On 1 August the Holy Father flew by helicopter into Vatican City from his summer villa in Castel Gandolfo to hold his General Audience. This was the catechesis he delivered:

1. In the Encyclical Dominum et Vivificatem I wrote: "The Son of God Jesus Christ, as man, in the ardent prayer of His passion, enabled the Holy Spirit who had already penetrated the inmost depths of His humanity, to transform that humanity into a perfect sacrifice through the act of His death as the victim of love on the Cross. He made this offering by Himself. As the one priest, 'He offered Himself without blemish to God' (Heb 9:14)" (n. 40). The sacrifice of the Cross is the culmination of a life in which we have read the truth about the Holy Spirit, according to the Gospel texts, starting with the moment of the Incarnation.

It has served as the theme of previous catecheses which centered on moments in the life and mission of Christ when the revelation of the Holy Spirit was particularly clear. Today's topic for catechesis is the event of the Cross.

2. Let us concentrate on the last words pronounced by Jesus during His agony on Calvary. In Luke's text they read thus: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). Even though every word except for the word "Father" comes from Psalm 30/31, they take on another meaning in the Gospel context. The Psalmist prayed to God to save him from death; instead, Jesus on the Cross, using the very words of the Psalmist, accepts death, turning over His spirit (that is, "His life") to the Father. The Psalmist turns to God as to a liberator; Jesus offers (that is, hands over) His spirit to the Father with a view towards the Resurrection. He entrusts to the Father the fullness of His own humanity, in which, however, subsists the divine "I" of the Son united to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. Still the presence of the Holy Spirit is not manifested in an explicit way in Luke's text, as will happen in the Letter to the Hebrews (9:14).

3. Before moving on to this other text, we must consider the slightly different formulation of the dying Christ's words in John's Gospel. There we read: "When Jesus had taken the wine, He said, 'It is finished!' And bowing His head he handed over the spirit" (Jn 19:30). The evangelist does not highlight the "handing over" (or "commending") of the spirit to the Father. The full context of John's Gospel and especially of the pages devoted to Jesus' death on the Cross seem rather to indicate that that death marks the beginning of the sending of the Holy Spirit, as the Gift handed over at Christ's leaving.

Still, here too, no explicit affirmation is made. But we cannot ignore the surprising connection which seems to exist between John's text and the interpretation of Christ's death which is found in the Letter to the Hebrews. The author of the latter speaks of the ritual function of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Covenant which were used to purify the people of legal guilt and he compares them to the sacrifice of the Cross, ending by exclaiming: "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself up unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God" (Heb 9:14).

As I wrote in the Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, "In His humanity (Christ) was worthy to become this sacrifice, for He alone was 'without blemish.' But He offered it 'through the eternal Spirit,' which means that the Holy Spirit acted in a special way in this absolute self-giving of the Son of Man, in order to transform this suffering into redemptive love" (n. 40). The mystery of the association between the Messiah and the Holy Spirit in the Messianic activity contained in Luke's account or Mary's Annunciation, passes here into the section of the Letter to the Hebrews. Here is made manifest the depths of that activity which enters into human "consciences" to purify them and renew them by means of divine grace—a far cry from the superficiality of ritual representations.

4. The Old Testament speaks several times of the "fire from heaven" which burnt the oblations presented by men (cf. Lev 9:24; I Cor 21-26; II Cor 7: 1). From Leviticus: "The fire on the altar is to be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest shall put firewood on it. On this he shall lay out the holocaust and burn the fat of the peace offerings" (Lev 6:5). Now we know that the ancient holocausts prefigured the sacrifice of the Cross, the perfect holocaust. "By analogy one can say that the Holy Spirit is the "fire from heaven" which works in the depth of the mystery of the Cross. Proceeding from the Father, He directs the Son's sacrifice towards the Father, bringing it into the divine reality of Trinitarian communion" (Encycl. Dominum et Vivificantem, n. 41).

Therefore we can add that, reflected in the Trinitarian mystery, one sees the complete fulfillment of the announcement of John the Baptist at the Jordan: "He (the Christ) will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Mt 3: 11). While in the Old Testament the fire which the Baptist evoked symbolized God's sovereign intervention in an act of purifying consciences through the Holy Spirit (cf. Is 1:25; Zec 13:9; Mal 3:2-3; Sir 2:5), now the reality goes beyond types to the sacrifice of the Cross which is the perfect "baptism with which Christ Himself had to be baptized" (cf. Mk 10:38); during His life and earthly mission He directs Himself with His whole strength towards this baptism, as He Himself said: "I have come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited! I have a baptism to receive. What anguish I feel till it is over!" (Lk 12:49-50).The Holy Spirit is the saving "fire" which brings about that sacrifice.

5. In the Letter to the Hebrews we again read that Christ, "Son though He was, learned obedience from what He suffered" (5, 8). And on entering into the world He said to the Father: "Behold I come to do Your will" (Heb 10:9). In the sacrifice of the Cross this obedience of His is realized fully: "If sin caused suffering, now the pain of God in Christ crucified acquires through the Holy Spirit its full human expression... But at the same time, from the depth of this suffering... the Spirit draws a new measure of the gift made to man and to creation from the beginning. In the depth of the mystery of the Cross love is at work, that love which brings man back again to share in the life that is in God Himself" (Encycl. Dominum et Vivificantem, n. 41).

Thus in humanity's relationships with God "we have a great high priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness because He has been tested in every way, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15): in this new mystery of Christ's priestly mediation before the Father, there is the decisive intervention of the "eternal Spirit" who is the fire of infinite love.

6. "The Holy Spirit descends as love and gift, in a certain sense, into the very heart of the sacrifice which is offered on the cross. Referring to the Biblical tradition we can say: He consumes this sacrifice by the fire of the love which unites the Son to the Father in the Trinitarian communion. And since the sacrifice of the Cross is an act proper to Christ, in this sacrifice too He "receives" the Holy Spirit. He receives the Spirit in such a way that He—and He alone with the Father —can give the Spirit to the Apostles, to the Church, to humanity" (Enc. Dominum et Vivificantem, 41).

Therefore it is proper to see in the sacrifice of the Cross the conclusive moment of the Holy Spirit's revelation in Christ's life. It is the key moment, in which are rooted the Pentecost event and the entire effects, which will flow from it into the world. The same "eternal Spirit" working in the mystery of the Cross will appear in the Upper Room in the form of "tongues of fire" on the heads of the apostles, to signify that He would gradually penetrate into the arteries of human history through the Church's apostolic service. We too are called to enter into the sphere of activity of this mysterious saving force which starts with the Cross and the Upper Room in order, in it and through it, to be drawn into the communion of the Trinity.