Do you know how important it is to breathe? Breathing is something indispensable for us: without breathing we cannot survive. Breathing is also the first act we perform when we come into the world and the last one that ends our life. Today, talking about breathing will help me explain who the Holy Spirit is.
The term Spirit translates the Hebrew ruach and Greek pneumawhich means “breath”, “air”, “vital breath”. A breath is the source and origin of life. In the very first lines of the Bible we read: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Genesis 1,1-2). And it is the breath of God that lights the mysterious flame of life in our progenitor Adam: “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2,7). Without a soul, without the Breath of God, we are only dust: that inert matter to which we will return: “Remember, man, that dust you are and to dust you will return.” We also read it in Genesis: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat bread; until you return to the earth, because from it you were taken: dust you are and to dust you will return!” (Genesis 3,17-19).
A breath is also the last act of the Son of Man on the Cross: “Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this he expired” (Luke 23.46). Entirely like the life of a man, Jesus also died. Before Rising. The breath of God will animate the life of the nascent Church during Pentecost: “After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit; Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven, and whose sins you do not forgive, they will remain unforgiven.”” (John 20,22-23). In the Apostles breathes the breath of Christ, that vital and luminous principle that makes men different from dust.
But be careful: what happened in Jerusalem, fifty days after the Resurrection, also happens today, for each of us. Because all of us are perpetually immersed in God as in the air we breathe. We are enlivened by that breath that entered Adam’s nostrils and which, since then, continues to repeat the miracle of life by animating what is inanimate. The dust. Yes, because breathing is something intrinsic to man. We can’t do without it. Just as, the Holy Spirit is a part of God. One of three people. It’s life. It is the life of God.
At the same time, a breath has its own identity, because when we exhale air from our lungs it “comes out of us”, but being also something that is born within us, it is part of us. This is how God is: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct Persons at the same time and one God at the same time. It is the great mystery of the Holy Trinity. St. Hippolytus of Rome wrote: “When I affirm that the Son is distinct from the Father, I do not refer to two gods, but mean, as it were, light from light, the current from the source, and a ray from the sun.” Easy to understand, but hard to understand, right?
We know that God is great. As much as we can try to imagine it with our mind, as much as our imagination allows us to intuit it and as much as our soul shines with its own light, we will never be able to contemplate it all. It’s as if we were in front of a huge painting; each of us can understand a part of God, but we will not be able to grasp him in his boundless, infinite entirety. Because God goes far beyond the horizon and the infinite. Because God is immensely greater than the very idea that we have of Him. Because his feelings are immeasurably more intense than ours. Because his love knows no boundaries. Because his forgiveness knows no sin that cannot be forgiven and his ability to heal us in body and soul is inexhaustible. Because his power to give life is endless. And when, approaching Him, we manage to perceive even just a small part of it, joy fills our heart until it becomes uncontainable.
It is not easy to explain to us who the Holy Spirit is, but can we be filled with this joy? What do you say?
Source: La Buona Parola, Alessandro Ginotta’s blog https://www.labuonaparola.it
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