The Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier (2)

I am finding so much to mull over in the concise choice of words of this book. The challenge is to find the right words and phrases in my own vocabulary to convey my own thoughts and understanding of the author’s meaning clearly. I hope I can do it justice, I’d love to have feedback that can further sharpen me in this important topic.
Continuing on.

– still in Chapter 1 – The Devotion of the Catholic Church to the Holy Ghost

2. We should contemplate the operations of the Holy Ghost in the souls of the faithful, in the Church, and in the blessed in heaven. These operations are common to all three persons in the Godhead, but appropriated to the Holy Ghost: The Spirit of Truth, The Illuminator, and The Sanctifier. It is the Holy Spirit’s appropriated mission, operation, job, or activity to dispense God’s grace to man, and to make us holy, according to Romans 5:5.

Romans 5:5b (NAB): …the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Sanctify: set apart as or declare holy; consecrate.
Illuminate: Shed light upon…help to clarify or explain (a subject or matter). (late Middle English: from Latin illuminat- ‘illuminated’, from the verb illuminare, from in- ‘upon’ + lumen, lumin- ‘light’.)

The Holy Spirit’s title is the Spirit of Truth, this is His character, His Name, His role…to impart Truth to our hearts. He helps us to discern the Truth, (Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life…no one comes to the Father but by me”), Jesus, who leads us to the Father. Again, when we adore the Holy Ghost, we do not exclude the others, or separate the three since the three are one, but we can recognize their distinct missions…as individual persons in the One God. I’m seeing the whole Godhead here. The Holy Spirit lights up our path, pours God’s love into our hearts and imparts the grace and Truth we need to obey God’s command to be holy as HE is holy.

3. All the works of God are activities of the One Triune God. God is our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. He is One God. The Creator and the Redeemer are not excluded from the work of Sanctification, neither is the Holy Spirit from the works of Creation and Redemption.

“We shall never exclude the Father and the Son from the divine action of our sanctification, which is proper to all the Three Persons as God; but we may speak of the office which is appropriate in the divine economy to the Third Person, that is, to the Holy Ghost. This appropriation, then, as we have seen, arises from two distinct reasons : the one is that the communication of sanctity has a special affinity to the Person of the Holy Ghost ; the other, that as the Son had a special mission into the world to redeem mankind, so the Holy Ghost has a special mission into the world to sanctify those who are faithful to the Redeemer.”

The author makes good use of repetition for important points. Over and over, God is One. The works and appropriations of the three in One, are all works of God, but appropriated to individual persons in the Godhead to dispense, according to their interaction with us. If I can ever get my brain wrapped around that, I’ll be doing good.  Though the Trinity is a mystery and not meant to be understood fully on this side of glory, it is an area in which we are called to exercise our faith, and not lean on our own understanding, but trust that God’s Word revealed to His Church is faithful and true.

My brain hurts. More to come.

What I’m Reading This Year

I’d love to have feedback, has anyone else read The Holy Ghost, The Sanctifier – written by Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster?  Hopefully the link above works, if not, you can find a free ebook version on googlebooks.com.

A dear friend introduced me to this little treasure, and we decided to read it together and text our thoughts about it to one another. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but I quickly found that I needed a dictionary and a thesaurus for the sake of breaking down words I did not understand and my Verbum Bible study software for theological truths that were way too lofty for my little brain to reach. Also, and mostly, my thumbs couldn’t text as fast as I could formulate a thought. Since I find I learn best when I re-write what I read, and include my thoughts and understandings with the text I am reading, I had the brilliant idea to use all ten fingers on the laptop and attempt to make it coherent enough for new blog content.

This series will be a compilation of snippets of text from the book and my thoughts, musings and questions for my own personal study and comprehension. I’ll share it here on New Things, for the sake of anyone who wants and dares to attempt to glean from the mess of a tired brain with scattered thoughts and storms.
Okay…Chapter I

– The Devotion of the Catholic Church to the Holy Ghost

1. God is One in absolute perfection. Three Persons exist in the One; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. All divine worship is given to all Three Persons in The One God.

Though each Person of the Godhead is one in unity and purpose with the other, and share in the divine operations in man (who He made in His image), they each have unique and individual missions and activity in their presence and relationships with man.

God the Son, Jesus, the Redeemer has a relationship with man that is unique to His Person…by the combination of divine and human natures in the single person of Christ (hypostatic union), He has united man to God because He alone is God embodied in flesh; God in human form (incarnate). In the same way, the Holy Spirit has a unique relationship with man, as Sanctifier. I am looking forward to learning about this role, and so far, in chapter one am only getting hints at what this word means. This does not exclude the other Divine Persons of the Godhead from the work of redemption, because they are One. If I understand correctly, the role of the Holy Spirit as Sanctifier is in relation to the equipping man with what is needed for him to live a holy life. I know that is a very simplified understanding, but for now it is good enough for me, as it makes my head hurt to try and break it down further. I look forward to diving a little deeper as I continue.