At his General Audience on 11 July, the Pope continued his catechesis on the Holy Spirit:

1. In the life of Jesus as Messiah —that is, the One who is consecrated by the Holy Spirit's anointing (cf. Lk 4:18)—there are key moments when the person of the Holy Spirit is shown to be intimately united to Christ's humanity and mission. We have seen that the first of these moments was the Incarnation, which occurred through the conception and birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit: "Conceptus de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Vergine", as the Creed professes.

Another moment when the presence and action of the Holy Spirit take on special prominence is at Jesus' Baptism in the Jordan. We will look at that in today's catechesis.

2. All the evangelists have passed on that event to us (Mt 3:13-17, Mk 1:9-11; Lk 3:21-22; Jn 1:29-34). Let us read Mark's text: "It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. On coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him" (Mk 1:9-10). Jesus had come to the Jordan from Nazareth where He had spent His "hidden" years (we shall return again to that theme in an upcoming catechesis). Before His arrival, He had been heralded by John, who had been exhorting people to a "baptism of repentance." He preached thus: "One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Mk 1: 7-8). 

Here we are already on the threshold of the Messianic era. With John's preaching the long preparatory period ended which had taken place through the whole of the Old Covenant, and one could say through the whole of human history, narrated by the Holy Scriptures. John sensed the greatness of that decisive moment, which he interpreted as the beginning of a new creation, in which he discovered the presence of the Spirit which had hovered over the first creation (cf. Jn 1:32; Gn 1:2). He knew that he was and professed himself to be only the herald, the precursor and minister of Him who would come to "baptize with the Holy Spirit."

3. On his part, Jesus prepared Himself by prayer for that moment of great importance in salvation history, in which the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son in the trinitarian mystery, was to manifest Himself—though under representational signs—as present in Christ's humanity as the principle of divine life. In fact, we read in Luke: "While Jesus was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove" (Lk 3:2122). That same evangelist will narrate later that one day Jesus, teaching those following Him along the byways of Palestine how to pray, said that "the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him" (Lk 11:13). He Himself asked for this greatest of gifts in order to carry out His own Messianic mission: and during the Baptism in the Jordan He received an especially visible manifestation of it. It marked the Messianic "investiture" of Jesus of Nazareth in the presence of John and his hearers. The Baptist bore witness to Him "before Israel as the Messiah, that is, the One 'Anointed' with the Holy Spirit" (Encyc. Dominum et Vivificantem, n. 19).

The prayer of Jesus, who in His divine Ego was the eternal Son of God, yet acting and praying in His human nature, was heard by the Father. He Himself one day had told the Father: "I know that You always hear Me" (Jn 11:42). This awareness resonated especially within Him at the moment of the Baptism, which was the public start of His redemptive mission, as John had understood and proclaimed. In fact, he introduced Him who had come to "baptize in the Holy Spirit" (Mt 3:11) as the "lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29).

4. Luke tells us that during Jesus' Baptism in the Jordan "heaven opened" (Lk 3:21). Once the prophet Isaiah had invoked God saying: "O that you would rend the heavens and come down!" (Is 63:19). Here at the moment of the Baptism, God seems to respond to this cry and hear this prayer. That "opening" of heaven is linked with the descent upon Christ of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. It is a visible sign that the prophet's prayer was heard and that his prophecy was fulfilled; that sign was accompanied by a voice from heaven: "And a voice came from the heavens: 'You are my beloved Son; with, you I am well pleased"' (Mk 1:11; Lk 3.22). Therefore the sign enters the level of the sight (the dove) and the hearing (the voice) of the privileged beneficiaries of that extraordinary supernatural experience. Manifestation of the Father's eternal "pleasure" in the Son takes form above all in the human soul of Christ, but also to those present at the Jordan. Thus in the

Baptism at the Jordan a theophany occurs, the trinitarian character of which is highlighted even more than in the narrative of the Annunciation. The "opening of heaven" signifies at that moment a particular initiative of communication by the Father and the Holy Spirit with earth through the religious and almost "ritualistic" inauguration of the Messianic mission of the Incarnate Word.

5. In John's text, what occurred during Jesus' Baptism is described by the Baptist himself: "I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from the sky and remain upon Him. I did not know Him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'on whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit'. Now I have seen and testified that He is the Son of God" (Jn 1:32-34). That means that, according to the evangelist, the Baptist shared that experience of the trinitarian theophany and understood— at least partially, by Messianic faith —the significance of those words, which the Father had pronounced: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased". Furthermore, among the other evangelists as well, it is significant that the word "Son" is used instead of the term "servant", found in the first song of Isaiah regarding the Lord's Servant: "Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit" (Is 42:1).

In their God-inspired faith, and in that of the early Christian community, the "servant" was identified with the Son of God (cf. Mt 12:18; 16:16) and the "spirit" given him was recognized in His divine person-hood as the Holy Spirit. Jesus on the eve of His passion will say to the apostles that that very Spirit which descended on Him during His Baptism, would work with Him in carrying out the redemption: "He (the Spirit of truth) will glorify Me, because He will take from what is mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16: 14).

6. Interesting in this regard is a text of St Irenaeus of Lyon (+203) who, in commenting on the Baptism in the Jordan, states: "The Holy Spirit had promised through the prophets that in the last days He would be poured out upon His servants and handmaids so that they might prophesy. For that reason He descended upon the Son of God who was made son of man, becoming accustomed along with Him to dwell among the human race, to 'rest' in the midst of men and women and to reside among those who were created by God, bringing about within them the Father's will and renewing them in a way that transforms them from the 'old man' into the 'newness' of Christ" (Adv. Haer., III, 17, 1). This text confirms that from the earliest centuries the Church has been aware of the association between Christ and the Holy Spirit in bringing about the "new creation".

7. A note before concluding about the symbol of the dove which appears during the Baptism at the Jordan as a sign of the Holy Spirit. In baptismal symbolism, the dove is linked to the water and according to certain Fathers of the Church it recalls what happened at the end of the Flood, interpreting this too as a type of Christian Baptism. We read in Genesis that when Noah "sent the dove out from the ark and the dove returned... there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had lessened on the earth'' (Gn 8:10-11). The symbol of the dove indicates forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God and renewal of the Covenant. And that is what finds its complete fulfillment in the Messianic era, with the work of Christ the Redeemer and of the Holy Spirit.