Pope John Paul II gave the following talk at his General Audience 31 October:

1. "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified; He has spoken through the prophets". With these words the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed defines the belief of the Church concerning the Holy Spirit, who is acknowledged as true God, with the Father and the Son, in the Trinitarian unity of the Godhead. This is an article of faith, formulated by the First Council of Constantinople (381), perhaps on the basis of a previous text, as a completion of the Nicene Creed (325) (cf. Denz-S., Enchiridion Symbolorum, 150).

This faith of the Church is continually repeated in the liturgy, which is in its way not only a profession but also a witness of faith. This occurs, for example, in the Trinitarian doxology, which, as a rule, concludes liturgical prayers: "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit." Thus it is in the intercessory prayers addressed to the Father: "through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You (the Father) in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever".

The hymn Glory to God in the Highest also possesses a Trinitarian structure: it lets us celebrate the glory of God and of the Son, together with the Holy Spirit: "...You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father ".

2. This faith of the Church has its origin and basis in divine revelation. God definitively revealed Himself as Father in Jesus Christ, the consubstantial Son, who by the working of the Holy Spirit became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. Through the Son the Holy Spirit was revealed. The one God revealed Himself as the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The last word of the Son who was sent into the world from the Father is the admonition given to the Apostles to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). We have seen in preceding catecheses examples of revelation concerning the Holy Spirit and the Trinity in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

3. We have also seen that Jesus Christ revealed the Holy Spirit while He carried out His messianic mission, in which He declared that He was working "with the power of the Holy Spirit" (for example, in expelling demons: cf. Mt 12:28). But one might say that that revelation is concentrated and condensed in the close of His mission with the announcement of His return to the Father. The Holy Spirit will be—after His departure—"a new Advocate". It will be He, "the Spirit of truth", who will guide the Apostles and the Church throughout history: "I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows Him" (Jn 14:16-17). He who will come from the Father in Christ's name, "will teach you everything and remind you of all that I taught you" (Jn 14:26). And again: "When He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin, and righteousness and condemnation" (Jn 16:8). This is the promise; this, one can say, is the testament which, along with the ones regarding love and the Eucharist, Jesus leaves to His own during the Last Supper.

4. After the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, Pentecost was the fulfillment of His announcement to His Apostles and the beginning of His activity among the generations of coming centuries, for the Holy Spirit was to remain with the Church "for ever" (Jn 14:16). We have spoken amply about this in preceding catecheses.

That foundational story about the origins of the Church which the Book of Acts records tells us that the Apostles were "filled with the Holy Spirit" and "announced God's Words with boldness" (Acts 2:4; 4:31). It tells us also that from the times of the Apostles "the world" resisted the activity not only of the Apostles, but of the invisible Worker who was acting through them, as is seen in their accusation of their persecutors: "You always oppose the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). That would also happen in subsequent historical eras. That resistance can reach the point of a special sin, called "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit"; Jesus Himself adds that this is a sin that will not be forgiven (cf. Mt 12: 31; Lk 12:10).

As Jesus predicted and promised, the Holy Spirit has been the Giver of all divine gifts (Dator munerum, as we call Him in the Pentecost Sequence) in the Church from the beginning and continues to be so in the Church through all ages: both of those gifts destined directly for personal sanctification as well as those granted to some for the good of others (as is the case with certain charisms). "But one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as He wishes" (I Cor 12:11). Even the "hierarchical gifts", as we can call them along with the Second Vatican Council (LumenGentium, 4), which are indispensable for the guidance of the Church, come from Him (cf. Acts 20:28).

5. On the basis of the revelation made by Jesus and passed on by he Apostles, the Creed professes faith in the Holy Spirit, of whom it says that He is "Lord", as the Word who took on human flesh is Lord: "You alone are the Lord... with the Holy Spirit". It adds too that the Holy Spirit gives life. Only God can give life to human beings. The Holy Spirit is God. And, as God, the Spirit is the author of human life: of the "new" and "eternal" life brought by Jesus, but also of life in all its forms: human life and the life of all things (Creator Spiritus).

This truth of faith was formulated in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, because it is understood and accepted as revealed by God through Jesus Christ and belonging to the "deposit of revelation" passed on by the Apostles to the first communities, from which they were handed down through the constant teaching of the Church Fathers. Historically one can say that the article was added to the Nicene Creed by the First Council of Constantinople which had to face certain people who denied the Holy Spirit's divinity, just as other people —especially the Arians—opposed the divinity of the Son-Word, Christ. In both cases they almost lost their minds in their pretentious rationalism before the mystery of the Trinity!

The opponents of the Holy Spirit's divinity were called "pneumatomachians" (that means, opponents of the Spirit), or "Macedonians" (from the name of their leader, Macedonius). The great Fathers opposed these erroneous opinions with their authority; among them was Athanasius (+ 373), who especially in his Letter to Serapion (1, 28-30) affirmed the equality of the Holy Spirit with the other two divine persons in the unity of the Trinity. And he did so on the basis of "ancient tradition, the doctrine and faith of the Catholic Church, which we understand as having been given us by the Lord and which the Apostles preached and the Fathers safeguarded..." (cf. PG 26, 594-595).

These Fathers who valued the revelation contained in Sacred Scripture in its fullness and with its complete meaning not only defended the true and complete concept of the Trinity, but also noted that by denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the raising up of mankind to share in God's life —that is, man's "divinization" by means of grace—would also be annulled; according to the Gospel, that too is the work of the Holy Spirit. Only He who is God can bring about a share in divine life. And it is precisely the Holy Spirit who "gives life", according to Jesus' very own words (cf. Jn 6:63).

6. We must add that faith in the Holy Spirit as a divine Person, as professed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, has been confirmed many times by the solemn Magisterium of the Church. The canons of the Roman Synod of 382, for example, are a proof of this; they were published by Pope Damasus I, and in them we read that the Holy Spirit "is of divine substance and is truly God", and that, "as the Son and the Father, so also the Holy Spirit can do all and knows all and is omnipresent" (Denz.-S., 168-169).

The concise formula of the Creed of 381, which says about the divinity of the Holy Spirit that "He is Lord" as the Father and the Son are Lord, logically adds that "with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified". If the Holy Spirit is the One who "gives life", that is, with the Father and the Son He possesses creative power, and especially sanctifying and life-giving power in the supernatural order of grace—which in fact is attributed to His Person—it is right that He be adored and glorified as the first two Persons of the Trinity, from whom He proceeds as the endpoint of their eternal love, in perfect equality and unity of substance.

7. Still the Creed attributes to this Third Person of the Trinity in a special way the role of being the divine author of prophecy: He is the one who "has spoken through the prophets". Thus the source of the Old Testament inspiration of the prophets is recognized, beginning with Moses (cf. Dt 34:10) and extending through to Malachi; they left us God's instructions in written form. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit. David, who was also a "prophet" (Acts 2:30), said that about himself (II Sam 22:2); Ezekiel said it (Ez 11:5). In his first speech, Peter expressed the same faith, affirming that the "Holy Spirit had spoken through the mouth of David" (Acts 1:16) and the author of the Letter to the Hebrews expresses himself similarly (Heb 3: 7; 10:15). With deep gratitude, the Church receives the prophetic Scriptures as a precious gift from the Holy Spirit, who has shown Himself to be so near and active from the beginnings of salvation history.