Pope John Paul gave this instruction at the General Audience on 10 October:

1. In our previous instruction we saw that the revelation of the Holy Spirit as a Person in the unity of the Trinity with the Father and Son is expressed in many beautiful and fascinating ways in the Pauline writings. Today we shall continue to touch upon other variations on this one basic theme as found in the Letters of St Paul. It frequently recurs in the Apostle's texts, which are imbued with a lively and life-giving faith in the Holy Spirit's activity and in His Person-hood, which is especially made known through His activity.

2. One of the noblest and most attractive expressions of this faith which under Paul's pen becomes a communication of a revealed truth to the Church, is that of the Holy Spirit's "indwelling" within the faithful, who are His temple. "Do you not know", he admonishes the Corinthians, "that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (I Cor 3:16). Normally persons "dwell". Here it is a question of a divine Person's "indwelling" in human beings. This fact is spiritual in nature, a mystery of grace and eternal love, which for this very reason is attributed to the Holy Spirit.

This internal indwelling has an effect upon the entire person that is on the concrete totality of his or her being, which the Apostle refers to more than once as a "body". In fact, in this same letter, a little bit after the passage we cited, he seems to urge the recipients of his letters on with the same question: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?" (I Cor 6:19). In this text the reference to the "body" is all the more meaningful in that it refers to the Pauline concept of the Holy Spirit's activity in the entire person!

Thus we can explain and better understand the other text in the Letter to the Romans about "life according to the Spirit". In fact, we read: "But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the Spirit, if only the Spirit dwells in you" (Rom 8:9). "If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through His Spirit that dwells in you" (Rom 8: 11).

Therefore, the influence of the divine indwelling in a person is extended to his or her whole being, his or her whole life, which in all its constitutive elements and operational activities is placed under the action of the Holy Spirit: of the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and therefore also of Christ, the Incarnate Word. This Spirit, alive in the Trinity, by virtue of the redemption won by Christ is present in the entire person who lets himself or herself be "inhabited" by Him, and in all of humanity which recognizes and accepts Him.

3. Another characteristic which St Paul attributes to the Person of the Holy Spirit is that of "searching" everything, as he writes to the Corinthians: "For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God" (I Cor 2:10). "Who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God" (I Cor 2:11).

This "searching" means the clarity and depth of the knowledge which is proper to the Divinity in which the Holy Spirit lives with the Word-Son in the unity of the Trinity. Therefore He is a Spirit of light, a Teacher of truth for humanity, as Jesus Christ had promised (cf. Jn 14:26).

4. First of all, his "teaching" concerns divine things, the mystery of God in Himself, but also His words and His gifts to mankind. As St Paul writes: "We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God" (I Cor 2:12). It is a divine view of the world, of life and history, which the Holy Spirit gives believers, a "faith-filled understanding", which enables us to look beyond the human and cosmic dimensions of reality in order to discover in all things the presence of God's saving activity, the working out of His Providence and the reflection of His triune glory.

In the ancient sequence of the Mass of Pentecost, the liturgy has us pray for this: "Veni, Sancte Spiritus, et emittecoelituslucistuaeradium." "Come, Holy Spirit, come, and from Your celestial home, shed a ray of light divine! Come, Father of the poor! Come, source of all our store! Come, within our bosoms shine!"

5. This Spirit of light also gives people, especially the Apostles and the Church, the ability to teach the things of God as if by an expansion of His own light. "We speak about" the things freely given us by God, as Paul writes, "not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms" (I Cor 2:13). The words of the Apostle, the words of the primitive Church and the Church throughout the ages, the words of true theologians and catechists, speak of a wisdom that is not of this world. of "God's hidden, mysterious wisdom, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory" ( I Cor 2: 6-7). This wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which must be implored for all teachers and preachers in every age, the gift which St Paul speaks about in the same Letter to the Corinthians: "To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another the expression of knowledge according to the same Spirit" (I Cor 12:8). Wisdom, knowledge, the force of an expression which penetrates minds and hearts, an internal light which, through the proclamation of the divine truth, influences the person who is docile and attentive to the glory of the Trinity: all this is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

6. The Spirit who "searches everything, even the depths of God" and " teaches" divine wisdom is also the One who "leads". In the Letter to the Romans we read: "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God" (Rom 8:14). Here we have an inner "guide" which touches the very roots of the "new creation" the Holy Spirit makes people live as God's children by adoption. In order to live in such a way, the human spirit needs to recognize this divine adoption. Lo and behold: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:16). The personal witness of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary so that the person lives out in his or her own life the mystery, which God Himself has brought about within him or her.

7. In this manner the Holy Spirit "comes to the aid" of our weakness. According to the Apostle, that happens especially in prayer. Indeed, he writes: "The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). For Paul, therefore, the Spirit is the internal author of authentic prayer. Through His divine influence, He penetrates human prayer from within and brings it into the depths of God.

A further Pauline expression in some way encompasses and synthesizes all that we have touched upon to this point about this topic. "The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5). The Holy Spirit is therefore the One who "pours out" God's love into human hearts in overflowing measure, and enables us to become sharers in that love.

From all these expressions so frequently and consistently found in the language of the Apostle to the Gentiles, we are able to understand better the Holy Spirit's activity and the Person of the One who acts in a divine way in human beings.