YOUCAT Question n. 116 - Part I. What does it mean to say that the Holy Spirit has “spoken through the prophets”?
(Youcat
answer) Already in the Old Covenant God filled men and women with the Spirit,
so that they lifted up their voices for God, spoke in his name, and prepared
the people for the coming of the Messiah.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 684 a) Through his grace, the Holy Spirit is the first to
awaken faith in us and to communicate to us the new life, which is to
"know the Father and the one whom he has sent, Jesus Christ" (In
17:3). But the Spirit is the last of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be
revealed. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, explains this progression
in terms of the pedagogy of divine "condescension": The Old Testament
proclaimed the Father clearly, but the Son more obscurely. The New Testament
revealed the Son and gave us a glimpse of the divinity of the Spirit.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment)
In the Old Covenant God
sought out men and women who were willing to let him use them to console, lead,
and admonish his people. It was the Spirit of God who spoke through the mouth
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets. John the Baptist, the last of
these prophets, not only foresaw the coming of the Messiah. He also met him and
proclaimed him as the liberator from the power of sin.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 684 b) Now the Spirit dwells among us and grants us a
clearer vision of himself. It was not prudent, when the divinity of the Father
had not yet been confessed, to proclaim the Son openly and, when the divinity
of the Son was not yet admitted, to add the Holy Spirit as an extra burden, to
speak somewhat daringly.... By advancing and progressing "from glory to
glory," the light of the Trinity will shine in ever more brilliant rays
(St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio theol.,
5, 26 (= Oratio 31, 26): PG 36, 161-163).
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