Catechesis on the Holy Spirit

29 October 1998 08:51

VATICAN CITY, OCT 28, 1998 – At today’s Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope spoke on the theme of “The Spirit – ‘Giver of Life’ and Victory over Death.”

“Eternal life which comes from the Father,” he said, “is transmitted to us fully by Jesus in His Easter through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Receiving this Gift, we participate in the Risen Lord’s definitive victory over death. … Christ thus fulfills … that promise of eternal life which God engraved in man, in creating him in his image and likeness.

John Paul II said that we should not think “that life beyond death only begins with final resurrection. This is preceded by the special condition in which every human being finds themselves from the moment of physical death.” In this intermediary phase, a spiritual element survives, with awareness and will, so that the “human I” exists even though there is no body.

“For believers there is the certainty that their life-giving relationship with Christ cannot be destroyed by death, but rather that it lives on beyond that. … Moreover, the Church instills a respect for the mortal remains of all human beings, both for the dignity of the person to which they belonged, and for the honor which is due to the body of those who, with Baptism, became temples of the Holy Spirit. Specific proof of this is in the funeral rite and the veneration of the relics of saints.”

The Holy Father concluded by saying that the Holy Spirit “thus shows Himself to us as the Spirit of life not only in all stages of life on earth, but also is the phase which after death precedes full life, which the Lord also promised for our mortal bodies.”