The wonderful beauty of the Church's teaching on this abiding presence of the Holy Ghost, while it deepens our acquaintance with His mysterious governance of the universe and discovers to us the hidden beauties of our soul's life, should bring also its measure of comfort, for whatever makes us conscious of the intimacy of God's dealing with us lessens life's greatest trouble, its loneliness.
PREFACE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII, 9TH MAY, 1897 GOD'S PRESENCE DEGREES OF GOD'S PRESENCE GOD'S SPECIAL PRESENCE IN THE JUST NATURE OF THIS PRESENCE MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, KNOWLEDGE MODE OF THIS PRESENCE, LOVE THIS PRESENCE IS OF THE SAME NATURE AS THAT IN HEAVEN THIS PRESENCE COMMON TO THE WHOLE TRINITY THIS PRESENCE HAS CERTAIN EFFECTS FORGIVENESS OF SIN JUSTIFICATION DEIFICATION ADOPTED SONSHIP HEIRS OF GOD GUIDANCE IN SPIRITUAL LIFE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT BEATITUDES FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTANDING WISDOM COUNSEL FORTITUDE PIETY FEAR OF THE LORD GRACE
THE ABIDING PRESENCE OF THE HOLY GHOST IN THE SOUL
ENCYCLICAL LETTER FOR PENTECOST, 1897 [1]
TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES HAVING PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE HOLY SEE
[1] This translation is the official form that appeared in the London _Tablet_, June 5, 1897.
VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION
That divine office which Jesus Christ received from His Father for the welfare of mankind, and most perfectly fulfilled, had for its final object to put men in possession of the eternal life of glory, and proximately during the course of ages to secure to them the life of divine grace, which is destined eventually to blossom into the life of heaven. Wherefore, our Saviour never ceases to invite, with infinite affection, all men, of every race and tongue, into the bosom of His Church: "Come ye all to Me," "I am the Life," "I am the Good Shepherd." Nevertheless, according to His inscrutable counsels, He did not will entirely to complete and finish this office Himself on earth, but as He had received it from the Father, so He transmitted it for its completion to the Holy Ghost. It is consoling to recall those assurances which Christ gave to the body of His disciples a little before He left the earth: "It is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you" (1 John 16.7). In these words He gave as the chief reason of His departure and His return to the Father, the advantage which would most certainly accrue to His followers from the coming of the Holy Ghost, and, at the same time, He made it clear that the Holy Ghost is equally sent by--and therefore proceeds from-- Himself and the Father; that He would complete, in His office of Intercessor, Consoler, and Teacher, the work which Christ Himself had begun in His mortal life. For, in the redemption of the world, the completion of the work was by Divine Providence reserved to the manifold power of that Spirit who, in the creation, "adorned the heavens" (Job 26.13), and "filled the whole world" (Wisdom 1.7).