Well, St. Paul started me on this whole thing, so …
Well, St. Paul started me on this whole thing, so I can’t think of a better place to pick up the thread of this thought than the Holy Father’s recent comments on Paul’s words about the Holy Spirit. We have been discussing this idea that we are created body, created soul, and something else – something Uncreated – and I think we have drawn ourselves to the truth that this Other is the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. And just as we were coming to this, Pope Benedict’s Wednesday audience concurred, confirmed, explained in ways for which we were groping. It is worth reading in its entirety, but I will quote it at length:
“[I]n his letters St. Paul … does not limit himself to illustrate only the dynamic and operative dimension of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, but also analyzes his presence in the life of the Christian, whose identity is marked by him. That is, Paul reflects on the Spirit showing his influence not only on the Christian’s action but over his very being. In fact, he says that the Spirit of God dwells in us (cf. Rom 8:9; 2 Cor 3:16) and that “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (Gal 4:6). For Paul, therefore, the Spirit penetrates our most intimate personal depths…
Paul also teaches us another important thing. He says that there can be no authentic prayer without the presence of the Spirit in us…
It is as if saying that the Holy Spirit, namely, the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, becomes the soul of our soul, the most secret part of our being, from which rises incessantly to God a movement of prayer, of which we cannot even specify the terms. The Spirit, in fact, ever awake in us, makes up for our deficiencies and offers the Father our adoration, along with our most profound aspirations. Obviously this calls for a level of great vital communion with the Spirit. It is an invitation to be ever more sensitive, more attentive to this presence of the Spirit in us, to transform it into prayer, to experience this presence and to learn in this way to pray, to speak with the Father as children in the Holy Spirit. …
The Spirit places us in the very rhythm of divine life, which is a life of love, making us participate personally in the relations that exist between the Father and the Son. …
Thus let us learn from Paul that the action of the Spirit orients our life toward the great values of love, joy, communion and hope. It is for us to experience this every day, seconding the interior suggestions of the Spirit, helped in discernment by the illuminating guidance of the Apostle.”
This is a long way from, and high above, vivisecting spirit and soul!
I am struck (in light of our conversation) by these words:
“God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” (Galatians 4:6). For Paul, therefore, the Spirit penetrates our most intimate personal depths.
This identifies the “heart,” which we considered a possibility for the third element of a trichotomy, as “our most intimate personal depths.” As indeed it is.
