Holy Spirit
KNA
Stained glass window at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove.
Jesus promises the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13), and he gives him the name “Paraclete” several times in the course of the same discourse. What does this mean? In Latin this word was translated consolator, often rendered in English as “comforter”. This Latin noun, interpreted very literally, means the one who enters our solitude and shares it, the one who is with us in our solitude so that this ceases to be solitude.
Solitude is a sphere of sadness for man because he needs love. A solitude that is not lit up by any ray of love, a solitude that follows on the loss of love, threatens the innermost condition of our life.
[Whoever does not like God does not like human beings either.] Being unloved is the core of human suffering and human sadness. The word consolator tells us we are never completely alone, never completely abandoned by love. Through the Holy Spirit, God has entered our solitude, and he opens a breach in its wall. This is the true consolation, not only a consolation in words, but a consolation in the power of reality.
Der Glaube an den dreifaltigen Gott und der Friede in der Welt (2004), in:
Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs, Freiburg 2005, 148 –153, 150 f.; Translated as “Belief in the Triune God and Peace in the World”, in Values in a Time of Upheaval, 161–167, 163 f.