Jubilee Year - Exclusive Excerpt from: Let our Hearts be In-Spired for Mission

As we enter into this Jubilee Year of the Holy Spirit, I invite you to join with me in prayerfully reflecting on the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, sometimes called “the Breath of God,” who comes to us in prayer, in the Sacraments and in all our efforts to carry out the Great Commandment. Although the Holy Spirit is always with us, we do not ordinarily see or feel His presence.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains:

Now God’s Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ,His Word, His living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of Himself. The Spirit who “has spoken through the prophets” makes us hear the Father’s Word, but we do not hear the Spirit Himself. We know Him only in the movement by which He reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome Him in faith. The Spirit of truth who “unveils” Christ to us “will not speak on His own.(CCC #687)

The Holy Spirit is hidden and unheard in Himself, but through Him we can hear the voice of God the Father; and we can see Christ, God’s only Son, especially in the Eucharist.

Sacred Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit using images, such as Wind, Fire, and a Dove, that describe for us how the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity relates to the Father and the Son. He is the Love that proceeds from the Father and from the Son, and that binds the Three Persons in One God together. These scriptural images also help us to better understand how the Holy Spirit transforms us, who are called by our Baptism to be the missionary disciples of Jesus Christ; to help us to move away from being spiritual cowards, weak and ineffective human beings, into what Pope Francis calls “Spirit-filled evangelizers,” women and men who boldly sacrifice our own comfort and security for the sake of building up God’s Kingdom and proclaiming His Word to all people.

If the Holy Spirit is ever-present but usually unseen, how do we come to know him? We come to know him through the Church, as this powerful teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Churchstates so clearly:

The Church, a communion living in the faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit:

• in the Scriptures He inspired;
• in the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses;
• in the Church’s Magisterium, which He assists;
• in the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ;
• in prayer, wherein He intercedes for us;
• in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up;
• in the signs of apostolic and missionary life;
• in the witness of saints through whom He manifests His holiness and continues the work of salvation. (CCC: 688)

In short, the Holy Spirit is present and active everywhere the Church is. And even when the sins and failures of human beings (all of us) get in the way of carrying out the Church’s mission, the Holy Spirit is with us working to renew, restore and heal our brokenness so that we can continue our efforts to live the mission of the Eucharist by loving God and our neighbor.


Bishop Bradley’s latest pastoral letter is available in English and Spanish as well as an audio version read by Bishop Bradley. Included in the Pastoral Letter is a Study Guide for those wishing to dive deeper. Hard copies are available at your local Parish or by contacting the Diocese. Send an email to: [email protected]