Customer Reviews

Dominum et Vivificantem / On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World

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In his fifth encyclical, "On the Holy Spirit", Pope John Paul II tackled one of the more demanding and more profound theological topics: the nature and the significance in our lives of the Holy Spirit. In many respects "On the Holy Spirit" is one of the more ambitious and more weighty of his encyclicals. It certainly can hold the place of relevance with anything that has been written about the Holy Spirit in the rich theological heritage of the Church.

Holy Spirit is one of the persons of the Holy Trinity, and as such we Christians cannot fully grasp the depths of the inner life of God without understanding Holy Spirit. The personhood of the Holy Spirit is one of the crucial concepts of the New Testament, as is the nature of the Holy Spirit as a gift from the Father and the Son. The Church quite concretely came into the existence on the Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles. For the last two millennia the Church has also derived life, sustenance and inspiration from the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to fully understand the life of the Church without appreciating the way that the Holy Spirit guides each one of her actions.

The sending of the Holy Spirit also has a very concrete function that Jesus himself has revealed to us: "And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." (John 16:8-11, RSV). In the words of John Paul II, "In the mind of Jesus, sin, righteousness and judgment have a very precise meaning, different from the meaning that one might be inclined to attribute to these words independently of the speaker's explanation." These words have been unfortunately downplayed in popular sermons and homilies in recent years, and we Christians need to reclaim them and reaffirm their significance for fuller understanding of our Christian vocation. In a sense, all we really need to do is to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit and let him infuse us with the full meaning of these words.

In my opinion this is one of the top three encyclicals of Pope john Paul II, and all faithful Catholics who are interested in Church's teachings would greatly benefit from reading it. Highly recommended.