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.
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.
