Acta Benedicti Pp. XVI 561

Spirit sustains the Church in union with the Lord and in fidelity to the

apostolic Tradition. He inspired the Sacred Scriptures and he guides God's

People into the fullness of truth.8 In all these ways the Spirit is the "giver of

life", leading us into the very heart of God. So, the more we allow the Spirit

to direct us, the more perfect will be our configuration to Christ and the

deeper our immersion in the life of the Triune God.

This sharing in God's nature 9 occurs in the unfolding of the everyday

moments of our lives where he is always present.10 There are times, however,

when we might be tempted to seek a certain fulfilment apart from God. Jesus

himself asked the Twelve: "do you also wish to go away?". Such drifting

away perhaps offers the illusion of freedom. But where does it lead? To whom

would we go? For in our hearts we know that it is the Lord who has "the

words of eternal life".11 To turn away from him is only a futile attempt to

escape from ourselves.12 God is with us in the reality of life, not the fantasy! It

is embrace, not escape, that we seek! So the Holy Spirit gently but surely

steers us back to what is real, what is lasting, what is true. It is the Spirit who

leads us back into the communion of the Blessed Trinity!

The Holy Spirit has been in some ways the neglected person of the Blessed

Trinity. A clear understanding of the Spirit almost seems beyond our reach.

Yet, when I was a small boy, my parents, like yours, taught me the Sign of

the Cross. So, I soon came to realize that there is one God in three Persons,

and that the Trinity is the centre of our Christian faith and life. While I grew

up to have some understanding of God the Father and the Son - the names

already conveyed much - my understanding of the third person of the

Trinity remained incomplete. So, as a young priest teaching theology, I

decided to study the outstanding witnesses to the Spirit in the Church's

history. It was on this journey that I found myself reading, among others,

the great Saint Augustine.

Augustine's understanding of the Holy Spirit evolved gradually; it was a

struggle. As a young man he had followed Manichaeism - one of those

attempts I mentioned earlier, to create a spiritual utopia by radically separ-

8 Cfr Jn 16:13. 9 Cfr 2 Pet 1:4.

10 Cfr Bar 3:38. 11 Cfr Jn 6:67-68. 12 Cfr Saint Augustine, Confessions viii, 7.