Everything that has been done in the Church from its birth until our days is the work of the Holy Spirit: the evangelization of the world, conversions, the fortitude of the martyrs, the holiness of its members… "What the soul is to the human body," Saint Augustine teaches, "that is the Holy Spirit to the Body of Jesus Christ, which is the Church. The Holy Spirit does in the Church what the soul does in the members of a body"17; He gives it life, develops it, and is its principle of unity… Through Him, we live the very life of Christ Our Lord in union with Holy Mary, with all the angels and saints in Heaven, with those preparing themselves in Purgatory, and with those who are still pilgrims on earth.
The Holy Spirit is also the sanctifier of our soul. All good works, the inspirations and desires that impel us to be better, the necessary help to carry them out… Everything is the work of the Paraclete. "This divine Master establishes His school within the souls who ask Him and ardently desire to have Him as their Master"18.
"His action within the soul is gentle, His experience is agreeable and pleasant, and His yoke is most light. His coming is preceded by the brilliant rays of His light and knowledge. He comes with the truth of a genuine protector; for He comes to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, to console, to enlighten, first of all the mind of the one who receives Him and then, through that person's works, the minds of others"19.
And just as one who was in darkness, when the sun rises, receives its light in the eyes of the body and contemplates with total clarity what he could not see before, so too, the one who is found worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit is enlightened in his soul and, raised above his natural reason, sees what he was previously ignorant of.
After Pentecost, the Virgin is "like the heart of the nascent Church"20. The Holy Spirit, who had prepared her to be the Mother of God, now, at Pentecost, disposes her to be the Mother of the Church and of each one of us.
The Holy Spirit never ceases to act in the Church, raising up everywhere new desires for holiness, new children and, at the same time, better children of God, who find in Jesus Christ the perfect Model, for He is the firstborn among many brothers. Our Lady, actively collaborating with the Holy Spirit in souls, exercises her motherhood over all her children. For this reason, she is proclaimed with the title of Mother of the Church, "that is, Mother of all the People of God, both of the faithful and of the Pastors, who call her loving Mother; and we desire," Paul VI proclaimed, "that from now on she be honored and invoked by all Christian people with this most pleasing title"21.
HCD