Thursday, June 26, 2008
Gal 4, 6-7 You are no longer a slave but a child
(Gal 4, 6-7) You are no longer a slave but a child
[6] As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" [7] So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
(CCC 683) "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3). "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!"' (Gal 4:6). This knowledge of faith is possible only in the Holy Spirit: to be in touch with Christ, we must first have been touched by the Holy Spirit. He comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son. Baptism gives us the grace of new birth in God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit. For those who bear God's Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son, and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is impossible to see God's Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of God's Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit (St. Irenaeus, Dem. Ap. 7: SCh 62, 41-42). (CCC 689) The One whom the Father has sent into our hearts, the Spirit of his Son, is truly God (Cf. Gal 4:6). Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, in both the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of love for the world. In adoring the Holy Trinity, life-giving, consubstantial, and indivisible, the Church's faith also professes the distinction of persons. When the Father sends his Word, he always sends his Breath. In their joint mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable. To be sure, it is Christ who is seen, the visible image of the invisible God, but it is the Spirit who reveals him.
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