Images of Hope by Ratzinger Joseph Cardinal

Author:Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal [Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898709643
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2010-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

HOLY TRINITY

Dome fresco in the portico to the trapezium in the Dochiariou Monastery,

Athos, sixteenth century.

Pentecost

______

The Holy Spirit and the Church

One often hears the complaint that in the Church too little is spoken of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it goes so far as to say that there must be a certain symmetry between the speaking of Christ and speaking of the Holy Spirit. Everything said about Christ must correspond to what is said of the Holy Spirit. Whoever demands this forgets, however, that Christ and the Spirit belong to the triune God. He forgets that the Trinity is not to be understood as a symmetrical coexistence. If this were so, then we would simply be believing in three divinities, and we would thereby be fundamentally distorting what the Christian confession of the one God in three Persons holds. Here, as so often is the case, the liturgy of the Eastern Church can point us in a useful direction. The Eastern Church on Pentecost Sunday celebrates the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, on Monday the outpouring of the Spirit, and on the following Sunday, the feast of All Saints. This liturgical arrangement belongs close together and shows us something of the inner logic of faith. The Holy Spirit is not an isolated value or a value that can be isolated. It is according to his essence to direct us into the unity of the triune God. When we pass through the history of salvation from Christmas to Easter, Father and Son appear to us in contrast, in mission and obedience. Now the Holy Spirit does not represent a third reality somewhere next to or between the other two. He leads us to the unity of God. Looking to him means overcoming distinction and recognizing the ring of eternal love that is the highest unity. He who wants to speak of the Spirit must speak of the Trinity of God. If the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is supposed to be in a certain respect a corrective to a one-sided Christocentrism, then this corrective consists in the Spirit teaching us to see Christ entirely in the mystery of the trinitarian God as our way to the Father in perpetual conversation of love with him.

The Holy Spirit points to the Trinity, and thereby he points to us. For the trinitarian God is the archetype of the new united humanity, the archetype of the Church, as the prayer of Jesus may be seen as its word of institution: “that they may be one, even as we are one” (Jn 17:11b, cf. 21f.). The Trinity is measure and foundation of the Church. The Trinity brings the word of creation day to its goal, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1:26). In the Trinity, mankind, which in its disunity became a counter image of God, should become once again the one Adam, whose image, as the Fathers say, was defaced by sin and now lies about in pieces. The divine measure of man should again come to prominence, unity, in it, “as we are one”.

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