Gloria Patri: The History and Theology of the Lesser Doxology

“And Will Be Forever, World Without End" — The Fullness of Grace and the Revealed Glory

I “ And Will Be Forever, World Without End”— The Fullness of Grace and the Revealed Glory In the preceding chapters we drew a parallel between the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and “in the beginning, is now, will be forever.” Accordingly we talked of creation “in the beginning” and the Father as source of all created being, albeit we remain aware that whatever is attributed to the Father belongs equally to the Son and the Holy Spirit. A consideration of the incarnation of the Son of God, the Word made flesh, seemed germane to the passage of time in the present (anno Domino), the glory of God that “is now” in the world. In this present chapter we will consider the Holy Spirit as the ongoing love of the Father and the Son forever poured out among us and “will be forever.” Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit births the Church, the mystical body of Christ, and the coming kingdom of God in a new heaven and a new earth, “world without end.”58 99 Let us reflect more upon this activity of the Holy Spirit. If one thinks of the Father as the source of God’s gift of creation, and the Son as the self-gift of God in the incarnation, then one might think of the Holy Spirit, especially given in the community of seekers, as the inspiration of grace that enables the human soul to appropriate these gifts of God. The Holy Spirit is the graciousness of God who gives not only everything about us as gift, who gives not only the self-gift that is unsurpassable in Jesus Christ, but who also tenderly gives us the reception of this saving gift of God lest we miss out on the meaning and fulfillment of our very existence as human beings. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit constitutes a personal and divine visitation that urges us to receive God’s love and to love one another as Jesus loved us. The gift and the giver merge in our ensouled body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that we can give of ourselves as God has loved us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the indwelling of God, not only a created grace that prompts us to be receptive, but the uncreated divine presence in our soul. Through the Spirit we become alive in Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Shakespeare says, “ripeness is all.” Timing is everything. In friendship one can give a gift too soon and one can give too late. The gift will be rejected if given too soon, when the recipient is unprepared, and the gift will be resented if received too late to appropriate its significance. Hence the gift of God’s creation to us is fraught with jeopardy. We can unwittingly abuse the gift, not recognizing how much we are given. Imagine a little child given an expensive camera, and the child leaves the camera outside in the rain where it is ruined. The child may come to lament that they were given so much when they were not ready to receive . They missed the gift because the timing was premature. Hence creation itself, and most of all the self-gift of God in Jesus, can be a burden to us if it remains a gift that we recognize too T H E T R I N I T Y I N T I M E A N D E T E R N I T Y 100 late. Hence the Holy Spirit is given us as the gracious reception of God’s gift. In sum, God gives the gift of creation, the self-gift of his Son, and the promised reception of the gift through the Holy Spirit, who remains not just the gift of God but also the presence of God in us, lest we miss our eternal treasure. The Holy Spirit reveals the ongoing love of God given to this world. God so loved the world he gave his only Son (Jn 3:16). And when Jesus rose to sit at the right hand of the Father, we were sent the Holy Spirit to be our consoler, our inspiration, our spiritual life, our vivification and sanctification...