At his General Audience (19 Sept.) the Holy Father gave this instruction on the activity of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels:

1. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit reveals Himself as a Person subsisting with the Father and the Son in the unity of the Trinity, through the actions attributed to Him by the inspired authors. One cannot always move from an action to a "property" of a Person in a strict theological sense, but in terms of our catechesis that process is sufficient for discovering what the Holy Spirit is within the divine reality through the deeds which He authors. And besides, this is the path followed by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church (cf. St Thomas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 30, aa. 7-8).

2. In this catechesis we will limit ourselves to several Synoptic texts. Afterwards we will refer also to other Books in the New Testament.

We have seen that in the Annunciation narrative the Holy Spirit manifests Himself as the One who is acting: "He will come upon you," says the angel to Mary, "and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (Lk 1:35). Therefore we can recognize that the Holy Spirit is the principle of action, especially in the Incarnation. Precisely because He is Eternal Love (a property of the Third Person), the power of acting—a power of love—is attributed to Him.

The first chapters of Luke's Gospel speak several times of the Holy Spirit's action in the people closely connected to the mystery of the Incarnation. Thus it is with Elizabeth who during Mary's visit is filled with the Holy Spirit and under divine inspiration greets her blessed relative (cf. Lk 1:41-45). Thus it is even more so with the elderly holy man Simeon to whom the Holy Spirit manifested Himself in a personal way announcing to him in advance that he would see the "Lord's Messiah" before he died (Lk 2:26). Under the inspiration and movement of the Holy Spirit he takes the Child in his arms and speaks those prophetic words which encompass in a very full and emotion-laden synthesis the entire redemptive mission of the Son of Mary (cf. Lk 2:27ff). More than any other person the Virgin Mary was under the influence of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35); the Spirit certainly gave her insight into the mystery and prompted her soul to accept her mission and to sing exultantly as she contemplated the providential plan of salvation (cf. Lk 1:26ff).

3. In these holy people a paradigm is sketched of the action of the Holy Spirit, who is Almighty Love and gives light, strength, consolation and active encouragement. But the paradigm is even clearer in the life of Jesus Himself, which is lived entirely under the Spirit's impulse and direction, by bringing about within Himself Isaiah's prophecy about the Messiah's mission: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord" (cf. Lk 4:18; cf. Is 61:1). We know that Jesus read these prophetic words aloud in the Nazareth synagogue and stated that from that moment on these words were to be fulfilled in Him (cf. Lk 4:21).

In fact the words and deeds of Jesus were the unfolding of His Messianic mission in which the Lord's Spirit was at work, according to the prophet's announcement. The Holy Spirit's action was hidden in the unfolding of this whole mission, carried out by Jesus in a visible, public and historical way; thus it gave witness to and revealed the work and the person of the Holy Spirit as well, according to the statements of Jesus to which the evangelists and other sacred authors refer.

4. At times the evangelists stress that active presence of the Holy Spirit in Christ in a special way, as when they speak about the fasting and temptation of Christ in the desert: "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil" (Mt 4:1; cf. Mk 1:12). The expression used by the evangelist presents the Spirit as a Person who leads another to something. This aspect which the evangelists give to the Holy Spirit's activity in Christ signifies that His Messianic mission, carried out to conquer evil, from the start includes a struggle with him who is the "liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44): the spirit of rejection of God's Kingdom. Christ's victory over Satan at the start of His Messianic activity is the prelude and announcement of His final victory in the Cross and Resurrection.

Jesus Himself attributes this victory to the Holy Spirit at every stop in His Messianic mission: He states (Mt 12:28) that "I cast out demons by the Spirit of God." In Christ's struggle and victory the power of the Holy Spirit is manifest; that power is the inner champion and untiring producer of that victory. That is why Jesus is so strong in admonishing His listeners about the sin which He Himself calls "the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" (Mt 12:31-32; cf. Mk 3:29; Lk 12:10). Here too the expressions used by the evangelist present the Spirit as a Person. In fact a parallel is set up between anyone who speaks against the person of the Son of Man and the one who speaks against the person of the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:32; Lk 12:10), and the offense to the Holy Spirit is stated to be more serious. "To sin against the Holy Spirit" means to place oneself on the side of the spirit of darkness, with the result that a person closes himself or herself off to the sanctifying action of God's Spirit. This is why Jesus states that this type of sin cannot be forgiven "either in this world or in the world to come" (Mt 12:32). The inner rejection of the Holy Spirit is the rejection of the very source of life and holiness. Man thus excludes himself freely and by his own initiative from the sphere of God's saving actions.

Jesus' warning about the sin against the Holy Spirit includes, implicitly at least, an additional revelation of the Person and sanctifying activity of that Person of the Trinity, the protagonist in the struggle against the spirit of evil and in the victory of good.

5. Still according to the Synoptics, the Holy Spirit's action is the source of deepest inner joy. Jesus Himself experienced this special "exultation in the Holy Spirit" when He spoke these words: "I give You thanks, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been Your gracious will" (Lk 10:21; cf. Mt 11:25-26). In the texts written by Luke and Matthew this is followed by the words of Jesus about the Son's knowledge of the Father and the Father's knowledge of the Son: knowledge which is communicated by the Son Himself to these "little ones".

Therefore, it is the Holy Spirit which also gives Jesus' disciples not only the power of victory over evil, over the "evil spirits" (Lk 10:17), but also the supernatural joy of discovering God and life in Him through His Son.

6. The revelation of the Holy Spirit through the force of the action which fills the whole mission of Christ will also accompany the Apostles and the disciples in the work which they carry out by divine mandate. Jesus Himself tells them that: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be My witnesses... to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Even when in the course of this witness they meet with persecution, imprisonment and court interrogations, Jesus assures them: "You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you" (Mt 10:19-20; cf. Mk 13:11). Persons alone can speak; impersonal forces can move, push, destroy, but they cannot speak. The Spirit, on the other hand, speaks. He is the inspirer and the consoler of the Apostles and the Church in difficult moments: that is another characteristic of His action, another ray of light shed upon the mystery of His Person.

7. Therefore we can state that in the Synoptics the Holy Spirit manifests Himself as a Person who works within the whole mission of Christ, and who in the lives and history of Christ's followers frees them from evil, gives them strength in the struggle with the spirit of darkness, increases the supernatural joy of knowing God and witnessing to Him even in trying times. The Spirit is a Person who works with divine strength above all within the Messianic mission of Jesus, and afterwards in the work of drawing people to Christ and of guiding those who are called to take part in His saving mission.