At the general Audience (26 Sept.) the Holy Father gave this instruction:

1. In his Gospel, John the Apostle highlights more than the Synoptics the personal relationship between the Son and the Father, as can be seen early on in the Prologue where the Evangelist sets his gaze on the eternal reality of the Father and the Word-Son. He begins by saying: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God" (Jn 1:1-2). Then he concludes: "No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, reveals Him" (Jn 1:l8). It is a completely new assertion in the history of human reflection on God and within revelation itself. The depth and the wealth of the contents it offers to theology will never be exhausted or fully explained. Religious education too must always refer to it, not only on the Christological level, but also on the pneumatological level.

In fact, the very unity of the Son with the Father, stressed also in other parts of John's Gospel, seems to open up to the Apostles the path of revelation of the Holy Spirit as a Person.

2. Significantly, Christ's words which most directly relate to this topic are found in the so-called farewell discourse in the Upper Room, and therefore are made in light of the imminent departure of the Son who returns to the Father by means of the Cross and the Ascension. At that moment Jesus said: "I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth which the world cannot accept because it neither sees nor knows Him" (Jn 14:16-17). Advocate-Paraclete: this name, given to the Holy Spirit by Jesus, shows that He is a Person, distinct from the Father and the Son. In fact, the Greek word Parakletos is always applied to a person, since it means "advocate", "defender", or "consoler". Only a person can accomplish those tasks. On the other hand, by speaking in terms of "another Advocate", Jesus makes us understand that during His earthly life, He Himself was the disciples' first "Advocate". He will assert that even more clearly in His Priestly Prayer in which He says to His Father: "When I was with them I protected them in Your name that you gave Me, and I guarded them" (Jn 17:12). After Jesus' departure, the Holy Spirit will take His place in the midst of the disciples still living in the world to defend them in the struggles they must face and to sustain their courage in trial.

3. In the farewell discourse, the Paraclete is called the Spirit of truth several times (cf. Jn 14:17). This title recognizes the mission which is given Him regarding the Apostles and the Church: "The Advocate—the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name—He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I taught you" (Jn 14:26). "Teach," "remind"; these activities show well that the Spirit is a Person; only a person can do them. The mission of preaching truth, entrusted to the Apostles and the Church by Christ, is and will always remain bound to the personal activity of the Spirit of truth.

The same observation goes for the "witness" which must be rendered to Christ before the world. "When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father He will testify to Me" (Jn 15:26). Only a Person can bear witness to another person. The Apostles will have to bear witness to Christ. Their testimony as human persons will be supported and confirmed by the testimony of a divine Person, the Holy Spirit.

4. For that very reason the Holy Spirit is also the invisible Master who will continue to impart from one generation to the next the teaching of Christ Himself: His Gospel. "But when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on His own, but will speak what He hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming" (Jn 16:13). From this we deduce that the Holy Spirit will not only watch over the Church as regards the solidness and the identification of the truth in Christ, but will indicate the way to transmit this truth to the coming generations which will continue to appear through various eras, and to peoples and societies in various places, according to their needs and their ability to understand, giving to each person the strength to assent interiorly to that truth and conform his or her life to it.

5. A special aspect of this action, already stressed in the Encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem (cf. nn. 27-28), is that which Jesus Himself announced with these words: "And when He comes He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation" (Jn 16:8). This particular power to convict the world, that is, those who are in the world, in regard to sin is an essential aspect of the mission of the Spirit of truth. To convict regarding condemnation means, according to Jesus' own words, that "the prince of this world has been condemned" (Jn 16:11). He who is to come as Consoler and Advocate, the Holy Spirit, must guide humanity towards victory over evil and offer the works of evil in the world.

There is a close connection between the redemptive death of Christ on the Cross and what He gave the Apostles after His Resurrection: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you forgive are forgiven them" (Jn 20:22-23). This is the route through which the road leading to victory over evil passes, the evil which the Spirit of truth must constantly convict the world of.

6. All of these passages come from Jesus' discourse in the Upper Room and reveal the Holy Spirit as a Person subsisting in Trinitarian unity with the Father and the Son. They show the mission in which He is closely linked to the Redemption accomplished by Christ: "For if I do not go," passing from this world to the Father, "the Advocate will not come to you" (Jn 16:7). There are also other passages which are very significant in this regard.

7. Jesus announces that the Holy Spirit will come to "remain" with us: "And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you always" (Jn 14:17). These words express the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as inner guest in people's hearts: in the heart of anyone among all the souls belonging to Christ who welcomes the Spirit. The Father and Son too come to "take up residence" in these souls (Jn 14:23); therefore the whole Trinity is present in them, but, since this is a spiritual presence that presence refers in a most direct way to the Person of the Holy Spirit.

8. Through this presence at work in the soul, a person can become that "true worshipper" of God who "is spirit" (Jn 4:24), as Jesus says in the meeting with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (cf. Jn 4:23). The hour of those who "adore the Father in spirit and truth" arrived with Christ and becomes a reality in every person who accepts the Holy Spirit and lives according to the Spirit's inspiration and under the Spirit's personal direction. That is the greatest and holiest element in Christian spirituality.