The Holy Spirit

"O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere present and fillest all things..."

With these words, nearly every Orthodox prayer begins. We do not approach the Father through our own efforts; we are drawn into his presence by the One who is already everywhere, and who fills all things. The first act of prayer is to confess that prayer itself is a gift.

The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Holy Trinity, fully and equally God with the Father and the Son. The Church confesses him as the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. This is not speculation about the interior life of God, which no creaturely mind can grasp. It is the Church's faithful echo of what has been revealed — in the hovering over the waters at creation, in the overshadowing of the Virgin, in the voice at the Jordan, in the fire at Pentecost, in the sacraments, in the saints.

The Spirit who proceeds from the Father

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, received by the whole Church in the fourth century, confesses that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The later addition of the words and from the Son — in Latin, filioque — was introduced in the West centuries after the Creed was composed, and it was never received by the Orthodox Church. This is not a small technicality. It alters the way the Church confesses the mystery of God, and it remains one of the real reasons that the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church are not in communion.

The Orthodox Church keeps the Creed as it was given: the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Father alone is the source of divinity within the Trinity. The Son and the Spirit are not two expressions of the Father's love but distinct, eternal Persons who fully share his being. The Spirit is sent by the Son into the world — yes — but he proceeds, eternally, from the Father.

Hidden and everywhere

Of himself the Spirit does not speak. He will not speak on his own authority, Christ tells his disciples, but whatever he hears he will speak; he will glorify me. The Spirit's work is always to glorify the Son, to make the Father known, and to draw creation into the life of the Triune God. He does not announce his own presence, and yet there is no moment of Christian life in which he is absent.

From creation to the Liturgy this morning, his work is everywhere. He broods over the waters of creation and over the waters of baptism. He overshadows the Mother of God. He descends upon Christ at the Jordan. He comes as fire at Pentecost. He is invoked over the bread and wine at every Liturgy — a prayer called the epiclesis, the calling-down — so that what we offer may be transfigured into what only he can make it. He is invoked over the oil of chrismation, the waters of Theophany, the wedding crowns, the hands of the newly ordained. The Church is not a human institution sustained by human effort. It is the Body of Christ, and it lives because the Spirit gives it life.

The aim of the Christian life

St. Seraphim of Sarov put it as plainly as anyone ever has: the true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving, the reading of Scripture, the keeping of the feasts — all these are good, but none of them are ends. They are means. What we are made for is communion with God, and communion with God is the work of the Spirit.

The Fathers called this transformation theosis — deification, or the sharing of the creature in the uncreated life of God. It is not a merging; the distinction between Creator and creature remains forever. But by grace, through the Spirit, we are brought to partake of what God is by nature.