Are we truly aware of the rich theological resources that open up when we respond – perhaps unthinkingly, automatically and habitually – to the priest’s greeting Dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you) with the customary formula Et cum spiritu tuo (And with your spirit)? The extraordinary beauty inherent in this brief exchange or, rather, in the space opened up by a few simple words spoken with clarity, deserves careful analysis, which we would like to offer in this article as a small contribution to reflection on synodality.[1]
Moreover, the very fact that this richness goes beyond the liturgical sphere, its appropriate and nourishing Sitz-im-Leben, suggests that there is no sphere of Christian life that is not influenced by it. In other words, there can be no true koinonia if each of the participants first does not own the response Et cum spiritu tuo. There is no synodality unless one is convinced of the performative power inherent in Et cum spiritu tuo. There can be no sincere diakonia if the one who serves does not first respond and say Et cum spiritu tuo with the whole self, more merely than with words, discerning in the one being served – following the words of the Master himself (cf. Matt 25) – the tacit greeting Dominus vobiscum. There can be no true evangelization of culture nor inculturation of the Gospel if there is no response Et cum spiritu tuo. There can be no authentic listening if we do not place ourselves in the divine breath that is proper to Et cum spiritu tuo.
This is one of the most synodal expressions we know. There is no doubt that it is not simply about the priest’s human spirit as something natural, as if this expression indicated only his vital core. It is also about his ability to transcend himself and, above all, the recognition of the activity of the Holy Spirit in the human being, at the moment when in his fragility he opens himself to another being equally vulnerable. The complexity of the term “spirit,” which already in its Hebrew origin connects the most intimate part of the human with both the cosmic and the divine, and the elusive character of the Spirit, who hides behind his work, allow us to interpret it in these terms.
In this article we will highlight three theological dimensions of the expression Et cum spiritu tuo, which will substantiate not only the legitimacy of this interpretation, but also its suitability to open the synodal space insofar as this expression is communal, pneumatological and maternal.
A Communal Response
First, it is important to emphasize that the formula Et cum spiritu tuo is a response. It is the necessary second part of a brief exchange in which the identity of the synodal Church is at stake and without which there is no leitourgia, understood as the “work of the people,” nor can anyone claim to speak or act in persona Christi et in nomine Ecclesiae (in the person of Christ and in the name of the Church).
This invitational exchange, which may seem to be a merely trivial and passing “formality,” runs through the liturgical action of a Eucharistic celebration from beginning to end like a “breathing process,”[2] with variations in the opening greeting, before the proclamation of the Gospel, at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer, in the greeting of peace, and before the final blessing. It functions as if to invite us, from time to time, to return to the essentials, as St. Cyril of Jerusalem points out with affectionate realism: “Certainly, at all times it is necessary to remember God: if then this is impossible because of human weakness, especially at that hour it is necessary to make it a point of honor to seek him.”[3]
Every believer, hearer of the Word, first of all is a response, not so much to a priestly greeting, but to God. The initiative is always God’s. The priest himself, to be able to greet in persona Christi, must first make Et cum spiritu tuo his own; he himself must embody response.
The expression Et cum spiritu tuo is a response that welcomes the voice’s invitation to open a space, makes its own the wish inherent in the greeting that gives voice to God’s invitation and activates the “responsibility” – that is, the “ability to respond” – and the conscious participation of the assembly, which becomes response in responding. It is as if the voice of greeting exposes its fragile vulnerability, asking for welcome in an emptiness that only response can transform into home.
It is a response to a “ministerial” – i.e., “service” – greeting in the form of a wish: “The Lord / Peace be with you” (and its variants, some happily and appropriately Trinitarian). This greeting harkens back to many of the risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples, most notably the Johannine episode in which the risen Lord presents himself with his peace – “Peace be with you” – and, breathing, bestows the Spirit (cf. John 20:20-22). Through this simple exchange the faithful and the priest place themselves and enter together into the “presence of the Lord” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM], no. 50).
It is essential to open the space of sacramental encounter through this simple invitatory dialogue, which has existed since the beginnings of Christianity and has some Old Testament antecedents, such as Neh 9:5a, which Talmudic commentaries already interpreted as a dialogue of greeting and response.[4] Et cum spiritu tuo is a communal response, ensuring that those who respond are a community. It is not an individual response, but communal, the Ecclesia orans. It involves an ecclesiology of communion, which confirms and makes real the communion of the faithful with each other and with the one who presides, whose ministry they acknowledge by responding. If there were no response, the priest would find himself trapped in a clericalism paradoxically imposed by a community that is not fully participating. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal insists on this point: “The acclamations and the responses of the faithful to the priest’s greetings and prayers constitute that level of active participation that the gathered faithful are to contribute in every form of the Mass, so that the action of the entire community may be clearly expressed and fostered” (GIRM 35).
Already in the time of St. John Chrysostom the answer was sometimes given without conviction and without really taking it seriously: “When I say, ‘Peace be with you,’ and you answer, ‘And to your spirit,’ say it not only with your voice, but also with your soul, not only with your mouth, but also with your heart. But if you say here, ‘Peace be to your spirit,’ and outside you fight me by despising me and slandering me, secretly swamping me with innumerable abuses, what kind of peace is that? I, however, no matter how much you speak ill of me, give you peace with a pure heart, with a sincere soul, and I can never say anything bad about you, because I have a fatherly heart […]. Even if you insult me and do not welcome me, even then I do not shake off the dust, not because I do not pay attention to the Lord, but because I burn very much for you.”[5]
Chrysostom was right to expect to receive a response marked by the same generosity and tenderness with which he addressed the assembly. The two expressions need each other and are reflected as in a mirror. Both, in fact, include an aspect of augury (be) and another of witness (is): it is a theological trope that highlights the eschatological tension inherent in every liturgical-sacramental celebration.[6]
In other words, both the presidential greeting and the ecclesial response are an “ascertainment-wishing” that we need to understand in an eschatological framework : “Since Semitic languages, as well as Greek and Latin, do not contemplate the obligatory force of the verb to be in its function as a copula, the relative sense fluctuates understandably between observation (The Lord is with you!) and wish (The Lord be with you!)”,[7] as an “affectionate exchange of an augural ascertainment that becomes a prayer.”[8] This reciprocity, in which the Church does its best to wish the priest what he wishes for the Church, was highlighted by Florus, a deacon of Lyon in the 9th century: “The Church, having received the advantageous greeting of the priest, also saluting and praying, salutes again the priest by saying, Et cum spiritu tuo.”[9]
A Pneumatological Response
If in his greeting the priest emphasizes the presence of the risen Lord or his peace, it is up to those who respond to emphasize the presence of the Spirit, not in itself, but – as is the case in the Creed – in its workings in the Church.
Indeed, St. Irenaeus had already asserted that the human being cannot be explained apart from reference to the divine Spirit: “We are composed of a body drawn from the earth, and a soul that receives the spirit from God.”[10] In other words, the human being, composed of soul and flesh fashioned in the image of God, recovers this likeness to God only when the soul receives the Spirit of the Father: “Soul and spirit may be a part of man, but not the whole man. The perfect man is the mixture and union of the soul which has received the Spirit of the Father (Spiritum Patris), and which has been mixed with that flesh which has been molded in the image of God. […] When this Spirit, mingling with the soul, has been united with the molded work, through this outpouring of the Spirit the perfect spiritual man is realized: and it is this that has been made in the image and likeness of God. When, on the contrary, the spirit is lacking in the soul, he who is in this state is really psychic and carnal, and will remain imperfect, certainly bearing the image of God in the fashioned work, but not having assumed the likeness through the Spirit.”[11]
Irenaeus then quotes the Pauline expression that hints at a kind of human spirit alongside the soul and body: “May the God of peace sanctify you wholly [with the gift of his Spirit], and may your whole person, spirit, soul and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess 5:23).”[12]
Authoritative scholars such as Adelin Rousseau, Antony Orbe and Hans-Jochen Jaschke argue that it is the Holy Spirit, whom everyone appropriates charismatically – that is, according to Pauline theology, with the intent to build up the Church – as “their own” Spirit: “In his eyes it is not just any ‘spirit,’ but the Holy Spirit himself, in that he is given to each righteous person to be in him, a spirit more intimate than himself, the beginning of a new and all holy life, which is a participation in the divine life that the Son receives from the Father from all eternity. Each one of the just receives in his own way this same and unique Spirit: this is part of the infinite diversity of vocations (“charisms”) in the unity of the Church and charity. […] In other words, each justified person possesses their own Spirit, just as they also possess their own soul and their own body.”[13]
Orbe, for his part, emphasizes the qualitative contribution of the Holy Spirit to form “part of the human being”[14] without being reduced to it. Ternary anthropology does not deny binary anthropology, but rather clarifies it: “The person, composed essentially of only two parts (body and soul), is at the same time composed historically and also physically of three: two substantial and human, and one qualitative (the divine Spirit) coming from God. […] The Spirit coming from God constitutes a physical part (qualitas Spiritus) of the human individual. Not by juxtaposition with the soul, but by infusion and inherence in it. […] The physical duality – soul and body – is greatly enriched when it is translated (according to Gen 1:26 and 2:7) into: soul resembling (God through the Spirit received from him) and body physically configured (in the image of the Word, the image of God).”[15]
Following Irenaeus, we could say that the response Et cum spiritu tuo means not only “And with the Spirit working in you,” but highlights the extraordinary synergy of the divine Spirit with the human spirit for the sake of the Kingdom, something like “And with the Spirit working with you and for you.”
In our opinion, it would be wrong to forget the role of the Holy Spirit in the expression Et cum spiritu tuo, reducing it to the merely anthropological level and without understanding it in the light of the synergy that St. Paul also emphasizes: “It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:16). Therefore, understanding the expression as a simple variant – perhaps somewhat more respectful – of And also with you, to highlight the legitimate and desired cordiality between priest and faithful does not exhaust the profound spiritual meaning already explicitly stressed by the Church Fathers. St. John Chrysostom, for example, states, “If there were not the Holy Spirit in this common father and teacher [presiding over the liturgy], when he just now has ascended to this sacred chair and given peace to all of you, you would not all have answered him together, ‘And with your spirit’.”[16]
Among the Fathers, Theodore of Mopsuestia stands out, because he explicitly rules out a merely sociological and horizontal interpretation: “For it is not to the soul that they [the faithful] refer by this [expression] And with your spirit; but it is the grace of the Holy Spirit, through which those entrusted to him believe that he has access to the priesthood.”[17] Undoubtedly, the familiar expression And also with you was inserted to avoid clericalism and to bring the priest closer to the faithful, but unfortunately in this way the role of the Holy Spirit, and thus the necessarily synodal character of the Church, was obscured.
In other words, the response Et cum spiritu tuo legitimizes what the priest says next. Rather than granting him clerical dignity, it places him in his proper place in persona Christi et in nomine Ecclesiae, ensuring that there is no clericalism either on his part or on the part of the faithful. Argentine theologian Pablo María Pagano Fernández rightly wonders whether the priest could proclaim the Gospel and say the Eucharistic prayer on behalf of all if the assembly, through laziness, distraction or some other reason, did not respond at all to his greeting.[18] Being exposed to such an eventuality is part of the necessary vulnerability of ministry, which awaits recognition, acceptance.
It would be wrong, however, to reduce the action of the Holy Spirit to the priest alone. The response that recognizes the work of the Spirit in the minister presupposes a theology of charisms in the service of communion, which Chrysostom highlights in the homily already quoted: “If he [the Holy Spirit] does not forgive sins, in vain do heretics blaspheme him. If the Spirit did not exist, we could not say that Jesus is Lord. If the Holy Spirit did not exist, we faithful could not pray to God […]. Therefore, when you invoke the Father, remember that you have been allowed to call Him by that name because of the Holy Spirit’s motion upon your soul. If the Holy Spirit did not exist, there would be in the Church neither the discourse of wisdom nor that of science. “For to one is given a word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another a word of knowledge” (1 Cor 12:8). If the Holy Spirit did not exist, there would be no pastors or doctors in the Church, for it is the Holy Spirit who makes them such.”[19]
To recognize the charism or gift of the Spirit in an ordained member of the Church is to open a synodal space that is by definition charismatic: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:4-7).
The gathered faithful respond to the ministerial priesthood by exercising their baptismal priesthood according to their own charism. To carry out his ministerial service in the ecclesial space, the priest needs the explicit acceptance of the baptized: “If the radical power (potestas) to celebrate the Eucharist resides in each Christian who has received the Spirit, the very nature of the baptismal character requires the acceptance of the gifts granted to the other [ordained, ministerial] members of the community for a full manifestation of the ecclesial nature of the action.”[20]
In this sense, St. John Chrysostom urges the repetition of the same ecclesial response Et cum spiritu tuo at different moments of the Eucharistic celebration, so that the minister can make the offering of the Church: “For this reason you address such words to the priest [“And with your spirit”] not only when he goes up to the altar, or engages with you, or prays for you, but also when he stands at this sacred table, when he is about to offer this venerable sacrifice, as those who are initiated into the sacred mysteries know well. He does not touch the sacred offerings unless first he has implored for you the Lord’s grace, unless first you have all answered him together, ‘And with your Spirit’.”[21]
In other words, the response Et cum spiritu tuo expresses not so much clerical dignity as a recognition of the charismatic presence of the Holy Spirit in the synodal space of the one and plural koinonia: “And this response reminds you that he who is there, does nothing from himself, that the gifts presented are not at all human work; but that only the grace of the Spirit, having descended upon all, accomplishes this mystical sacrifice. Although there is a man present there, it is God who acts through him. Therefore do not mind the nature of what you see, but think of his invisible grace. There is nothing that comes from man in the things that are accomplished in the sanctuary. If the Spirit were not present, the Church would not form a firm unity; if the Church is firm in its unity, it is a sign that the Spirit is present.”[22]
It is therefore essential to make explicit the presence of the Holy Spirit in the communal response in order to embrace the connection opened by the mention of the Risen One in the greeting: “Between the subjects of the exchange runs a message whose content is the very persons of the Kyrios (Dominus) and the Pneuma (Spiritus), recognized as the grace-bearing Presence of the resurrection and as the distributive Power of services in ecclesial coexistence.”[23]
Indeed, the Word and the Spirit belong together and need each other: “Without the Spirit thus preparing the heart, the Word could do nothing.”[24] Just as the written Word needs the fire of the Spirit to reach the heart and come to life, so we find the two Hands of the Father paired[25] in Sacred Scripture and in the life of the Church: the Spirit “is the power of Incarnation, of presence, of truth, of listening. Without him, the Word remains ineffective, inoperative, external, without consistency and without internal evidence, and thus antiquated. The evidence of the Spirit is as real as that of the Word, but is of a different order. It prepares our hearts to listen, makes us capable and willing to receive the Word, making us fruitful and making the Word bear fruit.”[26]
In this way, thanks to the Spirit, salvation history is a process of internalization[27]: “The Spirit sanctifies people and objects by opening them up to eschatology, drawing them to it; it sanctifies and transforms them by strengthening their relationship with the final fullness.”[28]
Now, making explicit the presence of the Holy Spirit, whom St. Basil the Great called – not to belittle him, but to glorify him – “the proper space of true worship,”[29] is the maternal task of the baptized faithful.
A Maternal Response
We should affirm then that the response Et cum spiritu tuo, more than being a simple recognition of the role of the Holy Spirit in the minister and his acceptance and legitimization, has an epicletic, performative, prayerful and even maternal character, as if the greeting full of paternal tenderness – as Chrysostom said – expects from the faithful a response overflowing with maternal concern.
Not without reason, in the Syriac tradition the Virgin Mary is the prototype of the baptismal priesthood, of the priestly offering of the heart, of the ability, with the help of the Spirit, to conceive and spiritually generate Christ; in fact, the Spirit plays a similar role in the Incarnation, in the sacraments, and in the exercise of the common priesthood, which may be called “maternal.”[30]
Now, in the East, in greeting, the minister traces over the assembly the sign of the cross from the royal door of the iconostasis, which underscores the sense of the greeting as a blessing.[31] In parallel, Theodore of Mopsuestia points out that the response also constitutes an implicit blessing, an epiclesis because it is addressed to the Spirit: “With the word of ‘peace’ [the priest] blesses those around him, and in return he receives a blessing from them, by the fact that they address him and his Spirit.”[32] While being more than just a spokesman and delegate, the priest is also vulnerable and needs the blessing of the people – which, to distinguish it from the priest’s greeting and to highlight its complementary meaning as a nurturing and caring force, we might call “maternal” – so that the Body is not harmed: “For when what concerns the priest proceeds well, this is a benefit to the body of the Church; but when what concerns the priest suffers, it is a harm to the community. Thus they all pray that, through ‘peace,’ he may have the grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus he will cure what is necessary, and fulfill as is fitting the liturgy for the community.”[33]
The motherly response, as exercise of the common priesthood, is necessary for the priest to exercise his ministerial priesthood and ministry “in the service of the epiclesis” (Corbon). Therefore, the response Et cum spiritu tuo, more than simply attesting to the work of the Holy Spirit in the ordained minister, has a prayerful and epicletic character in that it expresses the desire for the Spirit to act in synergy with and in the ordained minister. In other words, it outlines the framework or space of the priest’s action, which “also depends on the epicletic prayer of the whole Church. Within this ecclesiological framework must be situated the reality and theology of ministry.”[34] Yves Congar also stresses that “it is a matter of securing the presence of the Spirit to perform the liturgical act: may the Lord be with you, you who are endowed for this with the charism of the Spirit. According to the Fathers, ordination endowed the presbyter with the necessary charism. But this is not automatic; every spiritual operation requires an epiclesis.”[35]
The reference to the Spirit is epicletic. It is also maternal, because by its response the assembly promises to care for the synodal space. Ultimately, it is about each member of the Eucharistic assembly, in his or her own vulnerability, becoming aware of “how the Holy Spirit creates the space or spiritual framework of the celebration, through the exchange of a wish and a witness of his or her presence. […] It is a sign of reciprocity that makes the full truth of the relationship between the Christian community and the minister who presides over it and is its pastor.”[36] This “structure of reciprocity” is a synodal characteristic of the action of the Holy Spirit: “This structure of reciprocity, which translates the constant of the action of the Holy Spirit, is found […] in the rite of ordination of ministers. […] Ordination is a procedure that has its main moment in the liturgical act, but which begins before the celebration. The community has intervened in an election which, like all acts governing the life of the Church, had to be ‘inspired.’ This election already recognized certain talents or charisms in the one chosen. The consecrating bishop assumes this intervention of the community. In the ordination of another bishop, all the bishops present were ministers of the Spirit within the epiclesis of the whole assembly.”[37]
To say together, with one voice, Et cum spiritu tuo confirms and activates not only the priesthood of the minister, but at the same time the common priesthood of every baptized person. In other words, it is a matter of declaring and exercising the participation of both priesthoods in the one priesthood of the risen Lord (cf. LG 10): “The dialogical exchange manifests the perichoresis of the two priesthoods, common and ministerial, founded on the Spirit of Christ.”[38]
In this sense, an ancient Easter homily does not hesitate to put into the mouth of the Risen One the response Et cum spiritu tuo, thus refuting the clerical interpretation and showing rather in the response its epicletic, performative and maternal aspects, the desire that Adam – and with him, as a communal subject, all humanity – live and rise again by the Spirit: “The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light’.”[39]
This response in the mouth of the Risen One descending into Sheol reveals the nature of the desire and its sacramental efficacy as a word accompanying the simple gesture of taking Adam by the hand to raise him up (as Jesus took the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law, who was healed of fever: cf. Matt 8:15). In other words, the response in Jesus’ mouth – moved by the divine breath (similar to the prophet Ezekiel, who invokes the ruah over dead bones: cf. Ezek 37, an Old Testament scene in which the Fathers recognized clear anticipations of the resurrection) – has the effect of infusing the Spirit into the apostles (cf. John 20:22).
In conclusion, it is the maternal response Et cum spiritu tuo that places the equally vulnerable ministerial word – the greeting, and with it the rest of the priest’s words – within an epiclesis, as if to say, “This is the fruitful sphere of action of the Holy Spirit in you and for us.”
The act of responding to the greeting not only demonstrates a modicum of courtesy and politeness on the interhuman level, but, on the theological level, expresses maternal solicitude on the part of the recipients of the greeting, something like: We agree; we are in the presence of the Lord. Moreover, we have entered the space opened by the triune God, a synodal space that allows us to be received by the Father through Christ in the Spirit in order to offer ourselves – in the name of the baptismal priesthood – through Christ to the Father (cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 11).
A Synodal Space
The response Et cum spiritu tuo makes an implicit mention of the Holy Spirit in synergy with the best part of the human being. Thus the assembly responds with the same vulnerability with which the priest speaks on behalf of God. It is not properly the presidential greeting that opens the liturgical space, but the invitatory dialogue, which passes between the priest and the faithful, between the two complementary charisms of the same synodal communion. Thus one could speak of an opening of the synodal space involving both anamnesis and epiclesis.
By responding to vulnerability with vulnerability, the priest and the faithful together open a mystagogical and synodal space, a fruitful environment into which each member is invited to enter and find his or her place. To open the space is to prepare the ground and find one’s place. Those who take the floor to take a stand verbally and corporately express their readiness to orient themselves toward the living God. From the ministerial greeting to the maternal response, the dialogue embraces an open space that leaves no one without a word, but rather confirms the “subjectivity of all in the ecclesial we.”[40] The General Instruction of the Roman Missal stresses the importance of the dialogical space: “Since the celebration of Mass by its nature has a ‘communitarian’ character, both the dialogues between the priest and the faithful gathered together, and the acclamations are of great significance; in fact, they are not simply outward signs of communal celebration but foster and bring about communion between priest and people” (GIRM 34).
Drawing a magnificent arc from the Kyrios to his Gift par excellence, the Spirit, the invitatory dialogue opens a mystagogical space that all members can approach, entering and participating in the Trinitarian mystery. This dialogical sharing offers a micro-experience of synodality, with repercussions for the Christian life in all its dimensions (witness, worship and service).
In effect, each member welcomes the other. All vulnerable participants who enter the synodal space – from the beginning inhabited by the triune God and open through dialogue, as reflected in Rublëv’s icon of the Trinity – welcome each other. The space, which in itself is only potentially sacred, is activated as such by dialogue, that is, by the necessary priestly exercise of both the baptized and the ordained, both ministerial and maternal.
The dialogical arc from the ministerial greeting (the acknowledgement-auguration of the presence of the risen Kyrios ) to the motherly response (the welcome-auguration that acknowledges and prays for the presence of the Spirit) defines the in-between space as synodal, as an exchange between vulnerable people, as a dynamic space inhabited by the triune God. Dialogue does not separate the minister from the assembly, but includes both. At the same time, it distinguishes roles within the church body and emphasizes organic and charismatic communion.
It is in this sense that we might consider the response in Portuguese: Ele está no meio de nós (“He is in our midst”). At first glance, it seems highly synodal that the assembly not only takes the floor in the name of “we,”[41] but also acknowledges with conviction the presence of the Risen One in its midst. It is a commendable exercise of the baptismal priesthood, which goes beyond the earlier English formulation And also with you. However, this response would have been more synodical if it had made reference to the Holy Spirit and his indispensable role in the priest, to distinguish charisms with a view to the building up of the ecclesial body. Above all, since it is neither epicletic (it is an affirmation, rather than a wish) nor maternal (it is not addressed to the minister), this formula, in our view, loses its force as an exercise of the baptismal priesthood.
More than a mere formality, the anamnetic-epicletic dialogue is an arc similar to that found in Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture The Cathedral (1908), where two right hands – thus two people – form an arc, embracing a new space, the sacred space of encounter. The title does not conceal the sacred density of the simple gesture of bringing one’s hand closer so that another equally vulnerable being can bring his or her own closer and thus a covenant is established (initially the sculpture was called The Ark of the Covenant). Indeed, the more vulnerable, the more synodality is happily experienced by the holiness of the Spirit, which establishes communion with complementary charisms (cf. 1 Cor 12).
Referring to St. Irenaeus’ well-known image of the Father’s two Hands, we could say that the minister with his greeting offers the Hand of the Risen One. The arch is built, and the synodal space becomes manifest because of the Hand of the Spirit, highlighted in the maternal response. That is why the cathedral (read: synodal space) collapses if the ministerial greeting does not receive a maternal response.
Although formalized and institutionalized, invitatory dialogue – if conducted sincerely and vulnerably – opens a synodal space. It is ultimately a matter of rediscovering the sacramental, prayerful and mystagogical power of an ecclesial and dialogical word that, as a joint exercise of the baptismal and ministerial priesthood and as a communal response to God’s invitation, is necessary not to create the synodal space but to enter it. In fact, it is not we who create it: it is God the Father who is already waiting for us with open Hands.
Reproduced with permission by La Civilta Cattolica.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.0225.3
[1]. For more on this topic, cf. B. Daelemans, “Y con tu Espíritu: la palabra eclesial abre el espacio sacramental”, in P. J. Alonso Vicente – J. S. Madrigal Terrazas (edd.), Teología con alma bíblica, Madrid, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2021, 217-233.
[2]. Cf. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia. Aportes a la eclesiología eucarística, Salamanca, Secretariado Trinitario, 1998, 268-272. This is the source from which, above all, we drew inspiration for this article.
[3]. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis 5,4 (SC 126, 150-153), quoted in C. Giraudo, In unum corpus. Trattato mistagogico sull’eucaristia, Cinisello Balsamo (Mi), San Paolo, 2001, 289.
[4]. Cf. C. Giraudo, “In unum corpus”…, op. cit., 284, note 11.
[5]. John Chrysostom, Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, 32,6.
[6]. Cf. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia…, op. cit., 269, note 73.
[7]. C. Giraudo, “In unum corpus”…, op. cit., 287, note 18.
[8]. Ibid., 287.
[9]. Florus of Lyon, De expositione missae 12-13 (PL 119,26cd), quoted in C. Giraudo, “In unum corpus”…, op. cit., 287.
[10]. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses.
[11]. Ibid.
[12]. Cf. ibid.
[13]. A. Rousseau, “Notes justificatives”, in Irénée de Lyon, Adversus Haereses, vol. II, Paris, Cerf, 1982, 340. Cf. H.-J. Jaschke, Der Heilige Geist im Bekenntnis der Kirche: eine Studie zur Pneumatologie des Irenäus von Lyon im Ausgang vom altchristlichen Glaubensbekenntnis, Münster, Aschendorff, 1976, 298.
[14]. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses, V, 6,1.
[15]. A. Orbe, Teología de San Ireneo. Comentario al Libro V del “Adversus Haereses”, vol. I, Madrid, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1985, 274; 278; 283.
[16]. John Chrysostom, Homily on Pentecost 1,4 (PG 50, 458-459).
[17]. Theodore of Mopsuestia, Catechetical Homily I, 36-38.
[18]. Cf. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia…, op. cit., 268.
[19]. John Chrysostom, Homily on Pentecost 1,4 (PG 50, 458-459).
[20]. J. R. Villalón, Sacrements dans l’Esprit. Existence humaine et théologie sacramentelle, Paris, Beauchesne, 1977, 438.
[21]. John Chrysostom, Homily on Pentecost 1,4 (PG 50, 458-459).
[22]. Ibid.
[23]. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu Santo, Epíclesis, Iglesia…, op. cit., 272.
[24]. B. Bobrinskoy, El misterio de la Trinidad. Curso de teología ortodoxa, Salamanca, Secretariado Trinitario, 2008, 48.
[25]. Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus Haereses, IV, 7,4.
[26]. B. Bobrinskoy, El misterio de la Trinidad…, op. cit., 28; 36 f.
[27]. Cf. Y. Congar, Credo nello Spirito Santo, op. cit., 28.
[28]. F.-X. Durrwell, L’eucaristia sacramento del mistero pasquale, Rome, Paoline, 1982, 100.
[29]. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, XXVI, 62.
[30]. Cf. M. Campatelli, Il battesimo: Ogni giorno alle fonti della vita nuova, Rome, Lipa, 2007, 153-160.
[31]. Cf. C. Giraudo, “In unum corpus”…, op. cit., 286, note 16.
[32]. Theodore of Mopsuestia, First Homily on the Mass 36-38.
[33]. Ibid.
[34]. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia…, op. cit., 271.
[35]. Y. Congar, Credo nello Spirito Santo, op. cit., 53 f (my italics).
[36]. Ibid.
[37]. Ibid. My italics.
[38]. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia…, op. cit., 272.
[39]. Homily on Holy Saturday, in PG 43, 439-463.
[40]. P. M. Pagano Fernández, Espíritu santo, epíclesis, iglesia…, op. cit., 272.
[41]. Unfortunately, the “we” is ambiguous because it is not made explicit whether the priest is included or not.
