The Holy Father continued his religious instruction series on the action of the Holy Spirit during his General Audience 23 May.

1. In the Profession of Faith we profess that the Son, one in being with the Father, became man by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem I wrote that "the conception and birth of Jesus Christ are in fact the greatest work accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the history of creation and salvation: the supreme grace - 'the grace of union', source of every other grace, as St Thomas explains (cf. III, q.7, a.l3).... For the 'fullness of time' is matched by a particular fullness of the self-communication of the Triune God in the Holy Spirit. 'By the power of the Holy Spirit' the mystery of the 'hypostatic union' is brought about —that is, the union of the divine nature and the human nature, of the divinity and the humanity in the one Person of the Word-Son" (n. 50).

2. This refers to the Mystery of the Incarnation; linked to its revelation, at the start of the New Covenant, is that of the Holy Spirit. We have seen this in preceding instructions which permitted us to illustrate this truth in its various aspects, beginning with the virginal conception of Jesus Christ, as we read in the Lukan passage on the Annunciation (cf. Lk 1:26-38). It is difficult to explain the origin of this text without thinking of the narrative about Mary, who alone could have made known what had taken place within her at the moment of the conception of Jesus. The analogies, which have been proposed between this passage and other accounts from the ancient world and especially Old Testament writings, never refer to the most important and decisive point, that is, the virginal conception. In truth that constitutes an absolutely new element.

It is true that in the parallel passage from Matthew we read: "All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel'" (Mt 1:22-23). The result, however, always surpasses the expectations. That is, the event includes new elements, which were not expressed in the prophecy. Thus, in the case that we are referring to, the Isaian oracle about the virgin who will conceive (cf. Is 7:14) remained incomplete and therefore lent itself to various interpretations.

The Incarnation event "fulfills" it with unforeseeable perfection: a truly virginal conception is brought about through the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Son who is born is truly "God with us." We are no longer referring strictly to a covenant with God, but to God's real presence in the people's midst by virtue of the Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God: this is an absolutely new element.

3. The virginal conception, therefore, is an integral part of the Mystery of the Incarnation. The body of Jesus, conceived in virginal fashion by Mary, belongs to the person of the eternal Word of God. The Holy Spirit does precisely this as he comes upon the Virgin of Nazareth. He brings it about that the man (the Son of Man) whom she conceived is the true Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, one in substance with the Father, for whom the eternal Father is the only Father. While being born of Mary as a man, he continues to be the Son of the same Father of whom he is eternally begotten.

See how in a special way the virginity of Mary stresses the fact that the Son she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit is the Son of God. God alone is his Father.

The traditional iconography, which shows Mary with the child Jesus in her arms and does not picture Joseph beside her, constitutes a silent but firm statement of her virginal motherhood, and for that very reason, of the Son's divinity. This image, therefore, could be called the icon of Christ's divinity. We find it already at the end of the second century in a fresco in the Roman catacombs and, afterwards, in innumerable reproductions. It is especially depicted with very effective artistic touches and marks of faith in the Byzantine and Russian icons, which have links with the most genuine sources of faith: the Gospels and the early tradition of the Church.

4. Luke reports the words of the angel who announces the birth of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35). The Spirit of which the evangelist speaks is the Spirit "which gives life". Reference is not made solely to that "breath of life" which is the mark of living beings, but to the very Life of God himself: the divine life. The Holy Spirit who is in God as a breath of Love, the absolute (uncreated) Gift of the divine Persons, acts in the Incarnation of the Word as the breath of this Love for humanity: for Jesus himself, for human nature and for all of humanity. In this breath the Father's love isexpressed: he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son (cf. Jn 3:16). In the Son is the fullness of the gift of divine life for humankind.

In the Incarnation of the Son-Word, therefore, the Holy Spirit is manifested in a special way as the one "who gives life".

5. This is what I called in the Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem The particular fullness of the self-communication of the triune God in the Holy Spirit" (n. 50). This is the deepest meaning of the "hypostatic union", a formula which reflects the thought of the Councils and of the Fathers on the mystery of the Incarnation, and therefore on the concepts of nature and person, elaborated and made use of on the basis of the experience of the distinction between nature and subject which every man perceives within himself. The idea of the person had never before been so clearly individuated and defined as occurred in the work of the Councils, once the Apostles and the evangelists had made known the event and the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word "by the power of the Holy Spirit."

6. We can say, therefore, that in the Incarnation the Holy Spirit lays the foundations for a new anthropology which sheds light on the greatness of human nature as reflected in Christ. In him, in fact, human nature reaches its highest point of union with God, "having been conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in such a way that one and the same subject can be son of God and son of man" (St Thomas, Summa Theol. III, q. 2, a. 12, ad 3). It was not possible for man to rise up higher than this highpoint, nor is it possible for human thought to conceive of a closer union with the divinity.