of sexuality two billion years ago, has been
moving toward this culmination. Somewhere deep in the
female nature, a welcoming cradle was being prepared for
the arrival of the Spirit. At a given moment in history, when
the time was right, it all opened up. That was when the
eternal Spirit pitched its tent in Mary, a woman of the
people.
The feminine side of both men and women was touched
and spiritualized/pneumatized in this event. We have come
to the fullness of time. We can see where evolution is going,
although it is not yet fully realized; at that time women and
the whole universe will achieve fulfillment and convergence.
Then the Kingdom of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, will break through from outside and inside. From the
beginning the Spirit has been working quietly within the
process of evolution, to bring it to full fruition.
 10

The Universe
Temple and Field of Action of the Holy Spirit

We turn now to a relatively new theme of pneumatological

reflection: the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the universe
as we know it today, through the new cosmology and earth
sciences. Two books by Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life
(1992) and God in Creation (1993), reflect an unusually wide
range of elements from the new cosmology.
This aspect is almost absent, or touched on only
tangentially, in most writings on the Holy Spirit. In Y.
Congar's voluminous El Espíritu Santo (1983), only 10 out of
more than 700 pages are devoted to the subject of creation.
He cites important sources from the Fathers of the Church,
but does not enter into dialogue with today's understanding
of the world and its relevance to pneumatological reflection.
Few theologians bring this dialogue into their reflection,
although we need it for a better understanding of God, the
Trinity, and the Holy Spirit. I have attempted to do so in a
book researched and co-written with Mark Hathaway, a
Canadian expert in the new cosmology, titled The Tao of
Liberation: Exploring the Ecology of Transformation (2013).
The book received a gold medal in science and cosmology
from Nautilus Book Awards.

The New Cosmology: An Overview

 We begin with a simplified overview of the new
cosmology, enough to identify the presence and action of
the Holy Spirit in the process of evolution and in our life
(summarized in L. Boff, “An Ecological View of the Cosmos,”
in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor, 35–62).
One of the greatest revolutions in our understanding of
reality occurred less than a century ago, when the scientific
community noticed that change, not stability, is the natural
state of the universe. In 1924 the US astronomer Edwin P.
Hubble (1889–1953) proved that the universe is expanding.
It all began with the “Big Bang,” a great silent explosion
(there was not yet any space to carry the noise) which still
echoes today in microwave radiation from across the
universe. Observing the light from the most distant galaxies,
we know by their reddish hue (the Doppler effect) that they
are moving away from ours. Calculating the speed of light,
scientists deduced that the universe appeared about 13.7
billion years ago.
Thus we see an expanding universe, which becomes more
complex as it expands; with complexity it becomes more
inner-directed, which in turn moves it toward subjectivity
and consciousness. It follows that a universe that has a
beginning, that changes, and evolves will also have a
history. That history can be told at different stages in its
development. It is being told today by cosmology,
astrophysics, quantum physics, and evolutionary biology.
We human beings also have a place in this process. Life,
consciousness, intelligence, creativity, and love are among
the manifestations of this cosmic history. Through us the
universe can look at itself, think about itself, and wonder at
its majestic beauty. Nothing in this universe is isolated,
unconnected, or simply accidental. Everything is connected
to everything else in an intricate network; thus we are all
interdependent.
For the past 500 years, the dominant paradigm of a
mechanistic, fragmented science has blinded us to these
interconnections. We see things one by one, disconnected
from the Whole, which erodes our sense of belonging to the
real cosmic community—although that belonging was
obvious and deeply felt by all the ancient peoples and
cultures, especially our own indigenous cultures.

The Main Acts of the Cosmic Drama

Here is a summary of the main acts in this great cosmic
drama.
Before there was a “before,” that is, before space, before
time (at point zero), before anything else, what was there? It
cannot have been nothing, because nothing can come out of
nothing. There was the Unknowable, the Unnamable, and
the Mystery. Cosmologists use a term that means just the
opposite of what the words say: what existed was the
“quantum vacuum.” It is anything but a vacuum; it
represents the fullness of all the possibilities that may
emerge and decay, that is, be realized in existing beings.
Some use a more descriptive phrase, like “the original
source of everything” or “the abyss” that gives rise to
everything that has been or can be. Others, more
specifically, call it the “deep energy” that preexists all other
forms of energy and all other beings. It sustains and
penetrates everything, causes everything to expand and
evolve. We might describe it as a boundless ocean of
seething energy, waiting to become.
Out of this “generative abyss” a tiny point emerged,
millions of times smaller than the head of a pin, seething
with energy at a temperature of many billions of degrees. At
some moment beyond time, the point expanded to the size
of an atom and then of an apple. Then suddenly, no one
knows how or why, it exploded.
That unique event gave rise to an infinite number of
elementary particles: hadrons, quarks, leptons, neutrinos,
and others. They are all virtual, that is, particles of pure
energy, without mass. Without mass there can be no matter.
On July 4, 2012, the Large Hadron Collider of the European
Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) discovered the
Higgs field in which the Higgs boson moves, which is
sometimes called “the God particle.” Matter emerges when
elementary particles enter the Higgs field and acquire mass.
The Higgs field is a kind of viscous fluid like the ether
described by Aristotle and classical physics; it fills the
universe, confers mass on the energy particles, converts
them into matter, and thus continually creates the universe.
Theologically speaking, this “God's particle” is the means
by which God created and goes on creating everything that
exists. It would be a theological mistake to call it the “God
particle,” because God is not a particle or a part of the
world, but rather the Creator and Sustainer of the world.
These particles, and the energy contained in the “big
bang,” exploded into a kind of cloud of energy and
subatomic and atomic particles. Now space and time could
come into being. Gradually the cloud began to cool,
although its temperature was still a billion degrees. It
expanded, and space and time expanded with it. The first
nuclei of hydrogen and free protons came into being. Within
the first half hour much of the original matter, from which
we would all emerge, was formed with nuclei of hydrogen
and helium, the simplest elements in the universe.
With that expansion the cloud cooled enough to become
denser, and stable atoms began to form with their own
nuclei and electrons. After a billion years, the shapeless
cloud of energy and primordial matter condensed further
and gave rise to large red stars. They burned for four billion
years, consuming hydrogen and helium, and acting as huge
ovens in which most of the physical-chemical elements we
know were forged.
Then after all this time, they exploded into supernovas of
breathtaking splendor. The elements were flung out in all
directions, creating more space as they expanded. The
supernovas became more concentrated, forming billions of
galaxies, each one with billions of stars. The other physical-
chemical elements came into being inside the stars: heavier
elements like carbon, silicon, oxygen, nitrogen, and others.
Among these stars was the first Sun, the forerunner of our
Sun.
These stars also exploded, flinging out their elements and
cosmic dust in all directions, over millions of years. Thus the
present galaxies, stars, and our Sun were formed. The
elements forming within them made possible the
development of organic life, including human life. We all
come from the same source. We are all linked and re-linked
by a fundamental unity.
Two forces make the creativity of the universe possible,
and hold it in dynamic equilibrium: contraction and
expansion. The force of contraction is gravity, which limits
the speed of expansion. Expansion is the force generated by
the great explosion, which flings everything out in all
directions. It did not have to happen just that way. If the
force of gravity were a little greater, for example, the
universe would have contracted into a black hole. If it were
a little weaker, the great red stars could not have formed;
life would be impossible.
The two forces limit and balance each other, making
possible an ordered expansion that gives rise to increasingly
complex, advanced structures. This suggests that the
cosmos did not come about by chance. On the contrary,
from the very beginning its evolution and endless creativity
were sustained by these two forces.

Continuing Creation: Cosmogenesis

Creation did not only happen once, at the beginning. It
happens through a continuing process of interaction
between the two forces of attraction and expansion. For this
reason we are not really talking about cosmology but
cosmogenesis, the ongoing genesis of the universe.
This process of continuing creation goes through unique
stages, each of which happens once and leads to all the
others. Thus, for example, there was only one moment
when the galaxies could have formed, not earlier or later. If
that moment had not occurred, our cosmos would have
remained an unstructured mix of energy and primordial
matter. A universe like that would not meet the conditions
for the emergence of life and consciousness. This shows
that there is an underlying purpose in all processes, leading
from one to another.
Thus from the beginning the cosmos was predisposed and
oriented toward producing life and consciousness, at just
the right time and at a certain level of complexity. If
everything had not happened as it did, we would not be
here reflecting on these things. Somehow the universe
“knew” that life and consciousness would emerge, millions
of years later.
The universe is always expanding, always creating, always
self-organizing, moving toward ever higher and more
complex orders, connecting everything with everything else.

The Cosmogenic Principle

The whole process of open evolution displays three
characteristics, which express its internal dynamic. Together
they make up the cosmogenic principle (O Tao da
Libertacão, 387).
The first is its increasing complexity, or differentiation.
This complexity first arose when two hadrons, two quarks,
or protons came together; that relationship led to the
creation of a new order. As the complexity increased, atoms,
dense matter, cells, bodies, living organisms, and conscious,
intelligent beings came into being.
 The second characteristic is interiority or subjectivity. As
beings become more complex, it seems that they turn
inward and develop an inner existence. This leads to a
certain subjectivity as each one establishes its way of
relating to others, self-organizing, and entering on the
historical scene of evolution. From this we know that all
beings are historical; each in its own way participates in a
cosmic, mineral, vegetable, or animal level of
consciousness, and finally in the human level of reflective
consciousness.
The third characteristic is the interrelatedness or
connectivity of everything with everything else, which can
be called a Relational Matrix or communion of the whole.
The universe is not the sum of existing entities, but the
relationship among all the existing networks that tie all the
parts together, making us all interdependent. This gives rise
to a universe that is one and diverse, dynamic and
meaningful.
In the words of the renowned cosmologist Brian Swimme:
“If it were not for complexity [differentiation], the universe
would collapse into a homogeneous mass; if it were not for
interiority [subjectivity], the universe would be an inert,
dead place; if it were not for interrelationship [communion],
the universe would become a collection of isolated
singularities” (Universe Story, 73).
Thus everything is in motion, interrelated, and moving
toward higher and more complex levels. Everything is in
some way alive and full of messages. All beings can hear
each other's history over the millions of years of evolution.
The mountain converses with the wind, and with the energy
of the sun and the cosmos. The woods and forests hear the
voice of the rain, of the clouds, and of the communities—the
quadrillions of micro-organisms, insects, birds, and animals
—that live within them. It is human beings who can hear the
message of all these beings, of the starry sky, and of their
own hearts.
 This means that evolution is not produced by accidental
mutations, but by the primordial forces that create
complexities, structured orders, and endless
interconnections. The universe is upheld by the power of the
cosmogenic principle, by cooperation among all things, and
not by the survival of the strongest. Life spread across the
planet Earth, not by the elimination of difference, but by
relationships in which different beings exchanged matter
and energy in a way that enabled the universe to become
what it is.

The Living Earth, Gaia, Moved by the Energy of the

Spirit
Let us skip over the stages of cosmic evolution and focus
on our planet Earth. It emerged 4.54 billion years ago.
Located at just the right distance from the sun, it possessed
all the conditions for the emergence of life. Life developed
3.8 billion years ago, in some primitive ocean or ancestral
swamp, in the form of a bacterium, the mother of all living
things. Micro-organisms make up 95 percent of all living
beings; there are more than ten billion of them in a single
spoonful of earth. That was the beginning of an intense
dialogue between living beings and the energies of the
universe, the Sun and the Earth.
The atmosphere and the biosphere are creations of both
the Earth and living beings, which made it a favorable
habitat in which to reproduce. But scientific research shows
that life is found not only on the earth's surface. Earth itself
is alive; we call it Gaia, the name given by Greek mythology
to the Earth as a living being. Many cultures express the
same belief; until the dawn of the modern age they called
her the Great Mother, or Pachamama.
Life entered a new stage of complexity between seven
and nine million years ago with the emergence of
Australopithecus, an anthropoid ancestor with some
characteristics foreshadowing human nature. Humanity
itself appeared some 150,000 years ago with the
emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens sapiens.
In the 1950s, with the discovery of DNA in living cells, we
began to learn something surprising: all living organisms—
from the most primitive bacteria, to forests and dinosaurs,
to human beings—are formed out of the physical-chemical
elements that developed in the heart of the great red stars
and supernovas. We all share the same basic genetic
alphabet: twenty amino acids and four nucleobases. That
means we are all relatives, one another's brothers and
sisters; we are all part of the great community of life, part of
the earthly and cosmic community.
Consciousness and spirit represent the culmination of the
cosmogenic process. Since intelligent, conscious beings are
part of the universe, it is through us that the universe
perceives and thinks about itself. When we look at the starry
sky, or at the exuberant immensity of the Amazon basin
traversed by immense rivers, through us the universe is
seeing itself and marveling at its indescribable beauty. We
have spirit and consciousness because they were already
here in the universe. Through us the universe is aware of
itself, and this awareness grows along with our ability to
broaden the horizons of our minds and our hearts.

The Purpose of the Cosmogenic Process

We have seen that there is deep and coherent meaning in
the evolutionary process, as if there were a kind of
“attractor” that pulls all beings in a specific direction. We
evolved from the original energies into subatomic particles;
then into atoms that coalesced into separate entities and,
later, organisms; from organisms into more complex
vertebrates with a diffuse consciousness, and then to the
reflective consciousness of human beings. We have to see
an upward-pointing arrow here. And today we are moving
from the local to the national, from the national to the
global, from the global to the universal, open to totality,
recognizing ourselves as an important chapter in the history
of the universe.
Something about human beings refuses to think of things
as simply scattered about, thrown together any which way.
They see an organizing principle that brings things together
to form a cosmos instead of chaos. They sense that a
powerful and loving Energy is in action, upholding,
preserving, and moving things forward together. They dare
to give a name to this mysterious and fascinating reality.
They give it names inspired by veneration and respect.
What is more they can enter into dialogue with it, celebrate
it with rituals, dances, and feasts. They feel it as an inner
enthusiasm (from the Greek word for a “god” within). It
inspires feelings of reverence, devotion, and worship.
Today's neuroscientists have identified what they call a
“God point” in the brain (Zohar, La inteligência espiritual,
2000). They have observed a spike of activity in the frontal
lobes of the brain whenever human beings, male or female,
are confronted with what they consider absolutely important
(what Paul Tillich called “ultimate concern,” as we saw
earlier), or a feeling of connection with the Whole.
This suggests an evolutionary advantage: human beings
are able to perceive the presence of the Mysterious and
Ineffable in reality. We respond with attitudes of respect and
reverent silence. Just as we have external sense organs that
enable us to see, hear, and smell, we have an internal organ
that enables us to feel God's presence in all things. God is
not in the “God point”; God is everywhere, but this internal
organ can sense God's presence and activity in all things
and in the whole universe.

The Universe as the Temple of the Spirit

 We have now laid out the principal data from which to
reflect on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the
universe. First, however, we should emphasize the affinity
between our concept of the cosmos as an intricate network
of relationships and the Christian understanding of God.
Christianity is able, without multiplying the one God, to
think of God as a Trinity of divine Persons. These Persons are
permanently interrelated, woven together in communion
and love, so intimately and completely that they are unified
in one God-Trinity.
If God is a relational Reality, it clearly follows that God's
creation, the whole universe, also bears the mark of
relationality. In the language of quantum physics,
“Everything is related to everything, everywhere, at every
moment.” Everything has been created in the image and
likeness of God-Trinity-relationship-communion.
Judaeo-Christian tradition attributes the creation and
ordering of the universe to the Father, but more specifically
to the Spirit of the Father. The tradition places it at the
beginning (Genesis 1:1–2, 2:7) and at the end (Revelation
22:17). In the beautiful words of the Wisdom of Solomon,
“The spirit of the Lord has filled the world” (1:7). The Latin
word Spiritus means breath: “Your immortal Spirit is in all
things” (12:1). The Spirit is life and it is vivicans, “the giver
of life,” as we say in the Creed. If that is so, then we can say
that the powerful and loving Energy that came before there
was a “before,” the deep Energy and the Principle that
nourishes all things, was always a manifestation of the Holy
Spirit.
Indeed the Holy Spirit, because it is God (the Third Person
of the Trinity), transcends all representation and existence
itself. But its action, which theology calls “the energies of
the Spirit,” begins in the trinitarian circle and moves
outward. Deep Energy is one of its manifestations. The Spirit
acted in the “big bang,” creating the perfect balance that
made possible the emergence of matter, the great red stars,
the galaxies and stars of the second and third generation,
the planets, the Earth, and the beings that inhabit it,
including ourselves.
The Spirit was moving the evolutionary process forward
and upward: the process of cosmogenesis, the genesis of
the universe that is still becoming and is not yet fully born.
It is the Propulsor that pushes everything from behind, and
the great Attractor that pulls the universe forward like an
arrow, despite the collision of galaxies and massive
extinctions of its biotic capital, toward more complex and
orderly forms of life.
Since the Spirit is life and the giver of life, it was always
present in the life of the bacteria, the plants, the animals,
and the human beings in whom God breathed the breath
(spirit) of life (Genesis 2:7).
The Spirit was especially present when it “pitched its tent”
in Mary, taking up permanent residence in her (Luke 1:35).
That is how, by the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18,
Luke 1:35), the one was born who was later revealed as “the
last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), the fulfillment of
humanity, Jesus of Nazareth, on whom “the Holy Spirit
descended in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22, John
1:32), and who continued to guide and inspire him
throughout his life (Luke 4:1, 18). It is the Spirit who raised
up Jesus—and thereby made a revolution in evolution, by
inaugurating a life without entropy, anticipating the
culmination of the cosmogenic process (cf. Romans 1:4; 1
Timothy 3:16). It is the Spirit who initiated the Church at
Pentecost, to preserve Jesus’ legacy for all peoples (Acts
2:33). It is the Spirit who lives in us as in a temple (1
Corinthians 6:19).
In the words of Jürgen Moltmann, one of the few
theologians who has studied the relationship between the
Spirit and the cosmos: “God, the Creator of heaven and
earth, is present in every creature and in the communion of
creation through the cosmic Spirit. God's presence
penetrates the whole universe. God is not only the creator
of the world, but the Spirit of the universe. By the powers
and the possibilities of the Spirit, the Creator dwells in the
creatures, giving them life, sustaining their existence, and
leading them toward the future Kingdom. In this sense the
history of the universe, of creation, is the history of the
effects of the divine Spirit” (Doctrina ecológica da criação,
1993, 33).

“The Spirit Sleeps in the Stone, Dreams in the

Flower…”
Christians consider it a sign of faith that the Son of the
Father was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, by the power of
the Spirit. We say little or nothing about God dwelling in
creation. An old, anonymous saying expresses it this way:
“The Spirit sleeps in the stone, dreams in the flower,
awakens in the animals, and knows it is awake in human
beings.” The point is that the Spirit is present in different
ways. It becomes manifest as an explosion of energy, as
matter in movement, as a principle of life, and as an
awakener of consciousness. It inspires great dreams that
lead to creativity, for the Spirit is God's own dream; it builds
courage, provokes holy rage against injustice, inspires a cry
for liberation, and acts as a power of communion and
communication.
Being in the universe, the Spirit participates in all the
events in the universe: in the great explosions of
supernovas, the collision of galaxies, the extinction of living
species on earth. It rejoices with creation, suffers with it,
cries out with its creatures, sighs with them for liberation
(Romans 8:22–24). The dwelling of God (shekinah) in the
temple, representing the presence of the Spirit among the
people, goes into exile with them and returns with them.
The Spirit can even be “quenched” or “grieved” by the
human drama (1 Thessalonians 5:19, Ephesians 4:30).
 Remember that one characteristic of the cosmogenic
process is the emergence of complexity, diversity, and the
interdependence of all beings. We have already seen the
same characteristics in the Spirit: the diversity of gifts (1
Corinthians 12:7–11), and at the same time a relationship of
service to all for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7). The
Spirit moves us toward differentiation (biodiversity and the
diversity of charisms), and at the same time toward
communion and relationship, forming one body, a complex
unity (1 Corinthians 12:13).
All these affirmations seem natural in a pneumatological
reading of the universe, since everything was created in the
Spirit and manifests the presence and action of the Spirit.
We are the temple of the Spirit, and the universe—including
all its beings, especially human beings—is its field of action.

The Spirit and the New Heaven and New Earth

The universe is still in a process of genesis, as we are. We
are still on a journey through time, moving toward the
future, showing what the Spirit has hidden in us, what will
gradually be revealed in us through the power of the Spirit.
All time is filled with the Spirit: it is in the beginning of
creation; it moves upward through all the stages; and it will
be there at the end when all beings achieve the fulfillment
anticipated in the Mystery. Everything is renewed and
revived when the Spirit is poured out on creation, “and the
wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is
deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of
righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness,
quietness and trust forever” (Isaiah 32:15–17).
That is how the Bible describes the good end of the
universe: the moment when the Spirit will prevail over all
the divergent and hostile powers of life, and will bring about
a new heaven and a new earth (Joel 2:28–32; Revelation
21:1). We will all be drawn together into the dynamic and
loving life of the Trinity.
That is the beginning of the true history without entropy,
an evolution that penetrates ever more deeply into the
ineffable Source of all Being, all Goodness, all Love, that
connects and reconnects everything with everything else
and with the Source.
In our own time, the interim before the beginning of
timelessness, we hear within us the comforting words of
Revelation: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let
everyone who hears [as we do] say, ‘Come.’ And let
everyone who is thirsty [as we are] come. Let anyone who
wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:17).
Veni, Creator Spiritus, veni!
 11

The Church, Sacrament of the

Holy Spirit

The second great work of the Holy Spirit was to create the
community of the followers of Jesus, the Church. The Church
is a complex reality. It is made up of three elements: the
historical Jesus, dead and risen; the coming of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost; and its own sociocultural conditioning.

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus: Preconditions

for the Birth of the Church
We cannot imagine the Church without Jesus Christ, but it
is not—as we used to say from an ecclesiocentric
perspective—the continuation of Christ in history. The
Church does in fact continue and deepen the cause of
Christ, but it is not Christ; its nature is different from his.
Jesus, the man, is God. The Church, being human, possesses
elements of divinity but is not God.
There is not a linear connection between Christ and the
Church, because the connection between them was broken
with Jesus’ execution on the cross and with his
abandonment by the disciples, except for the women who
remained faithful to him.
It was not Jesus’ intention to establish the Church, but to
proclaim and inaugurate the Reign of God (Mark 1:15,
Matthew 4:17). Although Matthew refers three times to the
Church (Matthew 16:18, 18:17 and 18), the other gospel
writers—Mark, Luke, and John—never use the word
“church.” Everything is focused on his message of the Reign
of God. Jesus “failed” because the people did not accept the
good news of the Kingdom, and because Peter betrayed him
and the other followers ran away.
In the elegant words of Alfred Loisy (1857–1940, L'église
et l'évangile, 1902, 111), Jesus preached the Kingdom, but it
was the Church that came. Jesus’ perspective was
apocalyptic and eschatological, assuming the imminent
irruption of the Kingdom. “Truly I tell you, there are some
standing here who will not taste death until they see that
the kingdom of God has come with power” (Mark 9:1). “Truly
I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of
Israel before the Son of Man comes” (Matthew 10:23). “Truly
I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these
things have taken place” (Mark 13:30). Jesus also said that
only the Father knows the exact time of arrival of the
Kingdom (Mark 13:32; Matthew 24:42–44); but he and all
the early Christians expected it to come soon, very soon.
Jesus also expressed this expectation with symbolic acts.
The gathering of the Twelve symbolized the reconstitution of
the twelve tribes of Israel, an eschatological sign well
documented by biblical scholars (Ratzinger, O destino de
Jesus e a Iglesia, 1969, 14). The important thing here is the
number twelve, not their identity as Apostles. We see this
clearly in Mark's gospel, which speaks only of “the Twelve”
(Mark 3:14–16, 4:10, 6:7–35, 9:35, 10:32, 11:11, 14:10–17).
Only after the resurrection and Pentecost, with the decision
to evangelize the world, are they called the twelve
“Apostles,” that is, sent out.
The Last Supper is another apocalyptic-eschatological
sign. Jesus participated in many meals, especially with
sinners, as a sign that God's grace and forgiveness are
freely offered to everyone. But the Last Supper has a
special, eminently eschatological character as a foretaste of
the heavenly feast in the Kingdom.
The Church did not yet have an organic connection with
the Last Supper, as we know from Luke's narrative. There
Jesus says: “‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer; for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is
fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’ Then he took a cup, and
after giving thanks he said, ‘Take this and divide it among
yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of
the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’” (Luke
22:15–19).
The texts speak for themselves, showing us what Jesus
expected to happen. The meal did not become a habitual
practice until after the resurrection, Pentecost, and the
establishment of ecclesial communities; then it was
interpreted and celebrated as the presence of the Risen
One, as a reenactment of his sacrificial act and a time of
community sharing. That is when it became the Eucharist.
Two things made possible the existence of the Church: the
“failure” of Jesus, and his resurrection. He “failed” because
he was rejected and executed. If the Kingdom had been
accepted there would have been no place for the Church,
only for the Kingdom. The Church came later, as a renewal
of Jesus’ effort to preach the Kingdom and spread his dream
to the whole world. But that could happen only because of
the resurrection, which showed that he had not really failed.
The resurrection was God's answer to Jesus’ faithfulness. It
was the fulfillment of the dream of the Kingdom in the
person of Jesus. He became the complete renewal of the
world. The resurrection was like a cameo picture of the good
end of God's beloved creation. Thus together, death and
resurrection opened the way for the emergence of the
Church.

The Historical Birth of the Church at Pentecost

 This vision would remain incomplete, and the Church
would not have emerged, if the surprising, mysterious event
of Pentecost had not occurred (Acts 2). There the Holy Spirit
came down on the frightened community as the Spirit of
Christ in the form of tongues of fire, and everyone began to
speak in tongues. The Jews and other devout people from
different parts of the world heard their strange way of
speaking, and came to see what was happening. Parthians,
Medes, people from Asia, Egypt, Libya, and other places
were amazed to hear people speaking their languages (Acts
2:1–13), and they all understood the same message in their
own languages.
Suddenly the confusion of languages, which had begun at
Babel when no one could understand anyone else, was
overcome. Here there were still many languages, but
everyone heard the liberating message Peter was
preaching: Jesus was crucified but was now alive, raised up
to become the Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36); he had brought
reconciliation with God to all who believed in him. Many
people were “cut to the heart,” converted and were
baptized, and they too received the gift of the Holy Spirit
(Acts 2:38).
Thus the Church was born through the irruption of the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost. For a while the apostolic community
remained in Jerusalem, worshiping at the temple. They were
surely waiting for the end of time, since an ancient prophecy
said that one of the signs of the end would be the
outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh; at Pentecost Peter had
explicitly cited the prophecy of Joel (Acts 2:16–21; Joel 3:1–
5). Pentecost had come upon them as the fulfillment of the
old prophecy.
Since they were sure the end was coming soon, it made
no sense to have and accumulate worldly goods. They sold
their possessions, kept everything in common, and
practiced a communal form of consumption (Acts 2:42–45).
The author of Acts adds admiringly that there were no poor
among them.
Gradually, however, they realized that the end of time was
not yet coming. They discovered that time and history still
lay ahead of them. It would be the time of the Spirit, time to
spread the message of Jesus, the time of the Church. And
other things were happening: the difficulty of converting the
Jews, the persecution and torture of church members, the
martyrdom of James by the sword on Herod's orders (in the
year 42, Acts 12:1–6), the arrest of Peter, and especially the
surprising conversion of the Gentiles and of a high Roman
official, Cornelius (Acts 10). It was time to make a decision:
to break away from the small Jewish world and turn to the
Gentiles.
But that led to a thorny question: Did they need to retain
circumcision (the Jewish equivalent of baptism) as a way of
showing the continuity between Judaism and Christianity, or
should they set that rite aside and set out on a new,
exclusively Christian path? (Acts 15:1–6). The apostles
debated the issue at length, in the presence of Paul and
Barnabas. At the famous Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:6–33)
they listened to the arguments on each side. Finally they
decided “that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are
turning to God” (Acts 15:19).
That was when they first spoke the famous words that
have echoed through the centuries, whenever the Church is
faced with decisions affecting all its members: “For it has
seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you
no further burden than these essentials” (Acts 15:28).
Therefore, the Jewish rite of circumcision would not be
imposed on the new Gentile converts; they would become
members of the Christian community by conversion and
baptism. It was a victory for Christian freedom, the goal
advocated by Paul, the prince of the gospel of freedom for
the sons and daughters of God.
 The Church was becoming increasingly convinced that the
Risen Lord is not the one who comes to judge the living and
the dead, but the one who went up to heaven, as Luke tells
it in the story of Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:6–11). Since the
coming of the Kingdom has been delayed, the Church can
now look forward and organize itself for mission.
Thus begins a brave process of re-reading the life and
work of Jesus. The apostolic community begins to see the
Twelve, whose number was important for its symbolism, as
the twelve Apostles (in Greek, sent out; missionaries). They
begin organizing communities and establishing its
leadership: “bishops,” presbyters, deacons, and other
services to the community, many of them charismatic in
nature. They bring together the message of Jesus, which
was scattered around the different communities (probably in
the form of notebooks: a book of Jesus’ sayings; a book of
miracles; a book of parables; the story of his passion, death,
and resurrection; and others). They stitch these materials
together, organizing them in themes. Thus we have the four
gospels, researched and redacted by people identified as
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, representing the
communities to which they belonged. They begin to
celebrate the Eucharist as a way of reenacting the presence
of the Risen Lord and his sacrifice of love; they also develop
other liturgical celebrations that reflect basic elements of
the creed, the identity document of the newly forming
community.
Peter and Paul become the leading witnesses to this new
reality. Peter, because he was the first to confess faith in
Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God (Matthew 16:16).
But let us be clear: the Church was not founded on the
person of Peter, whom Jesus once called “Satan” and “a
stumbling block” (Matthew 16:23), because of his failure to
understand Jesus’ destiny as the suffering Servant. Peter's
confession of faith had led Jesus to change his name from
Simon to Peter; “on this rock I will build my church” (16:18),
that is, on this confession of faith. Indeed the best definition
of the real, concrete Church is communitas fidelium: a
community of faith, a community of those who profess the
same faith that Peter professed earlier.
Paul was the second great witness. He did not know the
historical Jesus (in the flesh), but he had a personal
experience of the risen Jesus (in the Spirit), on the
Damascus Road where he heard a voice say: “Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me?…I am Jesus, whom you are
persecuting” (Acts 9:4–5). Without asking anyone else's
permission, Paul set out on a great mission, proclaiming
especially to the Gentiles that Jesus was the Son of God.
To call Jesus the Son of God, apart from its specific
theological content—placing Jesus in the domain of divinity
and assuming his direct relationship with the Father, since
sonship implies a Father—also carried clear and dangerous
political implications, since the emperors claimed to be the
sons of “God.” To call Jesus the only Son of God meant
directly confronting the imperial theology, risking the
accusation of the crime of lèse majesté. Paul was well aware
of this.
After making long journeys around Asia Minor and Greece,
Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James, the
pillars of the early Church. They acknowledged his specific
mission. This implied a tacit division of their religious labor:
Peter would preach to the Jews, Paul to the Gentiles. But
they agreed on one basic doctrine about the meaning of the
death and resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God and Savior,
and about the action of the Holy Spirit which inspires the
communities with its gifts and its enthusiasm.
Luke attributes this bold missionary project to the promise
of the Risen Jesus: “You will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth” (Acts 1:8).
 In St. Luke's narrative, the centrality of the Spirit gives the
Church a universal dimension. It has been sent to people of
all languages. This is why in Acts, he lists the twelve
different peoples who have heard the message of Christ's
salvation in their own tongues. In the oriental worldview,
well known to Luke and his audience, every nation is
assigned a sign of the zodiac. The people he lists in Acts
2:9–11—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and so on—correspond
exactly, in that order, to the signs of the zodiac. This is
Luke's way of expressing the universal dimension of the
Church (L. Boff, Ecclesiogenesis, 1986).
In fact the Church has the same dimensions as the Risen
One and his Spirit, which is always the Spirit of Christ. From
this perspective Irenaeus could say: “Where the Church is,
there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is,
there is the Church and all grace” (Adversus Haereses, III,
38, 1).
The Church lives by the Spirit; it is the sacrament of the
Holy Spirit. Looking closely, as we have done in earlier
chapters, the Spirit is at the root of all great works: creation
(Genesis 1:1); the formation of the people of Israel, the
appearance of political leaders (Judges 13:25; 1 Samuel
11:6); the irruption of fiery prophets (Joel 3); the
overshadowing of Mary, the conception of Jesus, his calling
at his baptism by John the Baptist, and the sudden
outpouring on the community gathered around the Apostles
in Jerusalem at Pentecost. It is the Spirit who inspires the
decision to go to the Gentiles (“it has seemed good to the
Holy Spirit and to us,” Acts 15:28), leading to the birth of a
universal Church, rather than a “sect of the Nazarenes”
(Acts 24:5, 28:22). Later, the Spirit is present in the
eucharistic epiclesis, where it is invoked to transform the
bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord.

Charisms: The Organizing Principle of the Community

 In scholastic ecclesiology the physical body of Christ was
taken as a metaphor for the Church, the mystical body of
Christ. Just as the body has many members with diverse
functions, the Church also has many members with specific
functions. That was the reasoning of the well-known
encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi by Pope Pius XII (1943),
which compared the visibility, plurality, and unity of the
Church with the physical body of Jesus.
This type of ecclesiology does not account for the
profound changes undergone by the body of Christ in the
resurrection. It was transformed from a physical body into a
spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44ff.) The spiritual body is
the new reality of the risen Jesus, in whom the
characteristics of the Spirit are no longer encapsulated in
space-time but set free in a cosmic dimension, as Paul says
in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. Now the
cosmic Christ becomes the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17), with
the characteristics and dimensions of the Spirit which fills
the earth and “blows where it chooses” (John 3:8); “and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2
Corinthians 3:17).
The Church is the body of Christ, risen and spiritualized. If
Christ's body is no longer subject to limitations, it follows
that the Church as body of Christ cannot be encapsulated in
the limited space of its doctrine, its rites, its liturgy, and its
juridical arrangements. It is important to recognize the
manifestations of the Spirit beyond the ecclesial space, in
evolution and history—and to grow with them, daring to
become more effective in response to the inevitable
mutations. These manifestations are part of the work of the
Spirit, because the history of salvation is not an alternative
to human history; it takes place within human history.
The Church must learn to see the work of the Spirit in
everyone who lives in truth and love: in social movements,
in the struggle for justice and human rights, in the poor (in
the Pentecost liturgy we call God “the father of the poor”),
who participate in the passion of Christ and yearn to be
raised up. The Spirit is active far beyond the ecclesial space,
always ahead of the missionaries, because it is present
wherever people live a life of love, forgiveness, compassion,
solidarity, and care for creation.
If the Church closes itself to the Spirit, it is in danger of
hardening, becoming a bastion of conservatism and an
instrument of oppression, and thus denying the vitality of
the Spirit.
The Spirit inspires a particular form of ecclesial
organization, different from the classical structure built
around the downward distribution of sacra potestas (sacred
power) into a few hands, from the pope to bishops,
presbyters, and deacons. That has been the prevailing
pattern, but it has created permanent internal tensions,
because it is based on communal hierarchy rather than
communal equality: “For in the one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and
we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians
12:13). Communal hierarchy is a contradiction in terms,
because communion by definition rejects hierarchy; it only
allows for functional differences that serve the common
good, within the fundamental equality of sons and
daughters of God, brothers and sisters to one another.
For Paul, the Church is a community inhabited by the
presence of the Risen Christ and inspired by the Spirit, a
community of charisms and services. Paul does not think of
charism as something extraordinary, but as normal. Charism
is simply the role a person plays in the community for the
good of all (1 Corinthians 12:7; Romans 12:4; Ephesians
4:7). There are no uncharismatic members, that is,
unemployed, without an assigned role in the community
(Romans 12:5–8).
Everyone has equal dignity; there is no room for privileges
that would disrupt the community. “The eye cannot say to
the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21).
The golden rule is that “the members may have the same
care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25).
How different this is from the hierarchical style of
organization in which a few people accumulate all the power
of voice and decision making, and hand down orders to lay
members: “Do what I say, stop asking questions.” That
would be total control of the head over the feet, the hands
over the heart. Unfortunately we forget that the Church is
built not only on the Apostles, whose authority came from
having lived with Jesus, but also on prophets (Ephesians
2:20) and teachers (Ephesians 4:11; 1 Corinthians 12:28).
The hierarchy itself is one kind of charism, for establishing
and maintaining unity, but it cannot supplant other
charisms, as it often tries to do. That is why we must take
Paul's warning seriously: “Do not quench the Spirit” (1
Thessalonians 5:19).
The work of the Spirit in the community is evident in the
great “variety of gifts,” or charisms (1 Corinthians 12:4–5),
expressed in the services listed by the Apostle (1
Corinthians 12:8–10; Romans 12:6–7; Ephesians 4:11–12).
Some of these respond to immediate needs, such as the
service of compassion (Romans 12:8), exhortation (Romans
12:8), healing and working miracles (1 Corinthians 12:9);
others respond to permanent, structural needs that must
always be attended to, such as teaching, leadership, and
the discernment of spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10; Ephesians
4:11; Romans 12:8). This arrangement gives rise to the
Church as a community of brothers and sisters, all seeking
the same goals of holiness and witness in a decadent,
sometimes hostile world.
This form of organization was not limited to the early
Church. We see it today in the Ecclesial Base Communities,
where everyone participates and different roles are shared
among everyone; also in charismatic groups and the
religious life where communion and equality prevail, and
differences are seen as riches rather than inequalities.
 Unity: One Charism among Others
All kinds of charisms and services exist in the Christian
community: “Each has a particular gift from God, one having
one kind and another a different kind” (1 Corinthians 7:7),
because “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). All charisms are
essential to the Church, but some order is needed among
them; otherwise there will be deception, competition, and
confusion among them, as Paul warned (1 Corinthians
12:12–31).
Some people speak uncontrollably in tongues, so that no
one understands anything. Paul tells them: “In church I
would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to
instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue”
(1 Corinthians 14:19). And they need an interpreter: “If
there is no one to interpret, let them be silent in church and
speak to themselves and to God” (1 Corinthians 14:28).
To resolve the occasional conflict, Paul offers love as the
greatest of all gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31). Those words have
become one of the most realistic and profound elegies in all
biblical and universal literature: “Love is patient; love is
kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It
does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Love never ends…. The greatest of these
is love” (1 Corinthians 13:4–13).
Love is the atmosphere that must infuse all relationships.
But love alone is not enough, as Paul makes clear in this
text. Without the other virtues, love is reduced to a
sentimental feeling instead of a way of life, with openness
and acceptance toward everyone.
Every community has to resolve this question: Who can
bring cohesion and coordination to the charisms that serve
the common good? One charism is needed here, one among
others, but different from them: a charism of integration,
coordination, and motivation. It is not a charism to be
accumulated, subordinating or canceling out other charisms.
This charism must be able to synthesize, to bring together,
to articulate, to strengthen some people and moderate
others who are endangering the flow of community life. This
is the function of the charism of directing, presiding,
assisting, and governing (1 Corinthians 12:18, 16:16; 1
Thessalonians 5:12; Romans 12:8).
In general we can say that there are no ministries as such
in the Second Testament, but only ministers. Thus it
sometimes speaks of episkopoi (bishops), presbiteroi
(presbyters), and diakonoi (deacons). The bishops, like the
presbyters and deacons, are not fundamentally responsible
for the sacraments and worship. The role of the bishop, in
its original sense, is to observe and arrange the proper
functioning of everything in the community. The deacon is
an assistant or helper in the leadership of the community.
The presbyter is connected to Jewish tradition: a venerable
elder, presumably wiser and more prudent, and thus
assigned to coordinate the life of the community. The
Second Testament uses these worldly terms, signifying mere
functions of service, guidance, and leadership—although
they seem strange to our ears, which are more accustomed
to imperial titles like Monsignor, Reverence, Excellency, or
Eminence.
The specific charism of people in positions of leadership,
therefore, cannot be to accumulate, but to integrate. Its
purpose is to create the necessary harmony among all the
charisms, and thus to generate a rich, complex unity in the
ecclesial community.
As we might expect, this essential charism includes others
like dialogue, patience, attentive listening, serenity,
common sense, and discernment in the face of vanity, self-
aggrandizement, or the selfish use of one's gifts. Leaders
must be able to admonish, to correct excesses, and to avoid
stifling other, simpler and less visible, charisms.
Today this function is practiced in base communities by a
coordinator, or even better, by a coordinating team; in the
parish by a parish priest; in the diocese by a bishop, and in
the universal Church by the pope. Under the charism of
unity they are generally the ones to preside at liturgical
celebrations, and they are chiefly responsible for the correct
transmission of the faith and the coordination of charity. But
this function must always be organically related to the
community and its charisms, in order not to crystallize, or
become autonomous, or degenerate into domination and
authoritarianism—the permanent temptation of power.

The Necessary Coexistence of Models of the Church

Unfortunately, this charismatic model of Church did not
prevail in history. It remained as a spirit and an atmosphere
that understands the Church as a community and
communion, reflecting the communion of the Trinity. This
spirit remained strong throughout the first millennium of the
Church's history, despite its hierarchical structure. Even so,
it never became the prevailing model. For reasons we shall
not analyze here, the prevailing model conceived of the
Church as a perfect society, hierarchical, divided into two
bodies: the priesthood and the bishops on one side, and lay
members on the other.
They are two strictly different, separated worlds, as
affirmed by Pope Gregory XVI (1831–46): “No one can
ignore that the Church is an unequal society, in which God
assigned some as rulers and others as servants. The latter
are the lay people, the former, the clergy.” Pius X (1835–
1914) raised the wall of separation even higher: “Only the
college of pastors has the right and authority to direct and
rule; the masses have no right but to be ruled as an
obedient flock that follows its shepherd” (L. Boff, Igreja:
Carisma e poder, 1982, 218). Here the leadership function is
confused with division. In a healthy ecclesiology the Church
cannot be divided in two; it has two different functions, both
of which are expressions of the community and of service to
the community.
The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) tried to resolve this
problem by thinking first about the Church as People of God
(Lumen Gentium, chapter II), and only then presenting the
hierarchical constitution of the Church (chapter III). But this
reversal was canceled out by the curial ecclesiology of the
Vatican, supported by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI;
they gave primacy to the structures of power over those of
the communion of all members, thus preventing the eagerly
awaited institutional renewal of the Church.
The synod of bishops, episcopal collegiality, and the
Pontifical Council for the Laity, all became empty structures
with no decision-making authority in the Church. Everything
was concentrated in the person of the pope. It was such an
enormous, superhuman task that Pope Benedict XVI felt that
he lacked the physical, psychic, and spiritual energy to lead
the Church. In an act of rare integrity and humility, he
resigned from the papacy on February 28, 2013. The
election of Pope Francis has brought fresh new air into the
Church. Francis sees himself more as the bishop of Rome,
presiding with love, than as a pope with monarchical power.
He is carrying out a revolution in the papacy, detaching
himself from all the symbols of power.
The vision of Popes Gregory XVI and Pius X, mentioned
above, is light-years away from that of Jesus, who said very
clearly: “But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one
teacher, and you are all [brothers and sisters]” (Matthew
23:8). Or from Paul's liberating words: “As many of you as
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer
slave or free, there is no longer male and female [and we
might add, clergy and lay people], for all of you are one in
Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:27–28).
The clericalist and exclusivist vision began to penetrate
the Church in the year 325, when the Roman emperor
Constantine assigned a political role to the clergy, and it
was made official in 392 when the Emperor Theodosius ( †
395) declared Christianity the only official state religion.
From then on the category of sacra potestas (sacred power)
became the structural axis of the whole Church. With the fall
of the empire, Leo the Great assumed the title of Pope,
which had belonged to the emperors, and gave a strict
juridical interpretation to Jesus’ words to Peter. This set the
future course for the Church as a political power with all its
magnificence, royal palaces, and courtly manners. The
customary vestments of the emperors—their purple robes,
golden staffs, shoulder capes, stoles embroidered with the
symbols of power—were now worn by the popes, who
against Christ's wishes had become lords of the world.
Now everything would hinge on the sacred power, which
would ally itself with other powers in order to strengthen its
own. The turning point came in 1075, when Pope Gregory VII
( † 1085), in his decree Dictatus Papae (the dictatorship of
the pope), proclaimed himself the bearer of two powers,
political and religious. This claim, also made by other popes,
such as Eugene III ( † 1152), was so excessive that St.
Bernard ( † 1153) denounced it, saying that “this Pope is a
successor of Constantine rather than Peter.”
In effect the popes no longer saw themselves as
successors of Peter, the humble fisherman. They became
followers of the glorious Christ, completely forgetting the
poor Jesus in the manger and the naked Jesus on the cross.
Even more, like Innocent IV ( † 1254), they declared
themselves the representatives of God. After that, as if he
were God himself, Pope Nicholas V († 1455) in the Treaty of
Tordesillas gave Portugal and Spain dominion over the lands
and riches of all the world's peoples, known and still to be
discovered, with the power to subject and enslave all who
refused to accept the Christian faith and acknowledge the
sovereignty of their respective kings.
The circle of power was closed when in 1870, under Pius
IX, the First Vatican Council declared the pope infallible
when he speaks officially on questions of morality and
doctrine, with “supreme, ordinary, complete, immediate,
and universal power” (canon 331)—in other words, power
like God's.
As the hierarchical Church grasped for more and more
power, it moved away from the people of God and from the
poor. Wherever power prevails, it closes the door to love and
mercy. Institutions built on power easily become rigid,
inflexible, conservative, and hostile to anything new. All
charisms are considered suspect; mystics are closely
watched, if not persecuted. Such institutions follow the logic
of all power, as Hobbes described it in Leviathan: “Power
always wants more power, because the only way to protect
power is with more and more power.”
The tragedy is that this situation has never been
challenged, corrected, or placed under the purifying
judgment of the Gospel and the practice of the humble,
poor Jesus, the persecuted prophet and suffering servant.
Thus our hierarchy still upholds and displays royal, courtly
manners. It is closer to Herod's palace than to the stable at
Bethlehem.
We see that strange, princely splendor in the great
celebrations on television, when cardinals and bishops
march proudly in their rich and colorful vestments. The
scandal is not lost on simple believers, when they compare
a sumptuous Christmas Mass in St. Peter's Basilica with the
roughness and poverty of the stable at Bethlehem, a refuge
for animals, where the Son of God was born.
This contradiction has apparently escaped the notice of
the men who consider themselves the successors of the
Apostles, no longer humble fishermen, but princes of this
world with all the corresponding paraphernalia and palaces.
Surely Jesus would never have built his Church on the stone
walls of the Vatican, but on the rough bricks of community
centers, where the poor come together to hear and
meditate on his Gospel.
Today two unequal models of the Church stand face to
face: one from high society, pyramidal, hierarchical,
centralized, and the other communal, horizontal,
decentralized, and egalitarian. The first prays to the
glorified Christ, the second to the Spirit, “father of the poor,
light of the heart, sweet consolation.” The second is closer
to the primitive Church, the community of brothers and
sisters, followers of the poor and humble Jesus, inspired by
the Spirit that is made manifest in the diversity of
community services (charisma). This Church is inspired by
Jesus’ dream, his Kingdom of love, justice, forgiveness, and
mercy, fully aware that in his Son Jesus we are all sons and
daughters of God.
The other model, the hierarchical pyramid, reflects the
historical process through which the hierarchy has passed,
always struggling with religious tensions and conflicts
(heresies, the confrontation between the Eastern and
Western Churches) as well as political ones (imposing and
deposing kings and princes, persecuting and being
persecuted). This model never experienced the evangelical
test of power as service. The outcome of its process was
hierarchy (sacred power) rather than the ideal of hieroduly
(sacred service) which was upheld by Jesus and the Apostles
(Mark 10:42–45; Matthew 23:11), but which was betrayed
by the degraded and sometimes corrupt institutional model.
The contradictions have not prevented this model of
Church from producing great saints—prophetic men and
women, priests, monastics, bishops, cardinals, and even
popes with outstanding virtues—who despite the
contradictions have lived Jesus’ dream of the Kingdom of
God and testified to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount.
The gospel and the legacy of Jesus have been preserved,
even in fragile and sometimes unclean vessels. We have to
claim these flaws as the flaws of our own Church, holy and
sinful, because in spite of everything it still shines with the
light of Christ and the inspiration of the Spirit.
The model of the Church as communion and web of
communities reflects a spirit that always challenges the
Church as high society and hierarchy of power, forcing it to
measure itself by the practice of Jesus—and despite its
limits, to work toward the communion that represents the
highest value of faith, the very essence of God the Trinity,
the eternal communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. These models coexist, not without tension, but
nevertheless without ever undergoing a total, schismatic
rupture.
Perhaps in the planetary stage of human history, the
future Church will move toward Paul's vision of small
communities embedded in different cultures. These
communities in turn will acquire their own faces, embrace
their differences, and join with other Christian churches and
other religions to protect the sacred flame of the Spirit
which burns in every human being, in the history of every
nation and in all humanity, and—do we dare hope for it?—in
the heart of the evolving universe itself. That is the
presence of the Kingdom of God in which the Church, in one
model or the other, is the sacrament of Christ and of his
Spirit, the Church of God.
 12

Spirituality
Life according to the Spirit

Christians in the renewed Church, especially in Latin

America, have developed their own spirituality for following
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. To follow Jesus is to
enter into his life, take on his Kingdom project, be guided by
his practice of unconditional love, especially for the poor,
and finally, suffer the same fate that he suffered. This has
happened to many people, martyred for their commitment
to justice for the poor and to their liberation: lay men and
women, religious brothers and sisters, priests, and even
bishops.
Now our task is to complete the spirituality of following
Jesus with a spirituality inspired by the theology of the Holy
Spirit. This is the spirituality that St. Paul called “living by
the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 25). The Spirit is present and
active in everything and everyone, especially where reality
is most fragile and life is in danger. Here let us point out
some of the ways we see the Spirit acting, beginning with
the lessons we learn from the universe.

The Spirit: The Energy That Infuses and Inspires

Everything
As we have seen, many cosmologists—Brian Swimme is
an important example—believe that the whole universe and
all beings are continually created, infused, and upheld by a
mysterious and unnamable Deep Energy. This energy has
been described as four great forces: gravitational,
electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear. Swimme
calls it “the all-nourishing Abyss.” It starts before “Planck's
wall,” the zero point in space and time just before the big
bang. We cannot go any further back; we only know what
happened after that first, unique beginning. What came
“before the before” is what theology calls Spiritus Creator,
the Creative Spirit.
In spiritual terms this means that whenever we are in
contact with any living or inanimate being, we are in
communion with the original Energy, without which nothing
can exist or survive. But it is not enough to know about this
Ultimate Reality; we need to feel it, rejoice in it, revere it,
and let it infuse and inspire our bodies and minds. Then we
will begin to live a cosmic spirituality, as St. Francis did. He
felt that the things around him—the flowers of the field, the
birds in the trees and the people he met—were being
permanently created and upheld by the Spirit. And he lived
this experience in terms of universal brotherhood: Brother
Sun, Sister Moon; even wolves and thieves were his brothers
and sisters.
With the help of faith and science, we can discern the
action of the Spirit in three aspects of the cosmogenic
process.
The first is the complexity of the single, immense
evolutionary process. An infinite number of original energies
and particles give rise to an infinite number of beings. The
Spirit is poured out in every direction. Reality is not simple
but extremely complex, that is, composed of innumerable
factors, energies, and elements; being emerges out of the
interaction between them. On our blue planet alone, Mother
Earth, there are billions and trillions of micro-organisms and
living beings: in a word, a wealth of biodiversity.
In terms of spirituality this means that when we open all
our senses and let ourselves be touched by this complexity,
we are experiencing the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit,
the many streams of being and life that flow from this
creative wellspring. We are filled with awe and wonder, and
sometimes we become ecstatic, speechless, and worshipful.
Interconnectedness is the second aspect of the
cosmogenic process that helps us discern the working of the
Spirit. All these beings and energies, including the virtual
energies traveling through the Higgs field, are not just
scattered around space and time. They are all woven
together in networks of interdependence, through which
they must collaborate in order to coexist and co-evolve.
The elemental particles (hadrons, quarks, protons,
neutrons, and others) join together as atoms; atoms
become molecules, which become organs, which become
organisms, which become bodies and lives; these bodies
and lives become kingdoms, species, and so on. Together
they form the great cosmic community, dynamic and open
to new ways of being.
In spiritual terms: when we contemplate the myriad stars
on a dark night; when we are amazed to see different
beings harmoniously collaborating, living with others in a
mysterious balance; when we observe the multiplicity of
cultures, ethnicities, and individuals; then we are overcome
by admiration, fascination, and the feelings of joy and awe
they produce in us. That is the Spirit, acting in the world and
in us.
The third and final characteristic of the universe is
autopoiesis, that is, its ability to go on expanding, becoming
more complex, creating itself as a network of relationships.
These relationships were established in the first moment
after the big bang, and became more closely woven within
the Higgs field, giving shape to complex, increasingly
structured orders of being. They reveal a high level of
intelligence, and give undeniable evidence of a purpose.
Looking back over 13.7 billion years of energy and matter,
we can see the arc of time moving forward and upward. The
energy in the universe became matter. Matter became life.
Life became individual consciousness. Individual
consciousness became collective and planetary
consciousness; now planetary consciousness is becoming
transcendent and universal. This is why some quantum
physicists and other scientists say the universe possesses
self-consciousness. There is consciousness in us because it
already exists in the universe. In reality we are the part of
the Earth that feels, thinks, loves, cares, and worships.
In spiritual terms: whenever we observe complex,
organized, meaningful orders of being, whether given by
nature or created by human beings to shape their lives and
organize their habitat, we are in touch with the Spirit from
God that created and ordered the world, as we know from
the first lines of the Bible (Genesis 1:1–2). The Spirit opens
our heart, stretches our intelligence, and shows us that
behind the orders we can see there is an Implicit Order
responsible for all the others, as the great physicist and
Nobel laureate David Bohm has said. The Holy Spirit is the
creator and sustainer of all these orders, explicit and
implicit.

The Spirit of Life

“The Spirit is life” (Romans 8:10). The life that comes from
the Spirit is most dramatically described by the prophet
Ezekiel, when God restores the dry bones to life, saying: “I
will cause breath [spirit] to enter you, and you shall live. I
will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon
you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you
shall live” (Ezekiel 37:5–6). Jesus of Nazareth, anointed by
the Holy Spirit, went about doing good (Acts 10:38). It was
also the Spirit who raised Jesus from among the dead.
To say that “the Spirit is life” means that the Spirit is
continually creating and sustaining life, and that the Spirit is
constantly beside and within the people whose life is
diminished. A large part of humanity, especially in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, live in a world that is alien and
hostile to life. For centuries they have been dominated by
other nations; they have been robbed of their national
resources to support the opulence of the old colonial
powers, which in our day have continued as neocolonial
powers. There has been a global division of labor: the
countries on the periphery, economically poor but
ecologically rich, are reduced to exporting “commodities”
(raw materials, grains, minerals, water, etc.) without the
added value of technological innovation, while they must
buy technological products at a high price from the rich
countries, which refuse to transfer to them the technology
that would give them relative advantage and autonomy. We
are talking about a process of neocolonization.
The end result is that those who have been exploited must
struggle to survive without the resources for a minimally
decent life. They live by struggle with no progress toward
liberation.
This poverty does not just happen. It is produced by
profoundly unequal social and economic relations which, by
increasing the wealth of the rich, generate terrible poverty
and injustice for the already impoverished majorities.
In this situation, living by the Spirit means choosing the
right to life of the poor. A spirituality that ignores the
suffering of the poor is a false spirituality, deaf to the call of
the Spirit. However much the faithful pray, sing, dance, and
celebrate, unless they are attentive to the Spirit as Pater
pauperum (Father of the poor), their prayer leads only to
self-satisfaction; it does not reach God. The Spirit and its
gifts are not in that prayer.
Jorge V. Pixley, a Baptist theologian in Nicaragua, has
expressed it well: “Unless the Holy Spirit gives life to those
who do not have life, its life-giving power is a lie. In a world
that contains a subhuman Third and Fourth World, the
spiritual life has more to do with the life of the poor than
with the moral athleticism of the believers” (Vida en el
Espíritu, 1997, 235 and 237).
This is the theological basis of the option for the poor and
against their poverty. The Spirit is unfailingly on the side of
the poor, quite apart from their moral condition, because
they are deprived of life, and the Spirit wants to give them
life. But the Spirit has no arms to work with except ours. It is
calling us to create the conditions of life for the poor, and
for those whose innocent sons and daughters are
condemned to die of hunger and the diseases caused by
hunger.
Living by the Spirit means struggling for basic human
needs, for health, for productive land, for housing, for health
care, human security, and basic education. We cannot truly
love life and follow the inspiration of the Spirit without
defending this cause and suffering for it, in the spirit of the
beatitudes. This responsibility cannot be left to the state
and its social policies. It is a challenge to all human beings,
especially to those who believe in the Spirit of life.
Our commitment to life also gives us thousands of reasons
to celebrate life, to sing and rejoice—for instance by
ritualizing the struggle in what the Landless Peasants’
Movement calls “mystiques,” or in community religious
celebrations and large public assemblies.
This relates to something we have mentioned before: the
dichotomy between spirit and flesh, or between the Spirit
and the world. This has to do with both: with life in the Spirit
and as a concrete, historically embodied spirituality.
In the biblical perspective “flesh” is not a synonym for the
body, because the body is not opposed to the Spirit. Rather
the body is the Spirit's place of action, its temple. In biblical
terms, “the flesh” is the decadent human situation, the
human project hijacked by selfish desires for accumulation
and pleasure; it is a lack of solidarity and compassion for
those who suffer in this world (compassion is the ability to
put ourselves in the place of the other); it is generalized
injustice. In short, “the flesh” is human life debased and
destroyed by exploitation, humiliation, enslavement
(thousands of beautiful women lured into prostitution by
promises of employment; children bought, sold, and forced
to work; vital organs harvested for sale). “The flesh”
produces conflicts, violence, and death. St. Paul says it well:
“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind
on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).
“The flesh” also represents sin. Sin means organizing
one's life around the powers of “the flesh,” as expressed by
wealth, prestige, vanity, an obsession with appearances,
superiority through status, beauty, and professional
achievement. This self-centeredness is the root of sin, the
illusion that one can escape the tribulations of human
existence and death. “If you live according to the flesh, you
will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the
body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).
To live by the Spirit means not falling into the illusions and
lies promoted by commercial “marketing”; it means
understanding these evils and daring to denounce them, in
person and through the groups that defend the rights of the
victims. Those who live by the Spirit are no longer slaves to
themselves and their individual interests; they open
themselves up to others in solidarity, especially toward the
people in greatest need. Liberation is not only for me but for
everyone, beginning with the most oppressed. This
decentering of the self, this turning toward others, is a key
feature of the spirituality that is led by the Holy Spirit.
Thus we see the direct opposition between “flesh” and
Spirit. They are mutually exclusive projects. The same is
true when Holy Scripture speaks of the opposition between
the Spirit and “the world.” Here, especially in the Gospel of
John, “world” does not mean the creation described in
Genesis: “God saw everything that he had made, and
indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). On the contrary,
“the world” in scripture is a historical and social
arrangement not ruled by the logic of the Spirit, but by the
dynamic of “the flesh”: accumulation through the
exploitation of others; devastation of the goods and services
that nature provides; the death of biodiversity; social
inequality; oppression of the vulnerable by the powerful;
ever more lethal weapons and wars, now including drone
warfare that not only kills targeted leaders but incinerates
hundreds of innocent civilians.
God sent his Son into this “world” to provoke a crisis,
according to the Gospel of John, as a way of redeeming it.
This world was rescued and renewed by the coming of the
Holy Spirit. The world did not accept the Son, but
persecuted and killed him. It stifled the Spirit by injustice
and by assaults on both human and natural life. We saw
Mark's dire warning in chapter 5 of this book: “Whoever
blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have
forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29). It is
blasphemy when people recognize the work of the Spirit in
Jesus, but willfully and maliciously ascribe it to Satan. God's
forgiveness is always available, but these people are closed
to it and persistently refuse to accept it.
Living by the Spirit means strictly following St. Paul's
words: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by
God's mercy…. Do not enter into the schemes of this world,
but be transformed through the renewal of the Spirit”
(Romans 12:1–2, author's translation). A spiritual being
seeks transformation, both personal and structural (tà
skémata = schemes) by entering into a different paradigm,
living more humanly, respecting the limits of the planet,
producing the bounty that satisfies human needs but
without incurring the devastation of nature.
Such a transformation is not only political. It is an
imperative for anyone who wants to live by the Spirit of life.
Spiritual beings are always in conflict with “the schemes of
this world,” that is, with its values, principles, ideals, and
purposes; most of us are oriented to the schemes of “the
flesh,” which perpetuate an inhuman status quo, an “evil
society” (Paulo Freire) opposed to life. The epistle attributed
to James (who is called “the Lord's brother” in Galatians
1:19; Mark 6:3 and John 7:3 call him the Lord's cousin) says
wisely: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is
enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend
of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose
that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns
jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?’”
(James 4:4–5). It is the power of the Spirit that gives us
dreams and utopias, that inspires us to turn away from “this
world” in order to build another world, both possible and
necessary.

The Spirit of Freedom and Liberation

Closely related to the theme of life, which is so easily lost
for the majority of human beings, is the theme of freedom
that gives way to captivity and must be taken back through
a process of liberation. The Second Testament says clearly:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2
Corinthians 3:17). Much of the life of Jesus, the special
bearer of the Spirit, is interwoven with struggle for his
people's freedom and liberation.
Jesus freed his people, first, from the image of God as a
fierce and unrelenting judge. In its place he proclaimed a
kind Father-God, whose principal characteristics are his
goodness and mercy even to the ungrateful and the wicked
(Luke 6:35).
He also struggled against the prevailing law of his time.
The Law was a totalizing presence in the organization of
Jewish life, down to the smallest details (Comblin, O Espírito
no mundo, 62–63). Jesus spoke out vehemently: “For you
tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the
weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It
is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the
others” (Matthew 23:23).
Living by the Law is opposed to living by the Spirit, for the
Law enslaves by “laying heavy burdens on the shoulders of
the people” (Matthew 23:4). In its place Jesus offers
unconditional love. Everything comes together in freely
given love.
Paul understood that lesson and went on: “But now we are
discharged from the law [i.e., the system], dead to that
which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the
old written code but in the new life of the Spirit” (Romans
7:6). The new Spirit is freedom, because the Spirit is not
bound to anything: “It blows where it chooses” (John 3:8).
Paul makes a revolutionary claim in his letter to the
Galatians, the identity document of Christian freedom: “For
freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do
not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
Martin Luther took that freedom as the theme of one of
the most beautiful texts in Christian theology, Von der
Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (the freedom of a
Christian). Christians are free from everything and
everyone, subject to no one, yet out of love they make
themselves servants and subjects to everything and
everyone. We are free in order to love. Liberation is the act
of setting captive freedom free (Comblin, Vocaçao para a
liberdade, 1998, all of chapter 9).
The great majorities—people of the African diaspora,
oppressed women, indigenous communities, the poor in
general—are deprived of the most fundamental freedom:
the freedom of survival, food and housing security, safety
from environmental disasters. That is what makes their
liberation urgent. There is no salvation for the poor in the
prevailing system (the law). They are outside, excluded from
that law. Then Jesus comes with his manifesto of liberation:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives…to let the oppressed go
free” (Luke 4:18). It is by the power of the Spirit that Jesus
unleashes this torrent of freedom and liberation.
Living by the Spirit is impossible unless the believer lives
in freedom and desires the same for everyone. This
freedom, based on the conscientization, organization, and
full participation of the oppressed, primarily means taking a
stand against the existing system. The system must be
overcome within history. But it is also a challenge to
churches that have been turned into pharisaic schools of
laws and norms that deprive the faithful of their freedom,
creativity, and voice. This is a perilous, prophetic struggle
because the ecclesiastical authorities, against the
movement of the Spirit, have established criteria of
exclusivity and punishment that constrain, infantilize, and
sometimes excommunicate the faithful.
Living by the Spirit means daring to speak freely and
creatively in our celebrations and our initiatives of solidarity
and charity. No ecclesiastical credentials are needed,
because here, as in the first decisions recounted in the Acts
of the Apostles, authority does not come from the apostles
(and their successors) but from the Spirit: “For it has
seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). As
Paul told the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free”
(Galatians 5:1). Freedom is empty rhetoric unless it is put
into practice in our societies, our communities, and our
churches.
Christians, especially Catholics, do not know the meaning
of freedom in the Church. They listen and obey. Any
initiative born of freedom is soon seen as a threat, and
placed under vigilance and suspicion. Arbitrarily, for
prudential reasons (supposedly so as not to scandalize the
faithful), the Christian Base Communities and Bible study
groups are suppressed or subjected to limits, norms, and
prohibitions that discourage the faithful. Whatever
happened to the apostolic principle, “Do not quench the
Spirit?”
One moment of great spiritual intensity was the decision
by the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) and
the Latin American Confederation of Religious (CLAR), at
Medellín in 1969, to make a preferential option for the poor
and against their poverty. That option led the bishops to
move from the center to the margins, led religious brothers
and sisters to insert themselves in the life of the people, and
led theologians to take on the cause of liberation for the
oppressed. With that act the Church became more spiritual,
and thus encouraged Christians to live by the Spirit.

The Spirit of Love

The Spirit is directly connected with the overall process of
creation. It is the Energy with which everything began. Love
is connected in the same way. After the Spirit comes love,
the gift of the Spirit, the cosmic energy that infuses
everything, attracts everything, connects and unites
everything.
The cosmological and biological basis of love was best
explained in the writings of the Chilean biologist Humberto
Maturana. He says that love comes into the dynamic of
evolution itself from the very beginning. It remains present
in every subsequent stage, including the most complex
levels of human development. Love gives rise to two kinds
of interconnection between individual beings and their
environment, one from necessity and the other
spontaneous. The first, necessary connections link all beings
with each other and with their respective ecosystems, in
order to ensure their survival. But there are other,
spontaneous connections. The coupling of Higgs bosons, top
quarks, and other elementary particles is not necessary for
their survival; it occurs out of pure pleasure, in the flow of
their life. These are dynamic and reciprocal connections
among all beings, animate and inanimate. There is no
practical reason for them; they just happen. They represent
a unique example of the sheer gratuity of existence. They
are like flowers that bloom for the sake of blooming, in the
words of the mystic Angelus Silesius.
When such couplings (for example between two protons)
create a relational field, love emerges as a cosmic
phenomenon. It tends to expand and become increasingly
interconnected in living beings, especially in human beings.
At our level, unlike that of other beings, it is more than
simply spontaneous; it becomes a freely undertaken
purpose, which consciously embraces the other and creates
love as the supreme value of life.
In this course of events, love emerges as the broader
phenomenon of socialization, the love of the many for the
many. This is the energy that sustains and gives cohesion to
society. Without love, society becomes a forced aggregation,
connected by domination and violence, in which everyone is
bound to someone else. With the destruction of relatedness
and congruence among beings and among human beings,
relationships of love and sociability are also destroyed. The
love relationship is always an opening to the other, to life
together, to communion with others.
The struggle for survival of the strongest does not explain
the continuation of life into the present; what sustains life is
the love relationship expressed in cooperation and
solidarity, beginning with the last and the least. Our hominid
ancestors became human by sharing the benefits of their
hunting and gathering, and by loving and caring for one
another. Language itself, the most distinctive feature of
human beings, emerged out of these loving and sharing
relationships.
Today as in the past, says Maturana, competitiveness is
antisocial; it implies the negation of the other, the refusal to
share, the absence of love. The modern, neoliberal, market
society is based on competitiveness. As a result it is
exclusionary, inhuman, and victimizing. It does not lead to
happiness, because it is not governed by relationships of
love.
What is different about human love? Maturana replies:
“What is specifically human about love is not love as an
objective, cosmic and biological phenomenon, but what
human beings do with it. Love has to strengthen and
deepen our life together, as social beings and beings
endowed with language, which reveals our capacity for
communication; without love we are not social beings.” It is
love that makes us human, at both the personal and the
social level. Love is the source of fulfillment and happiness.
African cultures describe this relationship between the self
and the other as ubuntu: I can only be myself through other
people.
As we have seen, love is a cosmic and biological
phenomenon. Among humans it becomes a freely
undertaken purpose, a great force of unification, mutual
commitment, and companionship. People come together,
and through the language of love, they develop feelings of
affection and belonging to a shared destiny.
But let us be realistic. Without warm tenderness and
without the needed caring, the love relationship is fragile; it
does not last, does not grow, and cannot reach out to other
beings. Without tenderness and caring, love wastes away. It
lacks the necessary environment for the flourishing of what
really humanizes: a deep sense of connection to the other, a
desire to share, to give and receive love.
This kind of reflection helps us understand the love of God
and the Holy Spirit as the unfailing source of love. That is
surely the most powerful affirmation in the Second
Testament: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). It is profoundly
liberating, because it is entirely positive; it does not inspire
fear, but rather acceptance and an experience of intimacy
with God.
 The affirmation comes with important consequences:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love”
(1 John 4:8). In other words, without love we seek God in
vain. God's name may be always on our lips, and we may
proclaim God's existence and providence in beautiful words,
but if we do not have love, we are far away from the true
God. The God we proclaim is nothing but an idol. This is also
the meaning of the Apostle's advice: “Let all that you do be
done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). To do everything in love
means doing it in the context of the Holy Spirit, in the
presence of and in communion with the Spirit. To be in the
Spirit does not necessarily mean thinking about the Spirit. If
we do everything in love, we are objectively in the Spirit. St.
John makes that clear: “Those who abide in love abide in
God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). Notice that he
does not say that those who abide in God abide in love, but
the other way around: “Those who abide in love abide in
God, and God abides in them.” Love is the central criterion,
although it may seem redundant to say so, since God is
love.
It is the Holy Spirit that leads us to this dimension of love;
that is why love comes first on Paul's list of the fruits of the
Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
The power of the Holy Spirit is evident in four basic
affirmations of the Second Testament: (1) “You shall love
your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31); (2) “Love your
enemies” (Luke 6:27); (3) “Father, you have loved them
even as you have loved me” (John 17:23); and (4) “We are
participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
The first affirmation—“Love your neighbor as yourself”—
must be understood as an expression of the spirit of Jesus.
It's not about loving the person who is physically next to
me. Everyone does that; even the wicked love each other. In
that sense Jesus was saying nothing new. The newness
comes in Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30–
37): whoever I come near to is a neighbor, regardless of his
or her beliefs, ethnicity, and moral condition. It is up to me
to make others my neighbors, and to love them as I love
myself.
But there is something else new. For Jesus our nearest
neighbors, the ones we are called to love, are those whom
no one else loves, the strangers, the invisible. The world is
full of such people: nameless economic losers who carry no
weight in the present system, because they produce very
little and consume almost nothing. They are the ones who
matter to Jesus. They are the ones we must love as our
nearest neighbors, the ones we must love as we love
ourselves.
Living in the Spirit means living this universal, borderless
love. It means making strangers into neighbors, and
neighbors into brothers and sisters—and then truly loving
them, from the bottom of our hearts. If Christians showed
that kind of love, if they were not so far from Jesus’ project
of love, there would not be so many invisible, humiliated,
and wounded people in our supposedly Christian societies.
Is this the kind of love that our Christian schools and
Catholic Pontifical Universities teach their students around
the world? They live etsi Jesus non daretur, as if Jesus had
never lived and taught about love for the most marginalized
neighbor. They are leadership factories for our perverse,
exclusionary system, the one St. Paul would call the project
of “the flesh.”
The second affirmation is about love for the enemy. This is
a new word from Jesus about love. He is looking for
unconditional love, love that transcends all barriers. Indeed
there are enemies of life in the world, enemies who do not
wish us well, who want to harm us, slander us, and
eventually kill us. To include them in our love is the greatest
challenge; normally we hate those who hate us, and speak
ill of those who speak ill of us. To overcome that instinct, to
let ourselves be ruled by the energy of unconditional,
universal love that excludes no one, is an act of courage,
self-giving, and self-transcendence.
We can never make that leap without the help of the
Spirit, who opens our heart to make room for enemies. They
are still our enemies, but we do everything we can to avoid
harming them or taking revenge. We will not give hatred the
last word.
The third affirmation—that Jesus loves his disciples just as
the Father loves him—speaks directly of divine love. Out of
love for Jesus and the world, the Father sent Jesus to be with
us and save us from our material and spiritual misery. He is
a source of liberation and uncontainable joy. But this love
may also lead us into a “dark night of the spirit.” The
Father's love led him to deliver his Son to the world (the
structures of evil) and leave him on the cross, where he
cried out in despair: “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). This is the experience of love
in the “dark and terrible night” described by the mystics,
when they no longer feel God's presence in the midst of an
existential inferno.
And yet to love and keep on loving is the supreme
expression of gratuitous love. To love for the sake of loving,
expecting nothing in return, because love itself is an
absolute value. Only the love inspired and sustained by the
Spirit is capable of such a spiritual miracle.
This is the logic of living in the Spirit: love is a single
movement, from the Father to the Son and to his followers,
from the Son to the Father and to his followers. This
experience of love inspires feelings of deep gratitude and
affection. At the same time it can carry us through an
eclipse of God, through the palpable absence of God's love.
Yet we must not stop loving, knowing that God goes on
loving even out of our sight; knowing that love is stronger
than any adversity, for “Love never ends” (1 Corinthians
13:8).
 Fourth and finally, life in the Spirit makes possible
something ineffable and absolutely mysterious: our
participation in the divine nature. This unprecedented
affirmation comes in 2 Peter, a letter attributed to the
apostle but probably written after his death by one of his
disciples, between 70 and 125 CE. The letter says: “His
divine power has given us everything needed for life and
godliness…[so that you] may become participants of the
divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3–4). In the Christian
understanding, unlike other monotheisms, God's nature is
the communion of three Persons and not the separateness
of the One. The divine nature is essentially trinitarian. The
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit emerge together, none of them
prior to the others. They are simultaneous, eternal, and
distinct from one another. Their distinctness permits
communion and absolute reciprocity among them.
This formulation is different from that of orthodox
theology, in which the Father is “the origin and source of all
divinity,” and transmits it to the Son and the Spirit. We hold
that there is no origin and source of divinity, because the
Three Divine Persons together are the source and origin; by
their nature they emerge as three divine Persons from the
beginning and forever.
The trinitarian, relational nature of the divinity is the
ultimate basis of love as a cosmic dimension, the cohesive
energy behind the creation of diversities and convergences.
As beings of love and communion, we are full participants in
the trinitarian, communal nature of God. And conversely:
because God is trinitarian and relational, all God's creatures
reflect this relational, communal nature.
To live by the Spirit means looking at the universe of
things, persons, and ourselves from a different perspective.
Our very roots are nourished by the nature of God. In some
way, we are all made divine. In the words of mystics like St.
John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart, “we are God by
participation.” In this sense, living by the Spirit fills us with
dignity and radical respect. When we look at other people
and all beings, we see the Triune God emerging within them;
we see them as part of the milieu divin, the divine
environment of which Teilhard de Chardin spoke. In some
way we are already in the Kingdom of the Trinity. We cannot
yet feel it, but one day this sublime reality will be revealed;
then we will fully experience and participate in the triune
divinity.

The Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit

The First and Second Testaments use the word “gifts” to
describe the presence of the Spirit in the human community
and in individuals. These gifts are not something
extraordinary but a part of everyday life, when life is lived
with justice and with attention to the movement of the
Spirit. A gift represents a specific action of the Spirit in the
person. The Spirit's self-communication and love surround
everyone, but each of us has received some gift, some
particular ability or characteristic specifically conferred on
us by the Spirit. There are many gifts, but we usually
describe them in seven categories. Let us look briefly at
each of these.
The gift of wisdom is more than knowledge. Knowledge
speaks to our reason. Wisdom speaks to the heart because
it engages the senses, sees things from different directions.
In the midst of conflicting messages, it helps us recognize
which ones make sense; it gives us a sense of measure and
balance, which is characteristic of wisdom. People with the
gift of wisdom spread serenity, tranquility, and
evenhandedness to those around them. A wise person is a
good counselor.
The gift of intelligence is the ability to see reality from
within, to see its inner meaning. Analytical reason breaks
things down into details, atomizes reality; intelligence
grasps the whole beyond the parts, and moves from the
parts to the whole. Intelligence is reason made perfect,
complete, when it is transformed into vision and
contemplation. Intelligent people not only know many
things, but find surprising connections among them; they
are the bearers of esprit, that is, they speak a word that
enlightens.
The gift of good counsel: Life is complex; sometimes it
seems to be made up of opposites. Paths diverge, and
sometimes end up in a blind alley or a dense forest. Many
people feel confused and abandoned in the midst of
conflicting messages, worldviews, and inner feelings. This is
the human condition in a world where the Kingdom is
always confronted by the anti-Kingdom. The person of good
counsel is able to see clearly in a confused situation, to find
a way through a complex reality, to discern the right
decision and move toward it with assurance. And such a
person can share that clear-sightedness with others who
come to him or her for help in finding the light. Many people
have been rescued from despair and disorientation by a
word of good counsel. Few things are more urgently needed
in a society that offers so many choices, many of them
meaningless and unfulfilling. It is not easy to keep things in
proportion and dynamic equilibrium. Too many people fall by
the wayside, sad and bitter, lost and alone, without a
comforting word from a good counselor.
The gift of courage and strength implies realism in the
face of the contradictions, dangers, and threats posed by
everyday life. We are often tempted to avoid problems or
run away from them in search of false solutions: past
experiences that do not fit the present situation, or wishful
thinking about the future. We are inundated with self-help
programs, pieced together out of psychology, mystical
sayings, and everyday common sense. Some are laced with
esoteric advice, horoscopes, and old folktales. In contrast,
courage and strength enable us to confront the obstacles
we face without fear. We sometimes call it resilience: the art
of bouncing back, learning from failure, rising above
disappointment. To overcome discouragement we need
“power from on high” (Luke 24:49), which is how Jesus
spoke of the Holy Spirit.
The gift of science: there are many kinds of knowledge.
The past few centuries have been oriented to different fields
of science. We became a knowledge society, which
produced many benefits in everyday life: it has transformed
landscapes and improved social conditions, by improving
our health and quality of life. But at the same time
knowledge has been placed at the service of power; the
motto “Knowledge is Power” is inscribed over the doors of
many schools. This power is not used to improve life for
everyone, but to accumulate wealth—to torture nature until
it hands over all its secrets, in the words of Francis Bacon,
the father of the scientific method. Tragically it has built a
machinery of death that has devastated nature, waged wars
with millions of victims, and supported the domination of
the majority of humanity by small groups. This kind of
science was not consciously designed to serve life. It chose
instead to serve the marketplace, by promoting the wealth
of a few.
But there is another kind of science—a gift of the Spirit—
which uses human reason to understand how nature works,
take what we need from it, and allow it to regenerate. This is
science for the sake of life, for the life of all. Without this
science we would not have begun to understand the
complexity of reality, or to preserve a future of hope for
humankind and the Earth. Science as a gift of the Spirit
carries out the messianic mission of preserving and
promoting life.
The gift of piety is very different from what most people
think of as piety: the submissive, obsequious, respectful,
prayerful attitude of religious believers. That meaning is
also valid, but here I am referring to a traditional virtue of
Roman families, pietas. It is characterized by the love and
respect shown by sons and daughters to their parents,
especially through prayers and offerings dedicated to the
household deities (penates). The piety of Roman families
helped them avoid quarrels and led to good manners and
friendly behavior, especially toward older members and
guests of the family. In religious terms, piety expresses a
filial relationship of familiarity and intimacy toward God, the
Father/Mother who cares lovingly for God's sons and
daughters. This piety allays all fears and inspires the trust
that we are constantly protected, in the palm of God's hand.
Piety today must also be extended to the Earth and its
ecosystems, which are so often impiously exploited. Piety
for the Earth, love for it as Mother and Pachamama,
sensitivity to the Earth's suffering, would enable it to
recover from the wounds we inflict on it. Only if we respect
the limits and care for the rhythms of Earth can it go on
offering everything we need for life.
The gift of the fear of God: the biblical meaning of fear is
similar to what we have just seen of piety. We usually think
of fear, even reverent fear, as being afraid. In the biblical
understanding, however, fear is synonymous with a
reverent, respectful love for God, a loving inclination to
submit to God and God's will. We don't play games with
God. We don't take God's name in vain, as radio and
television personalities do so abusively. We are talking about
the Supreme Reality, the reality of love, tenderness,
compassion, and mercy. We do not “fear” this God in the
same way that we fear the police or a sentence handed
down by a strict judge. Rather we respond with reverent,
respectful love to God and everything that is God's: the holy
Word, the sacraments, religious celebrations, and feast days
(Kloppenburg, Parákletos—O Espírito Santo, 67–77; Congar,
El Espíritu Santo, 340–47; Grün, Confia em tua força).
Living by the Spirit means internalizing these gifts. They
increase the quality of our spiritual lives, because we feel
the nearness and the action of the Spirit in the world, in
other people, and in ourselves.
In addition to these gifts, we speak of the fruits of the Holy
Spirit. They grow out of the vitality and fertility of the Spirit,
as fruits grow on the tree. Living in the Spirit transforms a
person's life. Such people shine with the virtues that come
from immersion in the Spirit, which we also call “the
baptism of the Spirit.” This baptism does not replace or
compete with baptism as a sacrament of Christian initiation.
Rather it deepens and radicalizes the presence of the Spirit
that was conferred in baptism, as it was when Jesus was
baptized by John the Baptist. Then Jesus was filled with the
Holy Spirit, and led by the Spirit into the desert to prepare
for his mission.
St. Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in a polemical context,
as we have seen, contrasting them with the “works of the
flesh” (our deranged lives and uncontrolled passions). He
counts fifteen works of the flesh: “fornication, impurity,
licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy,
anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness,
and carousing” (Galatians 5:16–20). Those who live by the
flesh “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”
In contrast, he lists nine fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). These
spiritual states are so self-evident that they need no further
comment. They are human virtues, which come into action
when we live them in full awareness that the Spirit is
working in us, guiding our actions.
Wherever the Spirit finds the door open, it comes in and
carries out its work of inspiration. Paul concludes: “If we live
by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (Galatians
5:25).

The Spirit: Source of Inspiration, Creativity, and Art

 So far we have been talking about the Spirit mainly in
religious and theological terms. But the Spirit overflows that
kind of limits. It is God's own fantasy. It keeps getting ahead
of the Church, even ahead of Jesus Christ. It is present
wherever people live by love, witness to the truth, act in
solidarity, and practice compassion. Wherever such realities
are manifest in human beings, anywhere in the world, it is a
sign that the Spirit has come upon them and is active within
them.
It is by the inspiration of the Spirit that poets and writers
redraw life with all its lights and shadows, its dramas and
achievements. They are seized by an inner light, and by
energies that prompt unexpected connections; they bring
something new into the world. Many writers confess, as
Nietzsche did, that they feel possessed by an inner energy
(a daimon, a good spirit) that seizes them and makes them
think and write.
By the inspiration of the Spirit, artists and artisans elicit
from their material—wood, stone, marble, granite—an
image that only they can see in it. The material is
spiritualized, and the spirit is materialized. In dance,
especially in ballet, bodies are transformed into spirit.
The Spirit is especially intense in music. Sounds are
invisible, unconstrained by space and time, just as no one
can limit the action of the Spirit. And the melodies they
project lift up and penetrate the soul; in them we find
comfort, beauty to cry over, soaring joy. The great
evangelical theologian Karl Barth used to say that Mozart
took his wonderful melodies from heaven and the Breath
(the Holy Spirit).
St. Paul talks about the different charismas as human
capacities that improve the life of the community, or simply
as the in-breaking of the Spirit in the world. He says the
Spirit has given to some the gift of words, to others healing,
prophecy, the discernment of spirits, knowledge, and
wisdom. He concludes: “All these are activated by one and
the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as
the Spirit chooses.”
The arts are very much like the Spirit. They are intangible.
They are ends in themselves. They have an intrinsic value.
They are not a means to other ends, although in their
decadent form they may be commercialized and become a
source of enrichment. But although they have value, art,
music, and poetry in themselves are priceless. They are
unique creations, not serial productions. They are like a gift
we give to a loved one, valuable for its own sake. Somehow
they escape the limits of time and bring us a foretaste of
eternity.
Inspiration is in the air and settles on people without
regard for their skin color, their social background, or their
educational level. How many illiterate artists have emerged
in our country, in marginal communities, and were never
noticed: poets, artisans, painters, singers, musicians,
mystics? Boasting is not the Spirit's way; it is like water that
quietly runs along the ground, fills the vessels it is poured
into, and always chooses to run downhill.
That is why the Spirit does not have its own figure, as the
Father and the Son do. It is portrayed as a dove, but what is
important is the radiant light it gives off. It is the Breath
(Spiritus in Latin) that reveals life, sustains life, and renews
life in every way.
The universe and all beings are saturated with Spirit. To
recognize its presence in every corner of the cosmos is the
work of spirituality, of life in the Spirit.
 13

Comments on Some Hymns to

the Holy Spirit

There is a practical purpose behind these theological

reflections. The goal is not so much to think about the Holy
Spirit, but to feel the Holy Spirit and to live by the Spirit. The
Spirit by nature is energy, motion, inner movement,
enthusiasm, a mysterious power that moves us to act and to
resist the demands of self-importance, pride, and
domination by force.
The Spirit works quietly. It shows up in the nooks and
crannies of our being. It slowly infiltrates movements of the
powerless, giving them the power of resistance,
confrontation, and liberation. Wherever life is threatened in
humanity, in nature, and especially among the poor, the
Spirit intervenes to straighten the bent-over, lift up the
fallen, encourage the hopeless.
This book would not be complete without commenting on
some important hymns from Christian liturgy and popular
piety. There we find the heart of a theology of the Holy
Spirit. We don't need to analyze every verse; Raniero
Cantalamessa, the great preacher at papal retreats, has
done that very elegantly with the sequence of the
Pentecostal Mass Veni, Creator Spiritus (O Canto do Espírito,
Vozes, 1998).

The Origin of Veni, Sancte Spiritus

 This hymn, which is the sequence of the Pentecostal Mass,
is attributed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen
Langton ( † 1228). Langton was born in England, studied in
Paris, and became one of the most renowned theologians of
his time. He became a close friend of Pope Innocent III
(1160–1216), the most powerful pope in the history of the
Church. Pope Innocent made him the cardinal archbishop of
Canterbury in 1207 while he was still in Paris, but due to
opposition from the nobility, he was not able to assume that
role until 1213. He is best known for having collaborated in
the writing of the Magna Carta, the great monument of
political law in England and the world. Also acclaimed for his
religious leadership, Langton has been called “perhaps the
greatest archbishop in England in the Middle Ages.”
This hymn was not originally sung for Pentecost but in the
monastic liturgy of the Divine Office (canonical hours), for
Terce, or the third hour, which is believed to be when the
Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles in the Upper Room
(Righetti, Storia liturgica, 239). The monks later taught it in
churches around the world. It was made a sequence in the
Pentecostal Mass by St. Hugh the Great, the abbot of Cluny.
The original Latin text and its translation are as follows:

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit,

et emitte caelitus send forth the heavenly
lucis tuae radium. radiance of your light.

Veni, pater pauperum, Come, father of the poor,

veni, dator munerum, come, giver of gifts,
veni, lumen cordium. come, light of the heart.

Consolator optime, Greatest comforter,

dulcis hospes animae, sweet guest of the soul,
dulce refrigerium. sweet consolation.

In labore requies, In labor, rest,

in aestu temperies, in heat, temperance,
in fletu solatium. in tears, solace.

O lux beatissima, O most blessed light,

reple cordis intima fill the inmost heart
tuorum fidelium. of your faithful.

Sine tuo numine, Without your light

nihil est in homine, there is nothing in the
nihil est innoxium. human,
nothing that is pure.

Lava quod est sordidum, Cleanse that which is

riga quod est aridum, unclean,
sana quod est saucium. water that which is dry,
heal that which is wounded.

Flecte quod est rigidum, Bend that which is inflexible,

fove quod est frigidum, fire that which is chilled,
rege quod est devium. correct what goes astray.

Da tuis fidelibus, Give to your faithful,

in te confidentibus, those who trust in you,
sacrum septenarium. the sevenfold gifts.

Da virtutis meritum, Grant the reward of virtue,

da salutis exitum, grant the deliverance of
da perenne gaudium. salvation,
grant eternal joy.

Brief Commentary on the Verses

What first catches our attention is the plea, “Come, Holy
Spirit.” The Spirit always comes; indeed it comes first
because it is the Creator Spirit. It was present at the first
moment of the creation of the universe, which led to
complexity and to life, especially human life; it came to
dwell permanently in Mary, formed the holy humanity of
Jesus in Mary's womb, and inspired Jesus’ whole life and
practice. It was also the Spirit that raised Jesus from among
the dead.
So why do we pray, “Come, Holy Spirit”? We are asking for
the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to the Apostles, to send his
Spirit as a Counselor and Helper (Paraclete, from the Greek
paráklētos). Imagine how that first Christian community
must have felt: traumatized by Jesus’ death, unable to
understand the resurrection, subjected to suspicion and
persecution by their own Jewish people, wondering where to
turn now.
In this context they recalled Jesus’ words: “I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate (Paraclete), to
be with you forever” (John 14:16). Now they don't need to
be afraid: they have the Holy Spirit to guide and help them
with the tasks they must take up in the wider world.
This could be our prayer today, again and again: “Come,
Holy Spirit.” How often we feel we are flying blind, without
knowing where to turn, and yet we have to keep going. How
comforting it is to know that the Spirit will guide us and
send us its clarifying light!
Light is the best, most suggestive metaphor for the
coming of the Spirit. It is what we need in our darkest
moments; when we have lost our North Star, the Spirit is a
light to show us the way or at least point in the right
direction. If we see even a small, distant light at such times,
we no longer feel so lost: someone lives there who can take
us in.
If we know which way to go, we can find a way there. It
may be stony and full of obstacles, but if we know which
way to go, we can overcome the obstacles with the Helper's
power.
It is the poor who feel most lost in this world, without a
home to live in, without knowing where their next meal is
coming from, without a job, without security. Today the poor
are a multitude. The poor cry out. And God is the God of
their cry, that is, the one who hears the cry of the
oppressed. God sets aside his transcendence and comes
down to hear them and free them, as he did in Egypt
(Exodus 3:7). It is the Spirit who makes us cry out: Abba!
Father! (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). That is why we call
the Spirit the father of the poor (pater pauperum). He takes
them under his care.
The Spirit doesn't do that in a miraculous sense, but by
giving them courage and resistance, a will to struggle and
overcome. It doesn't let them give up. It has always sent
light into the hearts of the poor to help them see viable
options, keep struggling, and survive through the ages into
our own time. That the native peoples were never
completely exterminated, or that the Africans did not perish
under the weight of slavery, is because they possessed a
power of resistance and liberation. In this hymn that power
is called a gift, a light to our hearts, the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit comes in a unique way as a Comforter to the
despairing. It doesn't help them from outside. It comes as a
guest to live within them, to help and guide them, because
that is its mission. In times of great crisis it comes as a
bearer of serenity and peace: a sweet consolation.
One important task in this world is to help others and work
for their well-being. Work is always demanding and
tiresome. The Spirit gives us rest in our labor and shelter
from the burning sun. So often the bitterness of life brings
us to tears: when we lose a loved one or suffer deep
emotional or professional frustration, we seem to fall into an
abyss. That is when we cry out: “Spirit, come to console us,
dry our tears, comfort our troubled hearts.”
At one point the hymn shows something of the nature of
the Holy Spirit, by calling it “most blessed light.” The word
“light” brings us into the dimension of mystery, which
neither science nor common sense can explain. We live in
the light and under the light, but we never really understand
it. Light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, from one
end of the universe to the other. Ninety-five percent of
everything that exists on earth comes from the light of the
sun. It is so mysterious that it can behave simultaneously as
a wave and a particle of matter. It can only be fully
explained as a mystery. In this it is like the incarnation of the
Son of God, the light of the world (John 1:4, 8:12). Just as
light is both a wave and a particle, he is both God and man.
We might say that the Spirit is the “most blessed light”
that pervades the universe, lifting it up and giving it
consistency. This blessed light comes looking for us. It
penetrates our hearts with light and warmth, spiritualizes
and transfigures us (L. Boff, Meditacão da luz). This is its
great work: to make us sons and daughters of the light, our
lives shining with spirituality.
There is a lot we can do, as intelligent beings and bearers
of love and kindness. But we feel vulnerable and broken.
There is an unhealed wound in our life. We are like a warped
plank that can never be made straight. Why? Perhaps only
faith can shed light on that question.
At some point in our life we turned away from the light,
from life, and from the call of the Spirit. That rejection
became part of our history, and marked us deeply. It did not
rob us of the ability to find and love God, but it left us
limping, unable to carry out a coherent project of service to
others. We stumble, get back on our feet, and fall again.
That is the human condition that we all experience in our
lives, our philosophies, and our spiritual journeys.
In this sinful condition we need the help of the Spirit, for
without it nothing in us is completely pure. We are jointly
inhabited by the old Adam and the new Adam. The Spirit
strengthens the new Adam in us, so that we can retain a
sense of direction for our lives.
The Spirit never stops working. The creation it brings forth
is marked by chaos and cosmos, that is, by conflicting
dimensions of order and disorder; in human terms, by grace
and sin, wisdom and dementia. Some of our behaviors are
repugnant, some of our attitudes unfruitful, and on all sides
there is sickness of body and spirit. In that context we cry
out: “Spirit, come!” Wash away our filth, make us fruitful,
cure our sickness.
We still suffer from other weaknesses, and flagrant sins.
We are unbending toward others, insensitive to their
suffering; we go astray ethically and morally; we lose our
inner balance and act hurtfully. Again we seem unable to
manage our lives. Then we cry out humbly: “Holy Spirit,
come!” Open our hearts to others, help us feel their
suffering, make us responsive and caring.
At last we pray for the Spirit to make itself present in its
seven gifts, discussed above (wisdom, intelligence, good
counsel, courage and strength, science, piety, and the fear
of God). These gifts are simply the way the Spirit acts in the
different situations of our life.
If we have lived a life of mindful, generous openness to
the inspiration of the Spirit, we will have lived a virtuous life.
Then we will receive God's recognition (merit), and find the
way to salvation (exitus = a good outcome, in Latin).
This salvation brings everlasting joy, one of the fruits of
the Spirit. But here it means the joy of living without fear,
without a loss of energy or vitality. It is the supreme
happiness of those who live the life of the Spirit—who share
in the Kingdom of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As
St. Augustine wrote: “It is what the endless end will be, for
what other end do we seek but to reach the Kingdom that
has no end?” (City of God, XXIII). This is the work of the
Spirit.

The Origin of Veni Creator Spiritus

This is another famous hymn dedicated to the Holy Spirit,
sung at Vespers in the Divine Office (canonical hours). It is
attributed to Rabanus Maurus (784–856), born in Fulda and
appointed archbishop of Mainz. By some unconfirmed
sources he was a renowned theologian in the tradition of the
Church Fathers (Cantalamessa, 8, 384–87), informally called
praeceptor Germaniae (teacher of Germany).
Other reliable sources attribute the hymn to an
anonymous poet (Righetti, Storia liturgica, 3:239). This
anonymity appeals to me, because we so often don't know
where the Spirit comes from.
These two Pentecostal hymns, the one analyzed above
and this Veni Creator Spiritus, became the center of a
unique popular ceremony in Italy, France, and some other
places. Roses, flowers, and confetti were scattered about
during the singing. In Rome, Palermo, Siena, and Florence
the ritual was practiced even before the feast of Pentecost,
on the Sundays after Easter; it was called the Easter of
Roses (Righetti, Storia liturgica, 2:240).
Doves and other birds symbolic of the Holy Spirit were
also released inside the churches. Red ribbons were hung
from the cupolas and waved in the breeze for a week. All
these rituals emphasized the importance of Pentecost along
with Easter and Christmas.
Here is the hymn in Latin, along with a poetic translation
from the Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs by
Francis X. Weiser, SJ. (1958):

Veni, Creator Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit, Creator blest,

mentes tuorum visita, and in our souls take up Thy rest;
imple superna gratia come with Thy grace and heavenly
quae tu creasti pectora. aid
to fill the hearts which Thou hast
made.

Qui diceris Paraclitus, O comforter, to Thee we cry,

altissimi donum Dei, O heavenly gift of God Most High,
fons vivus, ignis, O fount of life and fire of love,
caritas, and sweet anointing from above.
et spiritalis unctio.
Tu, septiformis munere, Thou in Thy sevenfold gifts are
digitus paternae known;
dexterae, Thou, finger of God's hand we own;
Tu rite promissum Thou, promise of the Father, Thou
Patris, Who dost the tongue with power
sermone ditans imbue.
guttura.

Accende lumen Kindle our sense from above,

sensibus: and make our hearts o'erflow with
infunde amorem love;
cordibus: with patience firm and virtue high
infirma nostri corporis the weakness of our flesh supply.
virtute firmans perpeti.

Hostem repellas Far from us drive the foe we dread,

longius, and grant us Thy peace instead;
pacemque dones so shall we not, with Thee for
protinus: guide,
ductore sic te praevio turn from the path of life aside.
vitemus omne noxium.

Per te sciamus da Oh, may Thy grace on us bestow

Patrem, the Father and the Son to know;
noscamus atque Filium; and Thee, through endless times
Teque utriusque confessed,
Spiritum of both the eternal Spirit blest.
credamus omni
tempore.

Deo Patri sit gloria, Now to the Father and the Son,
et Filio, qui a mortuis Who rose from death, be glory
surrexit, ac Paraclito, given,
in saeculorum saecula. with Thou, O Holy Comforter,
Amen. henceforth by all in earth and
 heaven.
       Amen.

Brief Commentary on the Verses

“Come, Creator Spirit”: This is perhaps the most important
prayer that believers can raise to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit
is the wind from God that swept over the face of the waters
in creation (Genesis 1:1–2), coming and going over the
primitive chaos (alternative potentialities), bringing the
universe and all beings into existence. In trinitarian terms,
the three divine Persons always act together. They all
participate in the creative act. But one action is specifically
assigned to the Holy Spirit. This suggests, as many
cosmologists believe, that the whole universe is the bearer
of spirit and consciousness. That makes sense, since the
universe emerged from the action of the Spirit, which was
present at every stage in the cosmogenic process.
In practical terms, if we consider the creation, the myriad
galaxies, stars, and celestial bodies, if we gaze on the
immense biodiversity of nature, if we look at human beings
in particular, we discover an energy, a movement, and a
radiant light that can come only from the Holy Spirit. Our
gaze is transfigured. Everything becomes a great sacrament
of the Spirit, the holy temple where the Spirit lives and acts.
We invite the Creator Spirit to visit our souls and fill our
hearts with its grace. Indeed, the Spirit is the sacred flame
burning within us. The prayer awakens our consciousness to
this mysterious presence. Once awakened, we can actively
celebrate and enjoy its presence. We can affirm a life project
always inspired and illumined by the light of the Creator
Spirit. We pray that its creative activity will infuse our life
projects.
The second verse carries a special theological intensity,
seeking in some way to define who the Creator Spirit is for
us. It is called the Paraclete, from a Greek word that means
Counselor and Helper. It is not just any counselor and
helper, but one sent for that purpose by God on High. Its
divine character makes it the ultimate counselor, whose
counsel and insight are never deceived and cannot deceive
us. We can give ourselves trustingly to its guidance. That is
why every important gathering of Christians, bishops,
cardinals, or papal electors begins with the Gregorian chant
of this beautiful hymn, unequaled in its simplicity and
harmony.
The Spirit also comes as our Helper. It doesn't do things
for us, relieving us of responsibility. Rather, it accompanies
us to give us security and courage; it gently infuses our
action, improving and completing it. It prevents our practice
from becoming corrupted, from straying off the right path.
Who among us feels so omnipotent that we do not need
another power, someone to help us, protect us from danger,
and save us from failure, when our most cherished projects
are going from bad to worse? In these situations we need to
trust in the Helping Spirit. That is why the Father and the
Son have sent the Spirit to be always with us, beside us, and
especially, within us.
The Creator Spirit is a “fount of life.” Only dead water
comes from a dried-up well. The Spirit is a well of living
water. We cannot live without water. Water is holy, part of
the essence of life. That is why it can never be a consumer
commodity or a source of profit; it is a universal,
irreplaceable, essential good, accessible to all living beings,
especially human beings.
What a beautiful thing is a backyard well of fresh, living
water, flowing day and night! It never runs dry. The Creator
Spirit is like that: it always quenches our thirst and assures
us of the continuity of life. Water is a symbol of grace, of the
living presence of the Creator Spirit.
Fire is as symbolically important as water. It gives light
and warmth. It purifies and releases the gold from the dross.
Fire gave rise to the universe. The inner temperature of the
“big bang” was billions of degrees. All human beings are
bearers of a sacred inner flame (the mystic Meister Eckhart
called it Fünklein), which inspires everything they do and
motivates their good works. That is the Spirit in action.
Another name for the Holy Spirit, a sacred name that
defines the very nature of the Holy Trinity, is Love. Love is
the greatest of all cosmic forces, for it draws everything to
it, holds things together, harmonizes, and leads to
convergence in the Kingdom of the Trinity. We have said
enough about love; no further commentary is needed here.
The Holy Spirit as love revitalizes human beings, makes
them worthy of being loved, lights up their hearts, and
brings them together to help each other, to lighten the
burden of existence. When we have love, we have
everything.
This verse refers to the spiritual anointing that one
receives for a mission. The Spirit is especially present in
those who must confront dangers, take on public
responsibilities that affect thousands of people, and
represent the best of humanity with their charisms and
virtues, in order to make God and the message of Jesus
credible. Martin Luther King Jr. was anointed by the Holy
Spirit to liberate the African Americans who had been
denied their civil rights. Gandhi was anointed by the Spirit to
liberate India from British colonization. Pope John XXIII was
anointed by the Holy Spirit to open the doors and windows
of the Church and bring it into the modern world. Dom
Helder Câmara was anointed as the great prophet of the
poor everywhere in the world. In a deeper sense, everyone
is chosen and anointed by the Spirit to live by the Spirit, a
life of love, compassion, solidarity, and faithfulness.
The third verse is about the seven gifts we discussed
above. We should repeat here that the gifts are the concrete
ways the Holy Spirit works in people and in different roles. It
is an extension of the powerful, loving hand of the Father.
 The fourth verse completes the third. It shows the
presence of the Spirit in our minds, awakening us to the
mysteries of God. It fills our hearts with love, the greatest of
all energies, which moves heaven, the stars, and also our
hearts, as Dante said in every canticle of the Divine
Comedy. How sad, helpless, and absurd life would be if we
could not love and be loved! The poet Thiago de Mello said
it beautifully: “There is no greater sorrow than that of not
being able to give love to the one we love.” The Spirit
moves people toward each other. All beings are attracted to
each other in the gravity of the universe; the same thing is
true of human beings.
We are always exposed to illnesses that can weaken or
even kill us. In these situations, the Creator Spirit is also
revealed as a Helper. We can always call on it and be led by
its revitalizing energy.
The human spirit has its own special source of
nourishment: the virtues. These are formed by the good
habits that we practice and incorporate into our very being,
so that they no longer need much effort or even conscious
thought; the virtue has been perfected. The Spirit, who is
our Comforter and Counselor, is always with us to inspire us
in a life of love, patience, peaceful community, solidarity
with the last and the least; in short, a virtuous life.
The fifth verse brings us face to face with conflict. In the
world there is enmity, injustice, and humiliation. The
Kingdom and the Anti-Kingdom are continually confronting
one another. We are not facing just any enemy but the
archenemy, the great adversary, the bringer of war, the
bearer of death: the power of Negativity which is called
demonic. The Holy Spirit is stronger than the strong man. It
drives far from us everything negative, everything hostile to
life.
That is why the Spirit brings the peace we need so much.
One of the truest and most objective definitions of peace
that I have seen is in the Earth Charter (# 16.4): “Peace is
the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself,
other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the
larger whole of which all are a part.” Thus peace is not a
specific, self-evident state. It is built through right
relationships, which lead to lasting peace. It is not a truce,
after which the conflict resumes. Neither is it pacification,
the imposition of one side's will over the others. Peace is
movement in balance, a web of relationships interwoven to
form a world where it is not hard to live as brothers and
sisters, where love can flourish and bear fruit. All this is only
possible with the help of the universal Helper, the Creator
Spirit, the ductor, the guide that leads us away from all evil.
The sixth verse is eminently theological. The Holy Spirit
helps us know the Son, through whom the Spirit has always
worked, and the Spirit and the Son together help us know
the Father. In traditional theology the Spirit proceeds from
the Father and the Son; that is, we know it only in its
intrinsic relation to the Father and the Son. The divine
trinitarian essence and the three divine Persons emerged
together from the very beginning, and live together in
perpetual communion and mutual self-giving. This is the
faith of all Christians and all churches.
The hymn closes with a doxology, a song of praise to the
three divine Persons, emphasizing the unique action of the
Spirit who raised Jesus and showed him to be the “new
Adam,” the first fruits of the good end of all creation.
Everything ends with an Amen, a total affirmation of
everything in the prayer, and the hope that it will endure
forever.
This beautiful prayer to the Spirit leaves us filled with
peace and serenity, for we know the Spirit has enlightened
and inspired everything that we are and everything that we
do.

A nós descei, Divina Luz

 There is a popular hymn that is often sung in Brazilian
churches. It describes the main characteristics of the Holy
Spirit and its action in the Church and the world. The text is
as follows:

(Refrão): A nós descei, (Chorus): Come down to us,

       Divina Luz        Divine Light,
Em nossas almas Set our souls afire,
ascendei With love, the love of Jesus
O amor, o amor de
Jesus

Vós sois a alma da You are the soul of the Church

Igreja You are Life, you are Love
Vós sois a Vida, sois o You are the blessed grace
Amor That unites us in the Lord
Vós sois a Igreja
benfazeja
Que nos irmana no
Senhor

Divino Espírito, descei Divine Spirit, come down

Os corações vinde Come to burn in our hearts
inflamar Come to prepare our souls
E as nossas almas For what God wants us to hear
preparar
Para o que Deus nos
quer falar

Brief Commentary on the Verses

The Holy Spirit is always associated with light. Light is the
most precious, most mysterious reality we know. Only those
who have known darkness can appreciate the light. The
light from a tiny candle is enough to drive the darkness from
a room. That is why we always say the light overcomes the
darkness.
 Without sunlight, nature loses its energy; human beings
grow pale, and we all lose our sense of direction. Almost
every religion uses the metaphor of light to express divinity.
The scriptures say that God dwells in light inaccessible.
Jesus is called the light of the world. The Spirit is the light
that transfigures the whole universe.
As the hymn says, the Spirit comes to set our hearts afire
with the love of Jesus. Its mission is to extend and complete
the work of Jesus. One essential aspect of Jesus’ message is
unconditional love for friends and enemies, love that knows
no boundaries. It is the Spirit that enables us to live that
love, so hard to do but so central to Jesus’ message.
A church cannot live only by doctrines, moral laws,
celebrations, and rules of behavior. More than anything else,
a church must be a place to experience the love of our
brothers, sisters, and God. It is hard to bear witness to love
in a powerful Church, because love disappears when power
prevails, even sacred power. Power seldom practices mercy
and magnanimity. A community that gives primacy to order
and discipline is a community without radiance, without life.
It is love that gives radiance, that attracts and influences
people. Unconditional love is irresistible, especially when it
takes the form of forgiveness and mercy. Love is the central
gift of the Holy Spirit.
Since the Spirit is Love, as the hymn says, it is naturally
the soul of the Church. In analytical terms, a Church is the
body of the faithful. St. Paul used the metaphor of a body
with a diversity of members, each one with a specific
function. The body is not a corpse; it has life, it radiates
strength, it conveys the joy of existence. The body is
animate; that is, it has a soul. The Holy Spirit is its soul.
It is the Holy Spirit that keeps the Church from being just
an institution with rules and prohibitions. The community
exists with the help of organizational tools. They are not
ends in themselves, but means that enable the community
to reach people, to fill them with a spirit of devotion,
compassion, brotherly love, and constant openness to the
Word. When the community bears witness in the world by
offering a variety of services, especially to the people in
greatest need, if its witness is infused with the love of Jesus
and inspired by the Spirit, then it wins everyone's respect
and appreciation. The Spirit, which is usually invisible,
becomes visible through these actions. The Church becomes
a sacrament of the Holy Spirit.
The hymn also says, “You are life.” The reality of life is as
mysterious as light. We know that life emerged in the
cosmogenic process about 3.8 billion years ago.
Cosmologists and biologists describe the conditions of that
emergence, when universal energy and matter reached a
high level of complexity. Life emerged then, as a cosmic
imperative. No one really knows what life is. We know that it
has interiority, that it lives in constant dialogue with its
surroundings, in an exchange of matter and energy that
enables life to survive, grow, and reproduce.
Life is so mysterious that all religions have identified God
as life and the giver of life. Perhaps life is neither material
nor spiritual. It is simply eternal. It comes to us; it gives us
life; it brings in death, which allows us to be transfigured
and to live in another domain with God, the Fountain of life.
It is the work of the Spirit to create, maintain, and transmit
life in all its forms (biodiversity)—especially spiritual life, as
we have emphasized throughout these reflections.
The hymn also calls the Holy Spirit “blessed grace.” Grace
and Holy Spirit are synonymous in scripture. Grace is the
real, beneficial presence of the Spirit in human beings and
in the world (L. Boff, Liberating Grace, 1979). Through grace
we are made divine in a way; we become “participants of
the divine nature,” as the Letter of James reminds us.
Theology has always said that there is only an accidental
difference between a life of grace on earth and eternal life in
glory. They are basically the same. The difference is that
here on earth we do not feel grace working in us, except in
special situations granted to us by the Spirit; in heaven we
are consciously, experientially submerged in grace, that is,
in the Kingdom of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
The hymn ends by asking the Spirit to keep us always
open and alert to “what God wants us to hear.” The Spirit
does not speak directly into our ears. It awakens us to the
signs of the times, the urgent needs of others, the situation
of the world, the miserable fate of the poor. God is always
sending us messages. The Spirit keeps us alert, because
each time it comes is a unique moment. As one of the pre-
Socratic philosophers said: “If we don't expect the
unexpected, when it happens we will not see it.” The Spirit
is like that. It is a gentle breeze, not a whirlwind. It is a
whisper, not a yell. To hear and understand it we have to be
mindful, with open and attentive hearts.
And when the Spirit comes down as Divine Light, it
transforms our gaze so that we will recognize its presence in
the nooks and crannies of life, bringing us a kind of peace
that no medicine can provide. Because the peace that the
Spirit gives is the eternal peace of God.
 Conclusion
The Spirit Came First, and Keeps on Coming

The Holy Spirit was the first divine Person to come into our
history. It came upon Mary of Nazareth; that is, it came to
dwell permanently in her (Luke 1:35).
This presence gave rise to the holy humanity of the Son of
God. The Word pitched its tent (John 1:14) in the man Jesus,
in Mary's womb. At that moment in history, that simple
woman of Nazareth became the temple of the living God.
Now two divine Persons were living within her: the Spirit,
who made her “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42), and
the child in her womb, the Son of God.
Later the Spirit came upon Jesus and set him afire for his
liberating mission. It came down on the community
gathered for the first time in Jerusalem, which became the
birth of the Church. It kept coming to other people, whether
or not they were baptized Christians, as happened with
Cornelius while he was still a pagan (Acts 10:45).
Throughout history it was always ahead of the missionaries
so that love prevailed, justice was nourished, and
compassion lived in the hearts of the people. Once the Spirit
had come into history, it never left. It begins with Jesus and
moves on from there, but it also declares “the things that
are to come” (John 16:13).
Through the Spirit prophets come forward, poets sing,
artists create, and people live in goodness and truth. Saints
are formed by the Spirit, especially those who give their
lives for the life of others.
Also through the Spirit, crumbling institutions are
suddenly renewed and begin to serve the communities that
need them. The world is pregnant with the Spirit, even
though the spirit of wickedness is still working against life
and against everything that is holy and divine. The Spirit is
invincible.
The Spirit came once, and constantly keeps coming. But in
critical times like ours, we need to cry out: “Come, Holy
Spirit, and renew the face of the Earth!” Unless the Spirit
comes, we will live in the landscape described by the
prophet Ezekiel in chapter 37: an Earth covered with
corpses and bones. But when the Spirit comes, the corpses
are filled with life and the wilderness becomes a garden.
The poor are granted justice, the sick are restored to health,
and we who are all sinners receive forgiveness and grace.
This is our faith, and more than that, it is our undying
hope.
 Works Cited

Alday, S. C. A renovaçâo no Espirito Santo. Rio de Janeiro: Ediçôes Louva-a-Deus,

1986.
———. O Espírito Santo na Igreja dos Atos dos Apóstolos. São Paulo: Loyola,
1984.
Aranda, A. Estudios de Pneumatología. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de
Pamplona, 1983.
Asciutto, L. “Rapsodia spirituale.” In Nuovo Testamento ci parla dello Spirito.
Brescia: Morcelliana, 1989.
Assmann, H. A Igreja Eletrônica e seu impacto na América Latina. Petrópolis:
Vozes, 1986.
Balthasar, H. U. “El Desconocido más allá del Verbo.” In Spiritus Creator. Madrid:
Encuentro, 2005.
Barrett, C. K. El Espíritu Santo en la tradición sinóptica. Salamanca: Koinonía,
1978. Translated under the title The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition.
Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011.
Basil of Caesarea. Tratado sobre o Espírito Santo. São Paulo: Paulus, 1999.
Bergmann, S. Geist der Natur befreit: Die trinitarische Kosmologie Gregors von
Nazianz im Horizont einer ökologischen Theologie der Befreiung. Mainz:
Grünewald, 1995.
Berkhof, H. Lo Spirito Santo e la Chiesa: La dottrina dello Spirito Santo. Milan:
Jaca Book, 1971.
Boff, L. Christianity in a Nutshell. Translated by Phillip Berryman. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 2013.
———. Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church. Translated
by Robert R. Barr. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986.
———. “An Ecological View of the Cosmos,” in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor,
35–62. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1997.
———. El Ave María: Lo femenino y el Espíritu Santo. Santander: Sal Terrae,
1984. English translation included in Praying with Jesus and Mary: Our
Father, Hail Mary. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005.
———. El cuidado esencial, 1999.
———. El cuidado necesario, 2012).
———. El rostro materno de Dios. Madrid: Paulinas, 1980. Translated under the
title The Maternal Face of God. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987.
———. Espiritualidad: un camino de transformación. Santander: Sal Terrae,
2001.
———. Francis of Rome & Francis of Assisi: A New Springtime for the Church.
Translated by Dinah Livingstone. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2014.
———. Igreja: Carisma e poder. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1981. Translated under the
title Iglesia: carisma y poder. Santander: Sal Terrae, 1985, and Church:
Charism and Power. New York: Crossroad, 1986.
———. La Trinidad, la sociedad y la liberación. Madrid: Paulinas, 1987. Translated
under the title Trinity and Society. Tunbridge Wells, UK: Burns & Oates, and
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988.
———. Liberating Grace. Translated by John Drury. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1979.
———. Meditacão da luz. O Caminho da Simplicidade. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2009.
Translated under the title Meditación de la Luz. El camino de la simplicidad.
México: Dabar, 2010.
———. Saint Joseph. Translated by Alexandre Guilherme. Eugene, OR: Cascade
Books, 2009.
Boff, L., and M. Hathaway. O Tao da libertação: Explorando a ecologia da
transformação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2012. In English, The Tao of Liberation:
Exploring the Ecology of Transformation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009.
Boff, L., and J. Y. Leloup. O Espírito na saúde. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2008.
Boff, L., and R. M.Muraro. Femenino y masculino: Una nueva conciencia para el
encuentro de las diferencias. Madrid: Trotta, 2002.
Boff, Lina. Espírito e missão na obra de Lucas e Atos. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1996.
———. Espírito e missão na prática pastoral—Acre: 1920–1930. São Paulo:
Paulus, 1997.
———. Espírito e missão na teología—Um enfoque histórico-teológico 1850–
1930. São Paulo: Paulus, 1998.
Bourassa, F. “Dans la communion de l'Esprit Saint.” Science et Esprit 34, no. 1
(1938): 31–56.
Bouyer, L. Le Consolateur et vie de grâce. Paris: Du Cerf, 1980.
Brandt, H. O risco do Espírito. Um estudo pneumatológico. São Leopoldo:
Sinodal, 1977.
Bulgakov, S. Il Paráclito. Bologna: Dehoniana, 1971.
Cacciatore, O. G. Dicionário de cultos afro-brasileiros. Río de Janeiro, 1977.
Cantalamessa, Raniero. O Canto do Espírito. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998. Translated
under the title El Canto del Espíritu. PPC, 1999.
Casaldáliga, P., and J. M. Vigil. Espiritualidad de la liberación. San Salvador: UCA,
1993. Translated under the title Political Holiness. Tunbridge Wells, UK:
Burns & Oates, and Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994.
Caselles, H. “Saint Esprit. Ancient Testament et Judaisme.” In Supplément au
Dictionnaire de la Bible, IX. París, 1991.
Comblin, J. A força da Palavra. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1986.
———. O Espírito Santo e a libertação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1987. Translated under
the titles El Espíritu Santo y la liberación. Madrid: Paulinas, 1987, and The
Holy Spirit and Liberation. Tunbridge Wells: Burns & Oates, and Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1989.
———. O Espírito no mundo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1978.
———. O Espírito Santo e a tradição de Jesus (posthumous publication). São
Bernardo do Campo: Nhanduti, 2012.
———. O povo de Deu. Paulus, 2002.
———. O Tempo da Ação. Ensaio sobre o Espírito e a história. Petrópolis: Vozes,
1982.
———. Vocaçao para a liberdade. Paulus, 1998.
Congar, Y. M. J. “Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit.” Concilium 99: Experience of
the Spirit (1974), 138–51.
———. El Espíritu Santo. Barcelona: Herder, 1991. Translated under the title I
Believe in the Holy Spirit. New York: Crossroad, 1997.
Corten, A. Le pentecôstisme au Brésil. Émotion du pauvre et romantisme
théologique. Paris: Karathala, 1995.
Cox, H. Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping
of Religion in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995.
Dalbessio, A. Lo Espirito Santo—Nel Nuovo Testamento, nella Chiesa e nella vita
del cristiano. Milan: Ed. San Paolo, 1994.
Dalmais, J. H. “L'Esprit de vérité et de vie: Pneumatologie grecque et latine:
Opposition ou complémentarité.” Lumen Vitae (1972): 572–85
Diaz, J. “Espírito Santo.” EB 6 (1971): 622–29.
Drouot, Patrick. O físico, o xamã e o místico (2001) 60–73.
Duhm, H. Die bösen Geister im Alten Testament. Tübingen: Mohr, 1904.
Dunn, J. D. C. Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testament
Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today.
London: SCM Press, 1970.
———. Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience
of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament.
London: SCM Press, 1976.
Elbein, J. “A percepção ideológica dos fenômenos religiosos: sistema nagô no
Brasil, negritude versus sincretismo.” Revista Vozes 71 (1977): 543–54.
———. Os nagô e a morte. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1976.
Evdokimov, P. L'Esprit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe. Paris: Du Cerf, 1969.
Fabri dos Anjos, M. Sob o fogo do Espírito. São Paulo: Soter/Paulinas, 1998.
Fierro, N. Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1994.
Flanagan, S. Hildegard of Bingen 1098–1179: A Visionary Life. London:
Routledge, 1998.
Freyer, T. Pneumatologie als Strukturprinzip der Dogmatik: Überlegungen im
Anschluss an die Lehre von der “Geisttaufe” bei Karl Barth. Paderborn:
Schöningh, 1982.
Galindo, F. El fenómeno de las sectas fundamentalistas: La conquista evangélica
de América Latina. Estella: Verbo Divino, 1994.
Galot, Jean. L'Esprit Saint, personne de communion. Parole Et Silence, 1997.
Giesriegl, R. Die Sprengkraft des Geistes: Charismen und apostolischer Dienst
des Paulus im 1. Korintherbrief. Thaur/Tirol: Wort und Welt Verlag, 1989.
Grün, A. Confia em tua força—os sete dons do Espírito Santo. Petrópolis: Vozes,
2011.
Hasenhütl, G. Charisma, Ordnungsprinzip der Kirche. Freiburg: Herder, 1969.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. London, 1952.
Kloppenburg, B. Parákletos—O Espírito Santo. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997.
Koven, J. History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of Liberation. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1991.
Ladaria, L. F. El Espíritu en Clemente Alejandrino. Madrid: UPVM, 1980.
Lyonnet, S. “Le récit de l'Annonciation et la maternité divine de la Sainte
Vierge.” L'ami du clergé 66 (1956): 33–46.
Mambrino, J. “Les deux mains du Père dans l'oeuvre de S. Irenée.” Nouvelle
Revue Théologique 79 (1957): 355–70.
Maturana, Humberto. El árbol del conocimiento. 1995.
Moltmann, J. Doctrina ecológica de la creación—Dios en la creación. Salamanca:
Sígueme, 1987. Translated under the title God in Creation. Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993.
———. El Espíritu de vida. Salamanca: Sígueme, 1998. Translated under the title
The Spirit of Life. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
Monod, Jacques. Chance and Necessity. Translated by Austryn Wainhouse. New
York: Knopf, 1971.
Montague, G. T. The Holy Spirit: The Growth of Biblical Tradition. New York:
Paulist Press, 1976.
Mühlen, H. Einübung in die christliche Grundrfahrung, vol. 1: Lehre und
Zuspruch; vol. 2: Gebet und Erwartung. Mainz: Grünewald, 1976.
———. El Espíritu Santo en la Iglesia. Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1974.
———. Erfahrung und Theologie des Heiligen Geistes. Munich: Kösel, 1974.
———. Iniciación a la experiencia cristiana fundamental, 1976.
———. Renovación de la fe Cristiana: Charisma, espíritu, liberación, 1974.
Novaes, R. R. Os escolhidos de Deus: Pentecostais, trabalhadores & cidadania.
São Paulo: Ed. Marco Zero, 1985.
Nouwen, H. Formación Espiritual: Siguiendo los impulsos del Espíritu. Santander:
Sal Terrae, 2011. In English Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements
of the Spirit. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2010.
Oro, A. P. Avanço pentecostal e reação católica. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1996.
Piaget, Jean. The Child's Conception of the World. Translated by Joan Tomlinson
and Andrew Tomlinson. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929.
Pikaza, X. El Espíritu Santo y Jesús. Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 1982.
Pixley, J. V. Vida en el Espíritu: El proyecto mesiánico de Jesús después de la
resurrección. Managua: CIEETS, 1993.
Prigogene, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. Order Out of Chaos. New York: Bantam
Books, 1984.
Richard, J. “Conçu du Saint Esprit, né de la Vierge Marie.” Église et Théologie 10
(1979): 291–323.
Righetti, M. Storia liturgica. 3 vols. Rome: Ancora, 1956.
Robinson, H. W. The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit. London: William
Collins, 1962.
Rolim, F. C. Anjos, demônios e espíritos. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1998.
———. O que é pentecostalismo. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1997.
———. Pentecostalismo: Brasil e América Latina. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995.
Rossato, P. The Spirit as Lord. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1981.
Salado Martinez, Domingo. La religiosidad magica: Estudio critico-
fenomenologico sobre la interferencia magia-religion. Edit. San Esteban,
1980.
Sanchis, P., et al. Nem anjos nem demonios. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1994.
Santa Ana, J. Die politische Ökonomie des Heiligen Geistes: Zeitschrift
europäischer Christen. Bremen, 1990.
Schiwy, G. Der Geist des neuen Zeitalters: New Spirituality und Christentum.
Munich: Kösel, 1987.
Schnackenburg, Rudolf. Cristologia do Novo Testamento.
Schütz, C. Introducción a la pneumatología. Salamanca: Koinonía, 1991.
Schweizer, E. El Espíritu Santo. Salamanca: Sígueme, 1984.
Secondin, B. Nuovi cammini dello Spirito. Roma: Ed. Paoline, 1990.
Silva, Andréia Cristina. Hildegarda de Bingen e as sutilezas da natureza de
diversas criaturas. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Sociais:
UFRJ, 2002.
Sobrino, J. “El Espíritu, memoria e imaginación de Jesús en el mundo.” Sal Terrae
966 (1994): 181–96.
Sofiati, F. M. Religião e Juventude. Aparecida: Idéias & Letras, 2011.
Swimme, B., and T. Berry. The Universe Story. San Francisco: Harper San
Francisco, 1992.
Termolen, R. Hildegard von Bingen Biographie. Augsburg: Patloch Verlag, 1990.
Tillich, Paul. Systematic Theology. 1951–63. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1967.
Tylor, E. B. Primitive Culture. New York: Henry Holt, 1877.
Van der Leeuw, J. J. El fuego creador. Barcelona: 1928.
———. Phänomenologie der Religion. Tübingen: Mohr, 1956.
Various authors. Vem Espírito Santo e renova a face da Terra. Seis estudos
bíblicos. São Paulo: CEDI/CMI, 1990.
———. Renovação Carismática Católica: uma análise sociológica e
interpretações teológicas. PetrópolisVozes/INP/CERIS, 1978.
———. “Holy Spirit: Mystery and History.” Concilium no, 148 (1979).
———. “The Experience of the Spirit.” Concilium no. 99 (1974).
———. O Espírito Santo: pessoa, presença, atuação. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1973.
Verges, S. Imagen del Espíritu de Jesús. Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario,
1997.
Volz, P. Das Dämonische in Jahwe. Tübingen: Mohr, 1924.
Weil, P. A consciência cósmica. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1999.
Weisser, Francis X., SJ. Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs. New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1958.
Welker, M. O Espírito de Deus: Teologia do Espírito Santo. São Leopoldo: Sinodal
& EST, 2010.
Westermann, C. “Geist im Alten Testament.” Evangelische Theologie 41 (1981):
223ff.
Zohar, D. La inteligencia espiritual. Barcelona: Plaza & Janes, 2001.