Gifts that Perfect Intelligence - Seeing God in All Things. By Fr. Bede Jarrett

Four of the sevenfold gifts perfect the intellectual side of man. They are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel. Of these, it is obvious that the first three are for myself and the last is chiefly given me for the benefit of others.

The gift of counsel means quite simply that I receive suggestions from the Holy Spirit what advice I am to give to those who come to consult me. I am made so responsive to the divine Wisdom that I at once perceive what is best for others in a way that, without the gifts, I should be wholly unable to do.

Thus, it sometimes happens that I am suddenly conscious of words apparently suggested to me from outside, words that are as much a surprise to me as they are of evident comfort to my hearers. The very phrase for which they have been longing and that alone seems to have the power to enable them to see straight into the entanglement of their affairs, comes trippingly to my tongue though I am perhaps unacquainted with their circumstances except for the little they have been able to tell me.

The gift of knowledge enables me to see God in the natural world of creation, in reason, in the arts and crafts of man, and in nature. The gift of knowledge is an understanding of God learnt from the material things of life. On the other hand, the gift of understanding allows me to see Him in the supernatural world of faith and in truths and mysteries, while wisdom further acquaints me with the inter-relation between faith and reason, nature and supernature.

The Sevenfold Gifts Guide and Rule Me. By Fr. Bede Jarrett

Must it therefore be admitted that by the gifts I merit nothing? Surely if this be so, it would seem as though I had therefore no need for them. If their influence on my life was only to leave me no better off than before I received them, I might just as well not have had them at all. If in them God is the mover to the exclusion of myself, then it would be absurd for me to expect any reward for what has been absolutely no work of mine. This is true. I do not merit by the gifts. Yet, I must add that I can profit by them.

The Holy Spirit lights up my mind and enables me to see or refines my perception of and responsiveness to His least suggestion. That is His doing so far. Illumination and refinement are entirely His work. However, my part comes later, when I respond to the suggestions or in accordance with the vision. Then, I profit by the gifts. Suggestion and vision are from God. He opens my mind and I see Him everywhere—in a flower, in trouble, or in the soul of a sinner.

If, in consequence of seeing Him in the sinner, I turn to that sinner and speak kindly of the love that never fails or if I help him by my sympathy though I speak no word of spiritual significance, then the good that I achieve, or at least the good I try to do, becomes my way of profiting by means of the gifts. This indwelling of the Spirit of God, while it takes control of my soul from me and hands it for the moment to God, gives me something by which I can love again and be rewarded. I do not merit by the sevenfold gifts, but I do merit through them.

The Sevenfold Gifts Work within Me. By Fr. Bede Jarrett

To this the Church makes answer that her doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit of God by means of the Sevenfold Gifts goes a long way to remove the load from my own shoulders and suggests to me a perfectly true sense in which my soul is ruled not by me but by another. As far, then, as these things can be stated in human language, we may say that the gifts differ from the virtues in this—the gifts are moved into operation not by me but by God.

When I perform an act of virtue, it is obvious that (not excluding God’s grace) it is I who performs it and I acquire merit in consequence; but in the movement of the gifts, it is not I but God who is the mover. He is the sole mover. In the actual movement of the soul under the influence of the gifts, I cannot claim any lot or part—I cannot claim any merit at all. He has His hand on the tiller—He guides, steers, and propels. Hence, it is He, not I, who has control of my soul. With the four gifts that perfect my intelligence, He illumines my mind; with the one gift that perfects the will, He inflames my desire; and with the two gifts that perfect the passions, He strengthens my emotions of love and fear with His intimate indwelling.

By the instrumentality of the gifts, the soul is keyed-up to the level of God, tuned to concert pitch. To vary the metaphor, the soul is made so responsive to the divine influence that, like some delicate electrical receiver, it registers every passing breath of God. I must remember that it is His doing, not mine.

Gifts of the Holy Ghost - Courage or Confidence in Omnipotent Love. By Fr. Bede Jarrett

The real difficulty experienced by most of us in keeping up our courage in the unceasing battle of life is that we realize how utterly we depend upon ourselves. Of course, it is true that the grace of God will be always with us, that it is never withheld, and that there is always a sufficiency of it for us to meet and triumph over every assault of the evil one. Yet even so, the disquieting thought comes home to us that it is always ourselves who determine our own actions—so much so that, indeed, if our actions are worthy of reward, it is we who obtain the reward and if our actions are worthy of punishment, it is we who suffer.

Saint Thomas says with stimulating paradox: “Not partly by God and partly by man, but altogether by God and altogether by man.”

That is to say, I have to reconcile these two separate truths:

(a) I cannot will anything without God’s grace helping me to do it;

(b) yet, God’s help does not take away from me my responsibility in the act, for its moral value will be adjudged to my credit or demerit.

The difficulty lies then, just in the second part of the paradox. Conscious as I am of my past failure, I can hardly look forward to future troubles without dismay. Consequently, I turn to see if the Church teaches anything that can relieve me from the burden of this discouragement. Is there any doctrine that, in any way at all, gives me an escape from the terror of my own responsibility?

Plenteous Streams from Love’s Bright Flood. By Fr. Bede Jarrett

Thus, came the Holy Spirit on the first Whitsunday. He came, in the rush of a great wind and in the form of fire, to typify the illumination of the mind by faith and the impulse given to the will by love. He came to teach all things, to recall to the minds of the Apostles the full doctrine of Christ.

At once, after their reception of His grace, the Apostles become changed men. No longer timid and frightened followers who fled at the first sight of danger and denied with an oath that they had ever known the name of Christ, they now become glad missionaries, declaring themselves willing to suffer in defense of that name. In council chambers and before kings they announce the Gospel.

So, too, when perplexities come as to whether or not they should force on all Christians the ceremonies of the Old Law as being of binding value on the conscience of the New Dispensation, they assemble, discuss, and decree in a phrase that clearly marks their own appreciation of the place they had to take in giving to the world the message of Christ: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” They and the Holy Spirit are fellow-workers in the apostolate of Christ. The revelation made to them by their Master was but a grain of mustard seed compared with the full development that would come after. It would grow from that until it included all truth. Yet, the knowledge of every detail of that truth would not at once be necessary, so the gradual unfolding was left to the work of the Spirit.

The work, then, of the Holy Ghost is twofold: it is to inflame the love and it is to enlighten the mind. Let me wait patiently for this illumination of my spirit by the Holy Spirit, putting no obstacle in the way, praying daily for that illumination that shall light as by a vision my view of life.

Unto Every Faithful Heart By Fr. Bede Jarrett

As the Church grew in the range and depth of her doctrine, so must she forever grow. The problems that distract her must increase. With each generation, those problems change their expression, for the forms of thought are the most mobile and uncertain of all human construction.

A cathedral lasts longer than a philosophy and a haunting song outlives the latest system of metaphysics. Questions are settled only that the restless mind of man may add another difficulty to the solution that allayed its previous doubt. Rapier-like in its power to find the weak joint in the armor, reason, sharpened by scientific criticism, picks here and there at the composition of the Creed. New conditions, new discoveries, new languages, require new attitudes, new difficulties, and new adjustments of old principles. Obviously, it is not sufficient to know the rules of the art. The great trouble and anxiety comes in the application of those rules.

So, too, is it in the Faith. The articles of belief seem at times to suggest contradictory answers to the problem that happens to be perplexing our minds at the moment. According to one mystery, there is one solution. According to a second mystery, there is another. How to choose and select, to decree without fear or favor, without danger of mistake, is the work of the Church.

Not merely in the broad line of the Church, but in the individual soul, the same task must go on—the balance between what has to be discarded as of passing significance and what is of abiding import. I have to discover for myself which is the mere adventitious dressing of some bygone form of thought and which is of enduring truth. Not indeed for myself, since in the Church abides forever the indwelling of the Spirit of God.

The Holy Ghost (Light) O Divinest Light, Impart By Fr. Bede Jarrett

The work of the Spirit has been outlined in the Gospels. Our Lord, at His Last Supper—when His teaching seems to have expounded in the full splendor and height of its tremendous mysteries, when, if ever, the Apostles could truly say that He had passed out of the realm of parable and had come into the deepest ways of truth—said that His going away was necessary for the coming of the Paraclete. He had to die and rise and ascend and then, from the right hand of the Father, His own work would continue in a ceaseless intercession for all the children of men.

On earth, however, His place would be taken by the Holy Ghost, who should teach the Apostles all things and bring back to their minds whatever He had taught them. In this way was guaranteed the infallibility and growth in doctrine that are the work of the Spirit.

Certainly, Our Lord had to temper His doctrine to the minds of His hearers. He could not from the first reveal to them the full meaning of His words. In the beginning, indeed, the need was simply for the main ideas to sink in— gradually. Then, slowly the other less important though necessary truths
could be added.

The little that He did teach was not too clearly retained, so He frequently had to up-braid them with not having understood His meaning. The length of His stay with them had not made them always grasp of what spirit they were.

What should happen when He was gone? He answered that only His going would set them on their own strength.

God’s Unchanging Love By Fr. Bede Jarrett

Something overpowering is in the concept of this work of God, this unceasing and unchanging love. I talk of fidelity in friendship as being to me the most beautiful thing on earth. The sight of a lover faithful to his beloved, despite disillusionment, is the most wonderful thing in the world—loyalty of soul for soul, despite every toil and stress, good repute and evil; above all ambition and beyond all degradation; when soul has been knit to soul.

Love is not love Which alters, when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.
Yet, this is but a feeble representation of the ineffable union between God and myself. Sinner though I be, He is my lover always. Even my sins cannot break His persistence. My sins can only set a barrier between myself and His persistence, can only (by the dangerous gift of my free will) prevent its effect from being seen in my soul. The love of God is with me always, “in me and within me and around, in million-billowed consentaneousness, the flowing, flowing, flowing” of the Spirit.
How can I hold back, howsoever wrongly I have acted, for His love is the same forever? As I was deep in His love when I was a child, so also does He love me now.

God’s Love Eternal By Fr. Bede Jarrett

Magdalen

God cannot cease to love me. That is the most startling fact that our doctrine reveals. Sinner or saint, He loves and cannot help Himself. Magdalen in her sin, Magdalen in her sainthood, was loved by God. The difference in her position made some difference also in the effect of that love on her, but the love was the same, since it was the Holy Spirit who is the Love of the Father and the Son.
Whatever I do, I am loved. Then, if I sin, I am unworthy of love? Yes, but I am unworthy always. He cannot love me for what I am, since in that case I should compel His love and force His will by something external to Himself. In fact, really, if I consider, I should find that I was not loved by God because I was good, but that I was good because God loved me. My improvement does not cause God to love me, but is the effect of God loving me. Consequently, even when I am punished by God, He cannot hate me. It is His very love itself that drives Him (out of the very nature of its perfection) to punish. So, Dante spoke truly when he imagined over the portals of Hell the inscription: “To rear me was the work of Immortal Power and Love.”

Each of us is, therefore, sure that he is loved eternally and that God’s love can suffer no change from God’s side. How, then, is it that we grow evil, or lose the familiar intercourse that we once had with Him? It is because He has given us the terrible power of erecting, as it were, a shield between ourselves and His love. He loves forever the same, but it is we who, by our sins, have the power to shut off that love from effecting anything good in our souls.

The Holy Ghost (Love) God’s Love Personified By Fr. Bede Jarrett

The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity is the most mysterious. About Him, we seem to hear the least and to understand the most vaguely. The work of Father and Son, their place in the economy of the divine plan, is simple and evident, at least in its main lines. However, of the Holy Spirit, it appears as though His precise purpose has not been sufficiently described to us. He is the equal of the Father and the Son, of the same nature, power, substance, and eternally existent with them, participating in the same divine life, and forming with them the ever-blessed Three-in-One. He represents to our human point of view that wonderful mystery, the personified love that proceeds from Father and from Son forever, and by this act completes the perfections of God.

We can conceive of no further addition to that being, save power, knowledge, and love. Yet we know also that He has His place, not only in the inter-relation (if the word may be allowed) of the Godhead, but in the relationship (though this phrase is certainly inaccurate) that exists between God and us. Since God is one and indivisible, His love for us cannot be other than the love that He has for Himself. In Him, there can be no distinction at all. Therefore, we discover that He loves Himself and us in the love of the Holy Ghost.

We see His love to be nothing else than Himself—unchanging, undying, without shadow of alteration. Sin as we may, we cannot make God love us less. Though we be children of wrath, He cannot help but love us, for the gifts of God especially the supreme gift of Himself, are without repentance.

God The Holy Ghost part 92.

By Henry Aloysius Barry


Open your ears ye nations and bear witness if ye be of the true Christ, showing His spirit. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them. The calf and bear shall feed, their young ones shall rest together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp: and the weaned child shall thrust his hand into the den of the basilisk." (v. 6, 7, 8.)

Whence this glorious transformation, this perfect harmony, this peace and justice? The prophet replies: "They shall not hurt, nor shall they kill, in all my holy mountain, for the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord." (v. 9.)—The old familiar word, knowledge! knowledge! Isaias says that the root of Jesse—not the sapless root but, Jesus imbued with His Own Spirit, "shall set up a standard unto nations." (v. 12.) In many countries the standard is furled and the cross is replaced with symbols that extol the supremacy of brutish strength and omniverous ambition,—aye, 'tis true, they say they are christians, but they hardly worship the sepulchral Christ; they are a thousand leagues from the Resurrected Messiah, with the blood rushing through His body and the glow of the Spirit making radiant His countenance. "A little child shall lead them,"—the voice of christian authority, not the dead cold type, but the living voice of the vicegerent of Christ, stirring the blood, extending a hand to lead the nations, and they hurl it rudely aside, therefore the spirit of Christ, the Holy Ghost is not, for the most part, in the nations of the earth. I repeat, is it not the people with constitutional means of protesting who tolerate such godless powers? Is the Holy Ghost in those nations who fail to rise in their might protesting against the christless spirit of rulers? As we have had previous occasion to remark, it is curious logic, and yet it impresses many, when it is reckoned out how many people are not of the true faith, that the conclusion is thence drawn that the Church is defective. Again it is often asked by sneerers, why, in view of Christianity, men and nations are not better. Alas, what better witness that men have renounced the true Church than the world's wickedness, the world's greed, which so far defies bounds as to endure political charlatans leading their fellowmen into the horrors of war and chuckling at the success of their fiendish ability to influence rulers and shape the bloody policy of nations. Love, justice, godliness and the whole catalogue of virtues, taught by our Lord, show, like a thermometer, the temperature of the Holy Ghost in our lives. "When these virtues which Jesus Christ has taught the world fail to display themselves in nations or individuals, the

signs of the living, risen Christ are absent from our lives, and as we shall have known but the outward Christ, the dead Nazarene, as it were, and have not risen and walked with Him and sown with Him by the in-breathing of the Holy Ghost in our mortal days, we cannot hope to pluck the fruitage of the spirit that blossoms forever in the eternal Paradise. The Holy Father, Leo XIII, assures us of the lack of inwardness in religious life of the world to-day, that is to say, the want of the Holy Ghost. Christ is banished when we fling aside the principle of internal love and righteousness: "We have too much evidence of the value and results of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it, that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress and that the evil is daily on the increase? Surely the nations must suffer from strife, anarchy and nihilism. "Once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be eagerly sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share. Once remove all impediments and allow the christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away, and mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realize that they must observe justice and charity; the latter, self restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved." The voice of the Pontiff goes out also to christians, "who, whilst professing the christian name, live strangers to the faith and love of Christ."— Ah, the dead Christ, as it were, without, so to speak, a soul, Christ without His Spirit; this cannot be. The true Christ is never divorced from His Spirit. The true christian acts by the inward prompting, is ever guided by the faith-illumined senses, is ever urged on in the life battle and the painful, bleeding foot-faring by the heart-pumping of the grace current by the engine of love. The true Christ is the risen one, breathing forth the spirit, spreading about the gleams of light, the fragrance of virtue and the sunny glow of His Spirit. It means, then, eternal life, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to me. May, then, the grace of the Holy Ghost daily deluge our hearts and senses in the surf of its luminance. May those tongues of fire that illumine, but burn not, play about our lives and emblazon our path to eternal love and light and the avoidance of those fiery floods that burn but ne'er illume, for I know that "no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost." (I Cor. xii, 3.) Steeped in regret for the incivilities of the past, O, August Third Person, my heart shall open to Thy sway, and, as the buds and flowerets open their pretty lips to the kiss of the morning sun, and, in return grow radiant with the sparkle of orient pearls, so shall my life be beauty-clad, "for now my love is changed; which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, bears no impression of the thing it was." The world will say: "His words are bonds; His oaths are oracles; His love sincere; His thoughts immaculate; His tears pure messengers sent from His heart; His Heart is as far from fraud as heaven from earth." O world, O demons, O flesh and blood, begone! —"hinder not my course, I'll be as patient as a gentle stream and make a pastime of each weary step, till the last step has brought me to my love. And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, a blessed soul doth in Elysium."

By REV. HENRY A. BARRY, D. D.

God The Holy Ghost part 91.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

Epiphanius says:—"If we consider the order of persons, the Son, the Second Person, is the medium between the First from Whom He is generated and the Third, Who, only on the supposition of the Son, proceeds also from the Father, through the Son." It remains, therefore, that in His personal character, that is to say, "Love," the Holy Ghost is the divine cord that binds the Father and Son, and, being the kiss of the Father and Son, will bind and reconcile us, ipso facto by grace, to the Father and Son. "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope, and in the power of the Holy Ghost." What does so much discourse on procession mean? The skeleton of Christ is all that the most of mankind can boast in their lives. His Spirit they have not. St. Bernard speaks of three advents of the Son of God, when the Son of God was be-fleshed and robed with human infirmities; the second, in spirit and virtue; the third, in glory and majesty. Peter de Blois calls the first "humble and hidden," the second, "mysterious and full of love." St. Paul verifies this personal sway of the Holy Ghost, this internal sanctification of men, this wonderful kingdom within us. Said he to the Romans, "That I should be the minister of Christ Jesus among the Gentiles; sanctifying the Gospel of God, that the oblation of the Gentiles may be acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Ghost." (xiv, 16.) The apostle here puts his hand on the lever which lifts the mere skeleton of Christ to the living state, with its veins and arteries, with a proper circulation of blood and a pulse—His Spirit. "But I dare not speak of any of these things which Christ worketh by Me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed.

By the virtue of sign and wonders, in the Holy Ghost." (18,19.) Does He separate the Son from the spirit? Listen! "I beseech you therefore, brethren, through our Lord, Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Holy Ghost, that you help me in your prayers for me, to God." (v. 30.) Look around you upon the lives of the nations and of men and point out where the spirit of Jesus, the sweet, hidden, self-forgetting, humble, patient, compassionate, poverty-loving Jesus, that is to say, where the living Christ is? The nations are snarling at one another and sleep in coats of mail; their policies are shaped by men, whose sense of justice is blunted by the influence of the anaesthetic of money and ambition, and, the misery of it all is that such representatives of government are in the most of instances chosen by the rank and file of the people after their platform has been defined and openly declared. Great armies are mobilized to terrify and hoodwink the weak who bleat like sheep at the sight of the shears, because they are to lose their fleece, and, all is done under the hypocritical shield of so-called civilization and Christianity, though Jesus Christ said distinctly to those who would follow in the leadership of His spirit, "Put up thy sword," I am the "Prince of Peace," My spirit is "Love" and "Justice." Great syndicates are grinding down the poor, cornering the markets, and law-makers, sworn to guard the people's interests, become as the results of lobbying, the tools of the trusts, the puppets of vested interests. Whilst, in the meantime, the few are growing enormously affluent and the poor people are becoming poorer; yet, the name of Christ is, to outward appearance, honored. His name is received with a certain manifestation of deference but, O how little of His spirit is in the world,   especially in the hearts of the rich and powerful! It is a hollow mockery to make profession of Christianity, whether it be nations or individuals, and, at the same time, be without the spirit of Christ, that is to say, the Holy Ghost. The Prophet says all this in speaking of our Lord, "The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him; the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of council and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of godliness." (Is. xi, 2.) Again, love of God cannot be of the right sort and not be built upon respect and fear, "And He shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge according to the sight of His eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of His ears." (v. 3.) Harken ye rich individuals and corporations, u He shall judge the poor with justice and justice shall be the girdle of His loins; and faith the girdle of His reins." (v. 4, 5.) 

God The Holy Ghost part 90.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

St. Chrysostom puts it in this way:—"To impart judgment to the Son is equivalent to begetting the Judge Himself." (Homily Mx. In. Joan.) The Venerable Bede says: —"When the spirit is given by grace to men, the Holy Ghost is assuredly sent by the Father and sent by the Son,because His being sent is procession itself, for the reason that He proceeds from the Father and the Son." (Hom . Dom i, post Asc.) There are not, however, two separate processions in the Son and Holy Ghost, "one eternal and the other temporal."

In the first place, because none of the saints have ever said so. Then again, if this were granted, complications would ensue. There is truly one procession, and that eternal, according to which the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son. When, however, creatures shall have come to exist or seemed capable of a knowledge or illustration of this procession, He is said to proceed, become manifest, be poured forth and given to them, and then that, which is by itself eternal, happens to them in time. For the procession is, indeed, altogether one and always one. Nothing new transpires in God, on account of His sovereign simplicity and perfection, etc. (Calecas, Cap. v.) The action and substance of 'mission' is eternal. St. Augustine says: —"The Son accordingly is not only said to be sent, because the Word was made flesh, but therefore sent that the Word would be made flesh and, by the corporeal presence, the things that were written should be wrought out." (Lib. iv. De. Trinit. Cap. xx.)

In the light of reason one can understand that pressure, precept and prayer could not possibly enter into the idea of divine Persons being sent. The solitary remaining way then, in which a divine Person is sent, is by production, a resemblance to which is exhibited when the sun emits its rays or the tree produces its flower. "It has been amply set forth," remarks St. Augustine, "that the Son is none the lesser for being sent by the Father, nor the Holy Ghost of smaller proportions because the Father and Son sent Him. The Scriptures draw their coloring for their allusions on these points from the visible creation, at the behest of origin, without meaning inequality, disparity or disresemblance of substance; for, should God the Father have cared to manifest Himself outwardly, it would be absurd to say that He was sent by the Son, Whom He begot or by the Holy Ghost Who proceeds from Him." (Trinit. iv. n. 32.)

Briefly, then, in the Holy Ghost being sent by the Father and the Son, we have conveyed to us, thereby, the truth that He has His origin from them as from one principle, but, inasmuch as He is God, the Holy Ghost suffers from His origin no violence to the fulness of His Godhead, but, is eternally equal to the Father and Son. We cannot have too deeply inculcated upon us, nay, it is a fruitful source of perennial meditation, that this procession of the Holy Ghost, which becomes sensible to us, is eternal procession, simple and unique. A thrilling thought! The souls of men, like so many trees, have their roots fed in the eternal depths of the wisdom and love of God. That supernatural grace of God, which we have given to us by our Lord —the Holy Ghost,—traced to its source, goes back to the Son and yet on to the Father. Nay, there are not two processions, I repeat. The 'mission' of the Holy Ghost to our Christian hearts is the one, eternal, unremitting procession, of which our dull minds and leaden hearts receive for the first time a manifestation, when we have renounced sin and with it dispelled our soul-blindness. Feeble, low and delicately soft was the voice of the Spirit in the olden days, as longbearded prophet strained his ears to catch its languid witchery, a gentle wooing of the breath of August, but, it blew a gale at Pentecost, when the omnipotence of the Holy Ghost swept that upper chamber and afterwards quieted down to a revelation of secrets and an outpouring of tenderest love based on respect. What intervenes to shut out from us the manifestations of the majesty, of the potency and burning love of the Eternal Procession? Where is that Pentecostal gale, whilst like old lagoons, we tarry becalmed, nay, moored, on the waters of the Dead Sea, or moving with a disheartening slowness near the Jordan's shore, where a short leap would bring us to the shore and the old ways of sin and lethargy? The Holy Ghost is the medium between the Father and the Son in the sense in which He is the love of the Father for the Son and of the Son for the Father; the immanent terminus produced by that love is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, as subsistent love, has figured in the writings of the Fathers as the medium between the Father and the Son. He is called, accordingly, "The unity of Both" by St. Augustine and others, and by St. Bernard, "the mutual kiss of the Father and Son," and the "imperturbable peace," and the "sealing wax," and, "The indissoluble chain of the Trinity." In another sense, the Son is called the medium between the Father and the Holy Ghost. 

God The Holy Ghost part 89.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XXL

THE ACT OF SENDING.

The Arians eagerly embraced the fact that the Son was 'sent' as affording them ground for the conclusion that the Son was not on an equal plane with the Father. On the other hand, acting in a contrary direction, the Fathers of the Church take up the same fact, namely, that of being "sent," and argue against the Arians and Sabellians that, as St. Basil observes—distinction of persons is implied and that the person "sent" must be eternally in procession from the 'one sending.' Owing to the perfection that attends a divine person and in view of the Unity of the divine Nature, no idea of  dependency on the part of the one who sends can be involved in the idea or entertained by us. When it has to do with a divine Person being 'sent' the imperfections of the mere creature are absent from the operation; hence, there is no inferiority in the Son or Holy Ghost to be deduced from the fact of their being "sent." The Arians for example had forgotten the character of their subject. They had tried to submit a thing divine to the rules of judgment, the standards of  weights and measures that are only for creatures. This makes all the difference in the world in results as gathered from the consideration of Godhead by a prophet or an ill-disposed person. The prophet, the saint, the christian man invariably approaches Godhead duly imbued with a right sense of the fact that God is above creatures; He studies His laws with holy awe and leaves a blank space for the wisdom of God. —"Who," says David, "among the Sons of God shall be like unto God?" "God Who is glorified in the assembly of the saints, great and terrible, adorable above all them that are about Him. O Lord of Hosts, Who is like to Thee?" (Ps. lxxxviii. 7, 8, 9.) There are two elements that enter the woof and warp of a divine Person's being "sent." There is the origin, a quo, — from whom—and a new relationship—to whom. We have, consequently, an eternal element and a temporal one, the latter being what one might term an affinity to the creature or the work being accomplished. Because indeed the procession of the Holy Ghost through the Son in the direction of creatures is termed a 'being sent,' inasmuch as it transpires in time, that is to say in the interests of creatures, who, in time, become partakers thereof, the temporal element indeed arises from the side of creatures. The sun does not, neither may it be said to, begin to shine only so soon as a blind man comes into possession of his visual faculties and the enjoyment of the sun's rays. The sun had been, all the while, shooting its arrows of light, though the blind man had walked in its radiant splendors with sealed, impenetrant and darkened orbs. Says St. Basil: —"Procession, with God, hath naught of time though time unveils its inward workings in effects." 

"Being sent" embraces procession and outward efficient power, and, as it would be rash to denythat the Father ever appeared, sensibly, in as far as He is no whit less invisible than the Son or Holy Ghost, yet as He still lacks the former element of the idea namely procession—He never having proceeded from anyone—the Father could never be sent, for as St. Augustine remarks, "He has none of Whom He should proceed." (De Trinit. Cap. xx.) St. Thomas and conservative Fathers of Holy Mother Church confirm this contention. St. Fulgenus, for example, says: —"The Holy Ghost, we read, is sent by the Father and Son because He proceeds from the Father and Son." In a less proper sense, the Son is said to be sent by the Father and Holy Ghost, because in union with the Father the Holy Ghost wrought out the Incarnation. The basis of this external and less-properly called "Mission" or being sent shows, in its own way, that the internal Mission is only possible when the one sent proceeds from the one sending. The external element of Mission in general is such as comes within the focus of the senses, for example, "The Word made flesh," and made visible to man, or the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. Even this outward efficiency or external element may he sub-exterior, so to speak, as when for example the Holy Ghost without being visible outwardly is sent to one of the faithful. It remains, however, that "being sent," properly so called, embraces the eternal and external element. St. Augustine so asserts:—"Since the Father and Son accomplished Christ's appearance in the flesh, He,Who appeared in the flesh, is appropriately said to be sent, but, He Who did not appear is said to have sent. Inasmuch as those things that took place in the presence of the corporeal eye are existent from the internal supply of the spiritual nature, therefore are they properly said to be sent." (lib. ii, De Trinit. Cap. v.) The Father herein shows that Mission or being sent is coalescent of two elements, namely the eternal and the temporal. "Mission" is, properly speaking, nothing more than the eternal production and communication of nature in which is contained an external working out in time — one might say, a sort of overflow or extension.

God The Holy Ghost part 88.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

The characteristic element of the Holy Ghost is injected into it when charity so purifies the soul that it has a love only for what is right and a nausea toward what is wrong. On general principles the enemy of knowledge is the enemy of love. I speak of course of ordinate knowledge, reserving a margin for the relative application to the practical character of persons and states of life with their modulating circumstances, such as bodily infirmities. Knowing God profoundly we will love Him so; spreading the knowledge before others we will attract their love to God. The two purposes achieve the perfection of the Holy Ghost in our lives —"the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart"—but this is not all; something more is necessary to complete the circle of charity and embrace the perfection of the love of the Holy Ghost—"thy neighbor as thyself." Pope Leo urges all to disseminate far and wide the better knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, by teaching, persuading, exalting. (Encycl. Holy Year 1900.) That is, one should have the grace of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Ghost within one's heart and let its flames leap forth to consume others in the same knowledge of Jesus Christ and the same love of the Holy Ghost. In one word, let each of us be in his own way and in the measure of his gifts and opportunities a "Father of the Church," that is to say, begetting children to Christ by righteousness of life and knowledge. Says St. Isidore of this blend:— "Whoso shall be placed over people to instruct and establish them in virtue ought of necessity to be in every respect holy himself and in no point found reprehensible. Because whoever charges another with sin should be himself alien to sin. For who could have the effrontery to accuse his subjects when they could immediately retort: first learn to do right yourself? Since in the first place he who occupies himself in admonishing others to right living should correct himself so as to be an ideal himself of a good life in all things and provoke, by doctrine and deed, all men to do what is right. The knowledge of Scripture is required of him, because if a bishop is merely a good-living man, such a life is only an advantage to himself. But if he is erudite in doctrine and speech, he can instruct others also, teach his own and defeat his adversaries, who, if they are not refuted and vanquished, can easily pervert the hearts of simple folk." (Ad. St. Fulg. Cap. v.)

"As some also of your own poets said" (Acts xvii, 28) of magistrates is infinitely more predicable of the christian teacher:—

"He, who the sword of heaven will bear 
Should be as holy as severe; 
Pattern in himself to know, 
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying,
Thou by self-offences weighing
Shame to him, whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!"

God The Holy Ghost part 87.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

We read much about methods of apostleship that will bring about an era of "mutual understanding" and "better feeling" between the Church and those not of her. Literature and example augmented by a spirit of personal zeal will no doubt do much, as our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIII. has said:—"the zeal and earnestness of the bishops and clergy do wonders." But when all is done or said, history assures us that religious leaders who are ambitious or actuated by the baser motives will, in order to secure their own ends, juggle the truth and misquote the teachings of the Church with the most ghastly consequences of leading a simple people astray and setting them at the throats of their Catholic fellow citizens. For the most part in alien pulpits our doctrines are not taken up honestly, critically examined and openly reviewed. The vitriolic abuse system? the system of sneering, that creates a heart and sect-bias, rouses prejudice against us and generates a feeling that becomes distinctive and class-like as the years roll on, by the evolution of kindred bonds that flow from it into all the walks of life —this is the stratagem of anti-christian warfare. This morbid uncatholicity is in a great measure the result of suppression of the truth, a criminal evasion of a just and fair treatment of our side, dogmatically and historically. No doubt, many of the simple people who sit under these sectarian pulpiteers are sincere. Charity and love toward their fellowmen is never earnestly advocated in their presence by those who mould their views of life and men and in whom they repose the confidence and trust that the naked truth shall alone guide these religious teachers in the work of spiritual formation. I repeat that this is history and begins with the life of our Lord and the Jewish opposition to Him on no better ground than that the Saviour of mankind spoke the truth to them. The heretics in all ages, when brought face to face with the truth, have resorted to chicanery, to subterfuge and misinterpretation. The world is variant in superficial features, but, in their solid, substantial, intrinsic character and qualities the human family is the same. From this similarity of character and disposition the same virtues and faults, the same likes and dislikes, the same dangers as of yore are now in vogue and will be in vogue. The human family substantially repeats itself.

We have then to do as the Fathers have done—know the faith perfectly, teach the faith in season and out of season with force and conviction, yet with christian courtesy, explain the faith without doing violence to dignity and killing at once the possibility of securing the effect which in the end we should hope to attain, have at heart to defend the faith, as our fathers have done so well before us. The Church must have learned men, clerical and lay, to force the heretics into the open field and show the millions of souls who are kept in darkness the power of our weapons, the strength, the beauty and, above all, the truth of our cause. "Break the captive's fetters, light on blindness pour." Missions for non-Catholics is a healthy sign of Catholic times. Every dogmatic, moral or Catholic historical assertion that comes from the enemy,—press or pulpit, —must be duly examined and refuted in books, in journals and by word of mouth. The Church on earth is militant and it shall remain militant. A church of the heavenly rest is not a church for earth. We must sustain the cause of truth as a sacred duty, as soldiers of Jesus Christ, and, the times call for learning to be linked to the highest moral and spiritual perfection, as Urban called aloud Anselm! Anselm! The lips of the priest are deputed and consecrated by God to guard wisdom and it is revealed that the Lord shall demand the law and wisdom of his lips.

The recruiting sergeants must pick their men. The battle of the Church is to be, as it were, fought out in the courtyard of the university of the christian academy and school. The mechanism of modern warfare is rapidly evolving under the impetus of wealth, and a patriotism, born of intense rivalry among the nations, is brought to bear on the select mechanical inventive genius of every country. The Church of Jesus Christ must always have her learned doctors and these must keep in touch, by their sacred vocation, with the enemies' offensive and defensive methods of science, of philosophy, of history and the rest. There are some— perhaps many—who do not feel the importance of this matter. The militant spirit seems for the greater part to have died out among us. Many seem to forget that beside being Priest, Victim, Prince of Peace and Liberator that Jesus Christ is the Teacher of all nations. No matter how moral a soldier may be, if he cannot fight he has no military vocation. How much the present Pontiff cherishes this spirit. "You must," says he to the bishops and clergy of the world, "look upon it as a chief part of your duty to engrave upon the minds of your people the true knowledge of their likeness to Jesus Christ, to illustrate His charities, His mercies, His teachings, by your writings and your words, in schools, in universities, in the pulpit and wherever opportunity is offered you." Leo XIII. is a model himself of the most progressive science; he can say his prayers with a better profit because he shows the world that he is the nurse of knowledge and can, accordingly, weave exquisite verse and bewilder the world by his keen penetration and splendid grasp of principles and conditions operative in the socialistic fermentations of the day such as the relationship existing between capital and labor. But simply good men never won the battles of the Church at any time. We find this lesson from the Child Jesus with the doctors in the temple. Even at that tender age He knew His prophets and the history of events— humanly speaking. The Fathers of the Church received from their blending of widest and deepest learning with eminence in moral and spiritual perfection the proud title of being "Fathers" of the Church; and, it means much, aye an inculcable amount, to be a Father of the Church, to take the place of ourLord, to be a teacher of the nations, to argue with the Pharisee, with the Jew, with the Gentile, with the heretic and to protect and spread the Church. How dear such men must be to the Holy Ghost! "Ambassadors of Christ, God as it were exhorting by us." (II. Cor. v. 20.) Under all this lies a natural law of life. The heart is reached through the mind or, as St. Augustine says, "There is no love where there is nothing to be loved. As there are two things, namely, mind and its love when it loves itself, so also are there a certain two, namely, the mind and its knowledge when it knows itself. Hence the mind itself, its love and its knowledge are a certain three things and these three are one." (De Trinit. lib. ix. c. 2. n. 2.)

God The Holy Ghost part 86.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

A bishop named Vigilius, of Tapse in Africa, is reputed to be its author or compiler. At the Council of Ayton, held in the year 670, we find mention first made of it. Ayton, Bishop of Bayle, toward the year 800 enjoined it upon the clergy at Prime. Ratherius, Bishop of Veronne, toward the year 930, expressed the wish that the priests of his diocese should learn it by heart in conjunction with the symbol of the apostles and the Nicene Creed. At the present day the clergy of Holy Mother Church recite the Symbol of St. Athanasius in the Roman Breviary as often as the Office of the Sunday occurs. The Symbol touching on the point of the present subject runs in this fashion:—"The Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, not made, not created, nor begotten, but proceeding." The Greek heretics were so cut up with such serious historic evidences being brought to bear against their cause that they broke forth into an avalanche of vituperation and vitriolic calumny. They even went so far as to allege that the author of the Symbol must have been beside himself with potent beverage when he quilled such words. The old story again. Abuse and wrath are the resources of the insincere, when argument offers no further hope; it is the weapon of the lost cause; it is the delirium or fever spasm, when reason's flame is quenched. Is it not a noticeable thing how some persons—I allude to non Catholics—otherwise solemnly — at least to all appearances, —diligent and earnest in the matter of religion will fail to have the most elementary idea of the obligations of charity and the good offices of courtesy? The true Church has to contend with this kind of thing repeatedly. This, it seems to me, should be a matter of self-examination on the part of those who differ from the Church. A christian love of truth is not a. source of passionate feud, of cankerous antipathy; and, yet, on the other hand, this I suppose cannot be otherwise in view of the fact that truth disturbs men's passions and upsets the triumph of their own personal will and selfish independence. It sends home akeen thrust to their stubborn hearts and opposes a permanent barrier, and an insurmountable one, to its worst form, namely, fanaticism and false religions, that have no root in the Son of Man and no approbation on the part of the love of God. It arraigns before a just tribunal voluptuous, dishonest and proud men. As long as such disorders are possible, the truth will have to struggle. If one be well disposed I fail to see how the truth should not be welcome to him. Far from hating it, if one is sincere, he will fall upon its neck, embrace it with love and gratitude and bestow upon it the kiss of peace. Let those who so bitterly oppose the pillar and ground of truth, which is the Church of Jesus Christ, suppose for a moment that the Church does not teach the truth, where do they find in Holy Scripture justification, or such a thing as a model, approved by God, for bitterness and a system of the sword, whether it be of a social or of a business kind? At root there is perhaps more religious animosity toward the truth than sincere enthusiasm for a right cause. Its tone and methods and principles stamp it as not of God. Peace, love, benignity, turning the other cheek in a profuse consideration for one's enemies —patience, ah! these are the qualities and elements that must attend when the Holy Ghost inspires a thing.

God The Holy Ghost part 85.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

To return to our theme, St. Ambrose writes:—"The Holy Ghost also, inasmuch as He proceeds from the Father and the Son, is not separate from the Father or the Son." (De Spirit Sanct. Cap. x.) "We cannot assert," says St. Augustine, "that the Holy Ghost does not proceed also from the Son, because it is not without some purpose that He is avowed to be the one spirit of the Father and the Son. We are taught that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Two. (De Trinit. Lib. iv.) "Why should we not believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, whereas He is the very Spirit of the Son? If He did not proceed from Him, we should not have found Him after His Resurrection in the act of breathing upon His disciples and saying, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost,' for, what means this on breathing but that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Him?" (In Joan, xcix.)

With audacity characteristic of insincere religionists and headstrong theologists, the Greeks so-called have striven to distort the features of St. Augustine's ideas. Macarius Bulgakow, a Russian bishop of repute among his religious kind, cites St. Augustine as in favor of the heretical cause. St. Augustine had said: "The Holy Ghost is not of Himself but of Him from Whom He proceedeth; and inasmuch as He proceeds from Both as we have already shown, He is hence called the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son." The whole text is directly against the Photian contention. What then? Macarius cuts it in halves and quotes, "The Holy Ghost is not of Himself but of Him from Whom He proceeds," and deliberately leaves out the words, "He proceeds from Both." Even without this final rounding off, the very words that Macarius does quote would not favor the Photian cause because the singular number is used—"The Holy Ghost is of 'Him' from Whom He proceedeth;" for, as a matter of fact, the singular number contains theological excellence inasmuch as it expresses the truth that the Father and Son are "One Principle"; this shows that ab-intra there are not two spirators but rather one. In works ad-extra, for example, the world—the Fathers would say that it was created by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost; it is not therefore from itself but from "Him " by Whom it was created— namely the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to preserve the idea that ad-extra there are not three Creators but One. St. Leo, Roman Pontiff, says, "One is there Who begets, another also is begotten, yet One again is there Who proceedeth from the Two." St. Anselm did yeoman service in the Barensian synod. When the Greeks contended with violence and in a very monsoon of sophistic ardor of debate swept down upon the assembled Bishops, Pope Urban II., who sat upon the throne, rose up and with great dramatic effect called out in a loud voice, "Anselm! Anselm!" The singularly equipped man of God, obedient to the call, bounded into the arena of argument and before the assembled pontiffs with the weapon of deep invincible erudition and keen logic drove back the invaders of orthodox doctrine. Among other testimonies, St. Anselm contributes these words:—"Let us confess that the Holy Ghost, when He proceedeth from the Father 'through' the Son, proceeds likewise 'from' the Son just as what is done 'by' the Father 'through' the Word is done likewise 'by' the Word Himself." What is called the Symbol of St. Athanasius, assigned a place in the Roman Breviary, was chiefly aimed at the Arians, Nestorians and Eutichians. It is deep and critical, learned and limpid on the Trinity and upon the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, about Whose two natures it discourses admirably. The Symbol takes its name not from the fact that the saint drew it up, but because it was compiled wholly from the saint's writings and sets out to establish the truth for which this Father so gallantly contended.

God The Holy Ghost part 84.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XX. THE LATIN FATHERS ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST FROM THE FATHER AND SON.


After the middle of the fourth century, St. Hilary, although most exclusively occupied in his works on the Blessed Trinity with the consubstantiality of the Son, incidentally, still with none the less positiveness, teaches by parity of reason that the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and Son is matter of faith delivered down by Holy Scripture. "The Holy Ghost," says the Saint, "proceedeth ex aequo from the Father and Son." (lib. ii, de Trinit.) "I would adore Thee, our Father," says the saint, "Thy Son, Who is one with Thee, Thy Holy Spirit which is from Thee by Thy only begotten." St. Hilary makes use of the two prepositions 'from' and 'by' to denote distinctiveness of Persons and in doing so has done what the Scriptures had done before him and the Father's since. St. Hilary and St. Augustine have kept in the foreground the fact of the Father being the primordial Principle. They have done so by alluding to Him as the 'Author.' The former calls the Three Persons in the order of relationship 'Author','Only-Begotten'and 'Gift'. Says St. Augustine:—"If you say the Father is called 'Author' because the Son is of Him and because from Him and the Son the Holy Ghost so proceeds that He (the Father) by begetting shall have given to the Son to have the Holy Ghost proceed from Him, what you say agrees with us." (contra Maximin. I. ii c. 5; c. 14. n, 1.) En Passant, St. Hilary in this connection gives expression to the idea of liberty in matters of faith. He tells the Arians, "The Lord hath not left the matter in uncertainty." The saint says substantially that Christ takes away this liberty by His doctrine. Of course when faith speaks, one cannot remain free to question the truth. Yet this is what a rebellious religious element in the world is all the time battling for. All their sympathies go out to combat for such a liberty as leaves men free and unbound before, and by, the Eternal King. In other words, according to their idea, truth cannot compel. St. Hilary tells us that this is "the liberty of a wicked intelligence." This Father would have the Arians know that it is not He Who offers violence to their liberty, but Christ. How much of virulent invective is exploded in the air every day about the Church supplanting liberty and reason with assertion and dogma; whereas, in reality, she is only the mouth-piece of Christ. The deepest faith is the most perfect freedom. "If you continue in My words," says our Lord, "you shall be My disciple indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." The Jews rose up in their might and surged in tumult of violence against the Messiah—"You seek to kill Me because My word hath no place in you." So may the Church say, "You seek to kill Me, a Man Who hath spoken the truth to you." "But if I say the truth you believe Me not." (John viii.) Freedom is the child of truth. That child may be bound up in a mother's deep affections, locked in the inner cells of her bosom, aye one must hate Father and Mother for God. Our Lord spoke of the eternal captive—let the unbelieving world pause to examine the root of His reprobation: —"You are of your father the devil and the desires of your father you will do, and he was a murderer from the beginning and he stood not in truth because truth is not in him." (v. 44.) A father's tears, a wife's devotion, a child's temporal welfare, position in the world, mercantile, social,—all stand between the soul and the truth. Let us all examine ourselves on this point. 

God The Holy Ghost part 83.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

All this scientific literature and pedagogic speech might seem to a superficial observer to be wholly devoid of living, human interest. It would seem to be, as it were, something that one may not eat, something having no heart-interest, something cold and speculative, yet, in the glowing embers of a controversy, that has lasted for ages, do we not see the flaming tongues of the Spirit's wisdom, love and guidance? Into the hot furnace of dispute the personality of the Holy Ghost has been plunged. The flames have roared and soared about it; the bellows were applied with lusty brawn, as Photius, Cerularius and their disciples fell to the task, each in his turn; yet, the hammers of the enemy did but forge from the anvil the most clearly defined figure, so to speak, of the Holy Ghost, a figure divine, all-perfect, eternal, aye, God. Without this solid and deep truth, what were the spiritual food of our life? Unsubstantial, flake-like, nebulous, atmospheric. Today the Holy Ghost means to us, from what we have been studying, a divine substantiality. When His name is spoken on the tongue and lips, we taste now the juice of Godhead, a cordial insidious, that ekes its way through the thousand veinlets of the soul, strengthening, lubricating and refreshing. The Third Person is a living thing to us. When we ask for the various forces needful to the soul the currents of grace flow, deep, splashing, torrential and real down upon us. The spiritual eye sees it as really, though in a different form of reality, as the Eucharistic God: —"Whom do men say that I am?" Let us put these words adaptingly upon the lips and, so to speak the fiery tongue of the Holy Ghost, and our reply shall be, Thou art the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, and, Thou art the living God, "proceeding from the Father and Son, from all Eternity.

God The Holy Ghost part 82.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

Gregory Nyssene has recorded these words:

"Therefore, the Spirit which is from God, is also the Spirit of God, but the Son, though He is from God, neither is, nor is said to be of the Spirit, nor may the relationship be twisted about."

The Holy Ghost is here and there called, "Spirit of the Son," or the "Spirit of Christ," or the "Spirit of the Father and Son," but you cannot say that the Second Person is the "Son of the Spirit." . This order of the Trinity makes profession of the order of relationship of origin and principle such as exists in the Blessed Trinity.

When the Father is said to be greater than the Son, reference is made to dignity or authority, and merely goes to show that one is the origin or principle of the other. Our Lord intimates that the Holy Ghost is greater than He Himself— " by the Spirit of God, cast out devils," and "whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come." St. Athanasius takes up the point and assures us that our Lord is now speaking in the role of Man. When He is speaking in the capacity of, or according to, the divine Nature, He is greater than the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the Third Person proceeds from Him — and the Father, of course. Our duty in this matter is plain; it urges us to preserve with care the sacred order of the Trinity and to draw constant benefit from an enlightened appreciation of the orthodox profession, inasmuch as it sets forth the true relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost is called by the Greek Fathers the 'Image of the Son.' The angelic doctor comments on this:—"The Holy Ghost," says St. Thomas, "cannot be called the natural image of the Son—as St. Cyril asserts —only inasmuch as He is like the Son according to nature, receiving His nature from the Son." Says St. Cyril of Alexandria:—"If the Spirit of God is termed the 'Image of the Son,' He is therefore God and nothing else." (Thesaur. xxxiii.) The Holy Ghost is called "the Word of the Son." St. Thomas understands this in the sense that the saints, inspired by the Holy Ghost, have spoken of the Son. —"But there is another sense more strict, which signifies origin and procession of the Holy Ghost, for St. Cyril calls the Holy Ghost the 'mind of God,' inasmuch as He naturally proceeds from the substance of the Son." (Thesaur. xxxiv.) The Holy Ghost is called the "Countenance of the Son," in order to indicate procession from the Son and that He receives from the Son a likeness or identity of nature. We have already pointed out the calumny against the solid procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son — "Filioque " —when we made reference to St. John Damascene. The academic elucidation is interesting to the elite of the schools, but it is, in a way, simple enough to interest the least among us. It is based on the use of, and distinction between, the two words or prepositions, ek and dia — to anglicize the Greek preposition — which means 'from' and 'by,' or 'through!' The key to the whole demonstration we get from St. Augustine. It runs like this:—"The principle of all Divinity, or better still of all Godhead, is the Father," that is to say, the Father is principium —origin or cause—by no principle produced;— he is the primordial cause and fountain-head, having all that He has non-communicated. The ek —

from —goes to illustrate and to keep well in the foreground the truth and order of the divine relations. The dia —'through' the Son —does not indeed negative the procession of the Holy Ghost from' the Son, but by the preposition 'that is 'through' the Son, St. John and other fathers would indicate, yea, impress upon us, this fact, namely, that the Son has not from Himself the power of production but He receives all things from the Father. It is in this light that we find St. Gregory Nyssene speaking these words: —"The Son is proximately from the first 'principle,' and the Holy Ghost is 'through' Him Who is proximately from the first principle." St. Basil bears witness to it, —"the word 'through' whom embraces the profession of the 'principal cause,' but is not intended to exclude the 'efficient cause.'" The 'dia' or 'through' the Son does not, therefore, exclude the Son from efficiency or the 'cause' of the Holy Ghost, but merely goes to demonstrate that the Father is the primordial cause. The two prepositions 'through' and 'from' have been, as we before remarked, convertibly employed. St. Cyril says:—"Do we not say that Emanuel was born 'through' the Holy Virgin." Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ 'by' the will of God. (I Cor. i.) As the Holy Ghost proceeds 'from' the Father because He is of the nature of the Father, in a like or equal manner He proceeds also 'through' the Son because He is naturally of Him and consubstantial with the Son." St. Basil says:—"That the Father builds by the Son does not demonstrate any dearth of efficiency, neither does it weaken action on the part of the Son, but, rather, signifies union of will."

God The Holy Ghost part 81.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XIX. THE ORDER OF PERSONS.

The baptismal formula, the motto carved on the portals of the kingdom of Christ by our Lord Himself, reads in this way:—"In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The Ecclesiastic Doxology re-echoes this dictamen—"Be glory given to the Father and the Son and to the Holy Ghost, this day and for aye." St. John's declaration preserves this arrangement: —"There are Three Who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these Three are One." (i, John v, 7.) These facts set forth such an order of persons as brooks no divergence from what is so clearly built on the deepest harmonies of Godhead as it is in its eternal rhythm. One would, by inverting this order of divine relations, be guilty of serious error. Were one, for example, to put the Holy Ghost first in order it would imply that the Holy Ghost is the One that begets. The Holy Ghost belongs in third place, in view of the relationship of procession. There is a difference in the matter of relationship but no difference in point of substance in the Trinity. There is a difference of persons but not of nature. Fatherhood is the First Person; Sonship is the Second Person and Spiration is the Third Person. There is, however, no superiority among the Three, no dependency, no inequality of years, of dignity or perfection. In the olden days, Catholics were marked out from the Arians, as Nicephorus informs us. Some Arians piped, "Glory to the Father in the Son," with the view to relegating the Son to an obscure and secondary place. Others skirled "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost." But such as made the true profession of consubstantiality carolled "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost." The Council of Nice made an addition to these words of the following versicle, "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, one God world without end." (March. Hort, past. to. iv lect.)

There is equality in the Trinity. The sense in which One of the Three is greater than Another is in that of 'cause', of principle or origin, that is to say, inasmuch as one proceeds from Another. St. Basil remarks upon the order of the Trinity, "Those who shift this order about, seeing that it has been handed down to us by our Lord, must discontinue the practice because they are in open war with the truth. Stable and incorrupt must we preserve this order of persons which we have received from our Lord's own lips." Theodoret also makes the observation: —"The order of names does not teach us that there is any difference in the matter of dignity and nature." St. Athanasius sympathetically agrees: —"therefore the Son Himself did not allege, 'the Father is better than I,' lest someone should fancy that His nature is not the same, but, 'greater than I,' said he, not by any greatness or age, but simply that He was begotten by the Father." St. Gregory Nazianzen queries in this style:—"What lacketh the Spirit of being the Son? We admit that He lacketh naught, for, God could not be lacking in aught. The difference, however, of what I might call Their manifestation and of Their mutual relationship, has created different names for Them." (Orat. xxxvii.)

God The Holy Ghost part 80.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

Gregory Theolog elegantly observes that this "Unity, progressing from principle to duality, stops at Trinity." "Rightly considered, these views will be found to coalesce with the Greek and Latin Doctors on the procession of the Holy Ghost and to coalesce in one faith." (J. B. Fournals, Editor of Petav.) Lequien, the most learned commentator of St. John Damascene, vindicates this Father from discordancy and contends with vigor and logic that He is easily explained. The so-called Greeks distort the teaching of the Fathers. They twist the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son and from both in such a way as to restrict the meaning of it to two alternatives, namely, the temporal mission or that the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to the exclusion of His Person, are said to be from the Father and the Son. We have already disproved this perversion of the Fathers. The procession of the Holy Ghost therein recorded points to the eternal immanent res although the mission of the Holy Ghost is a fruit of His procession from the Father and Son and created gifts are also in the light of a consequence from the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost. By the procession from the Father and Son is meant the Third Person. St. Epiphanius says, —"The Father is Light, the Son is Light of Light, the Spirit is of the Two."

The so-called Greeks admit the procession of the Holy Ghost hypostatically speaking as far as the Father is concerned. In the case of the Son, they say it is not thus, but that the Holy Ghost is of His substance. The result of this position would be to make the Holy Ghost co-substantial, and they explain this in such a way as to repudiate the substance of the Son a quo as a principle of procession whence the Holy Ghost is, but rather make it a formal cause of the Holy Ghost's being of the same substance as the Son. Now when the Fathers of Nice said, simply, that "the Son is of the Father," the Allans took occasion therefrom to make these words harmonize with their error which was that the Son was created. To oppose this heresy the Fathers constructed a most effective formula, namely, that He was "of the substance of the Father." Here was expressed the communication of Essence and co-substantiality of the Son to the Father. What the Arians did with the order of the Son to the Father the Pneumatomachi attempted with the order of the Holy Ghost. The Fathers expressed in the same way as Nice had done in the Arian heresy the relationship of the Holy Ghost to the Son. They defined this procession as the communication of the same nature and substance thus: The Holy Ghost is of the substance—of the very substance—of the Father and Son. So in this case, as at Nice, the principium quod, namely, the "producing" person—in spiration the Father and Son —and also the principium quo is expressed, namely, the essence by the communication of which the spiration is brought about.

The formal cause, consequently, whereby the Holy Ghost is God is the very one communicated nature of the Father and the Son. The so-called Greeks call attention to the particular verbs, by which the orthodox Fathers have expressed the mode of the Holy Ghost emanating from or by the Son. They allege that these verbs have not a notional sound but rather a less intimate character. They say that these words assert the contrary of internal procession and rather impress one that they can only mean the external mission of the Holy Ghost or His gifts. As a matter of fact, the Fathers make use of the same verbs to express the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father.

St. Basil says:— "The spirit of God shining forth from God." Moreover in contexts where the Fathers use such words as "shine forth from" the Father and Son or both, where the verb, as far as the Father is concerned, can express no other meaning than the eternal procession, the same cannot hold good as otherwise understood in regard to the Son.

St. Cyril proves that the Holy Ghost is divine in essence, because, "He proceedeth from the Father and Son." The Greek Fathers most clearly have employed these words as immediately significative of the eternal immanent procession. Another subterfuge of the enemy is the interpretation of the Lord's words where He says the Holy Ghost "Shall receive of Mine." They would have it, "He shall receive of My Father." The proprieties of grammar disown such a reading. The Phocians allege with sophistic artifice that whatever is in the Trinity is either common to all or peculiar, hence, spiration is peculiar to the Father or common to the Three Persons—which would, they say, according to Latin doctrine, make the Holy Ghost proceed from Himself. Photius comments on this sophistic quandary to the effect that it outdoes the monstrous fables of the Gentiles themselves. St. Thomas says:—"Opposite relations are persons, and there are two persons just as there are two relations, but relations which in the same person are not in opposition are indeed two relations or peculiarities (proprietates), but not two persons, nay, one person." (1. Dist. 33, a. 2, ad one.) A spirator does not mean a person distinct from the father and son; it signifies one spirative force or one act and one relationship of spiration common to two persons and in a confused way signifies those persons whose act and relationship the spiration is. Spiration is really the same as paternity and sonship, and differs therefrom only "ratione." Fatherhood and sonship include spiration; it enters into either intestinally. Theologians say:—Supposing the real identity of spiration with the fatherhood and sonship and the distinction "ratione," that the constitution—the make-up—of the father and son in the fullest conception of the thing, means the formal "ratio" of fatherhood and sonship inasmuch as both embrace the act of spiration.

The so-called Greeks, in view of the Nature of the Trinity, say that if the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and Son there must be Two Principles of the Holy Ghost and, accordingly, either each Principle is perfect, in which case there would be Two Processions, or, if there be but One Procession from the Two Principles, the Father is insufficient and an imperfect Principle, and the Son is called in to take a hand in the matter. If then the Father and Son are One Principle, this reduces them to One Person, and thus, the heretics say, the Latins contract the Sabellian fault. The matter of all these objections is that the objectors are suffering from a sort of gastritis and their objections are very much on a par with the belchings which are characteristic of such infirmity.

St. Augustine remarks, substantially, that if the spirative force cannot be common to the two and be numerically one without confounding persons and destroying the distinction of generation of son from father, or if the spirative force cannot be in two distinct persons without being in each imperfect or without again the persons being divided and there being two spirators and two principles, then these things must be predicable of the creative force and the power of mission as well. That is to say, there cannot be one —in number—force and action of creation and of mission in distinct persons without thereby destroying by that unity distinction of persons. Or if the persons remain distinct, either this force will be imperfect in each or so separated as to have them turn out as many principles of creation or mission as there are persons creating and sending. The Photian contention is, therefore, not only heretical, but very inconsistent in its method of antagonizing the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son as from One Principle.

The Pneumatomachi, and, after them, the Phocians, in assuming the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father, conclude that if He proceeds, besides, from the Son and by the Son, as Catholic theology maintains, then the Holy Ghost must be a Grandson and the First Person a Grandfather. Thin idea supposes that the Persons are divided so that first of all the Father generates the Son and then the Son alone "generates" the Holy Ghost. As a matter of fact, the divine Persons create by a creative act numerically one; so, the Father and Son are One in number in the spirative act and therefore as one Principle— breathe —or breathes forth the Holy Ghost. St. Epiphanius says: "There is no Grandfather nor Grandson about it; the Holy Ghost is from the same substance of the Father and Son."