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Monday 23 June 2014

Manning on the Holy Ghost


What can one quote from the extraordinary chapter on the Holy Spirit in Manning? Every other sentence seems like a surprise, or a gift to be unwrapped slowly.

Samples: “The Holy Ghost dwells in the mystical Body, and in every member of the same who is united to the Incarnate Son. We are related to Him, and He dwells in us, and it is through Him that we have union both with the Son and with the Father.”

“ …every time we make the sign of the Cross we make an act of faith and, at least, an implicit act of adoration to the Holy Ghost. All the works of God in creation, though they are the works of the Holy Trinity, are in a special sense the works of the Holy Ghost, because it is the Third Person of the ever-blessed Trinity Who is in immediate union with all creatures….He is the Term, or the Compliment, of the Holy Trinity, because the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son; but there the Holy Trinity rests complete. No divine person proceeds from the Holy Ghost.”

“God the Father is uncreated being, God the Son is uncreated intelligence, and God the Holy Ghost  is uncreated love; and the uncreated being, intelligence, and love of God are God.”

“All creatures of God are…from the Holy Ghost; they are His works; He is therefore the Creator Spiritus, the Spirit Who made all things, the Spirit Who impresses law, and order, and perfection upon all the works of God. And as He has created all things, so He is Himself the Giver of all things. He is the Dator munerum, as we say in the sequence of the Holy Mass at Pentecost—‘the Giver of all gifts.”

Manning quotes the titles of the Holy Ghost from the litany of Pentecost—the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus.

 Creator
 Gift of God Most High
 Living Fountain
 Fire
 Paraclete
 Sevenfold Gift
 Spiritual Unction

Manning reminds us that the Holy Spirit also is responsible for the New Creation, the Church, but more than that, the renewal of creation, beginning with the Immaculate Conception, the New Eve, the New Woman, the “firstfruits of the full and sanctifying grace of the Holy Ghost.”

The Cardinal writes, “She was the first and the last in the natural lineage of the children of Adam in whom sin had no place. The Mother of the Incarnate Son was sheltered and preserved from the inheritance of original sin, so that never for a moment was so much as a shadow cast by sin upon her spotless soul. In her was no privation of grace. From the first moment of her existence she was full of the Holy Ghost. The most perfect work of sanctification that the world has ever seen, purchased by the Precious Blood of the Son of God Himself, and given out of free and sovereign grace, is the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Such was the aurora before the sun. Next came the day, the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. The efficient author of the Incarnation was the Holy Ghost: ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore, the Holy that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God; and therefore we say in our baptismal Creed, Conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto-‘He was conceived of the Holy Ghost.’”

One must stop as this paragraph takes one’s breath away with the beauty and economy of God’s plan for our salvation.

Glory be to God…

To be continued…