According To The Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas
"Because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us." Romans v. 5.
Yet it is not only the Holy Ghost we receive through grace and with grace, but all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Our Lord says explicitly in the Gospel of St. John: "If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him, and will make Our abode with Him." John xiv. 23.
This is why the Apostle, in his exhortations to the early Christians, on the necessity of shunning all sin, of preserving pure and without spot the sanctuary of their soul, could find no more powerful appeal, no more urgent reason, no more persuasive argument, than the fact that they were the temple of God: "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are." 1 Cor iii. 16, 17.
We must pause here, lest we multiply excessively the Scripture texts that prove the fact of a mission, a giving of the Divine Persons, an indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the just soul. Our present task will be to gather together the teachings contained in these passages and set them forth in concise language.
What first strikes the reader in all these texts, taken in their natural and obvious meaning, and that shines forth with the clearest evidence, is the fact of a special presence of God in souls in the state of grace. In truth, if the Holy Ghost is sent to these souls, is it not in order that He be present to them otherwise than He is present elsewhere, for if He be present to them in the common ordinary way, what does this second mission mean, and what new thing does it give to the soul?
"Because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us." Romans v. 5.
Yet it is not only the Holy Ghost we receive through grace and with grace, but all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Our Lord says explicitly in the Gospel of St. John: "If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to Him, and will make Our abode with Him." John xiv. 23.
This is why the Apostle, in his exhortations to the early Christians, on the necessity of shunning all sin, of preserving pure and without spot the sanctuary of their soul, could find no more powerful appeal, no more urgent reason, no more persuasive argument, than the fact that they were the temple of God: "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are." 1 Cor iii. 16, 17.
We must pause here, lest we multiply excessively the Scripture texts that prove the fact of a mission, a giving of the Divine Persons, an indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the just soul. Our present task will be to gather together the teachings contained in these passages and set them forth in concise language.
What first strikes the reader in all these texts, taken in their natural and obvious meaning, and that shines forth with the clearest evidence, is the fact of a special presence of God in souls in the state of grace. In truth, if the Holy Ghost is sent to these souls, is it not in order that He be present to them otherwise than He is present elsewhere, for if He be present to them in the common ordinary way, what does this second mission mean, and what new thing does it give to the soul?
