Spirit's 'giddyap; won't move dead horses: meeting seeks Trinity's third person at work - Spirituality

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 12, 1997 by Art Winter

The lesson here: Without the Spirit to enliven them, all our horses are dead. Even so, we continue trying to ride them. The Spirit, meanwhile, heads in a new direction on a new horse. No wonder we don't know the Spirit or have lost it.

Another section of Fragomeni's talk suggested an additional reason for our having lost the Spirit. Referring to the conference's title -- on the Spirit speaking through the prophets -- he said it might have been more apt if changed to "the Spirit Who Speaks the Prophetic." In other words, she not only speaks through the prophets but speaks what is prophetic. In this connection, he pointed out that scripture says, "Our ways are not God's ways."

Once again the lesson was clear. We do not know the Spirit, we have lost the Spirit, because we have not listened to her. We have been unfaithful. Still, throughout history, the Spirit has remained faithful to us, hasn't given up on us -- like Hosea with his unfaithful Gomer, or Yahweh with the unfaithful Israelites -- thus making it possible to rediscover her presence in our time.

And what is this rediscovered Spirit saying and doing? Quite a bit. Indeed she has been busy all along, according to conference speakers, even though we have been largely unaware.

The Old Testament seems a good place to begin getting a fix on the Spirit's words and deeds, past and present. This is the case even though the Holy Spirit as we understand her today is not to be found in that testament, according to Sister of St. Agnes Dianne Bergant. Bergant and Fragomeni are colleagues at Catholic Theological Union, where Bergant teaches Old Testament, or "the First Testament," as she and other scripture scholars are now calling it.

Bergant said that even though "from a theological point of view," the Holy Spirit is not in the First Testament, it is filled with references to the Spirit of God saying and doing things -- hovering over the deep at creation, calling prophets and speaking through them, for example. This Spirit of God, Bergant said, was understood as the "principle of dynamic divine action." With the revelation that came with Christ, this Spirit developed into the Christian Holy Spirit. In the First Testament, Bergant said, the Spirit of the Lord always comes to people. She does so in this world, not in some faraway world of the gods. This Spirit, in other words, is always relational, always here and now.

As for what this Spirit said back then -- and, of course, can be presumed to be saying to us now -- Rosemary Haughton, another speaker, provided the most descriptive outline. Haughton, author of numerous theology books, lives in Wellspring House, a community in Gloucester, Mass., active in housing and education.

Citing passages in Second Isaiah and Jeremiah, Haughton said the Spirit's message through the prophets called for a community in which people can live in safety and abundance. The community is to be inclusive, offering hospitality to everyone. "These prophetic visions," she said, "are very clear and very concrete. They are not about heaven. They are not about mystical experience. They are about food, land, buildings, continuity, community responsibility. They are a vision of property that includes everyone."