Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.  

Nicene-Constantinople Creed

Spirit as concept: easy. Spirit as person: hard.

An earlier post described the Holy Spirit as the loving part of the three persons that are the one God.  We have Lover, Beloved and the Love that passes between them, the act of loving, that is the Holy Spirit.  Loving personified. 

It is the Holy Spirit that permeates our entire spiritual life.  The Spirit leads us to prayer and teaches us how.  The gifts of the spirit enable us to live out the life that comes to us in Christ.  Wisdom, understanding, counsel (right judgement), fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord--each one is required before we can begin to grow in virtue and exercise the life of Christ in us.  Each one is given at baptism.  Our problem is remembering they are there and exercise them. 

How do we know if we are living that life, using those gifts?  The gifts enable us to bear fruit. When the fruits of the spirit shine out in our lives, we know that His gifts are being used to good purpose.  Galatians 5:22-23 tells us "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..."
So we put our entire being in the hands of Loving Personified and hope to bear fruit for the well-being of the kingdom and the glory of God.

One side note. Some people think the Holy Spirit is the perfect expression of the sacred feminine.  One hopes She agrees.

One in Being

...the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.  Through him all things were made.                                                                                                 Nicene-Constantinople Creed

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. John 1:1-3

The Trinity falls into the area of "things too wonderful for me" to understand. What I do get is that God is Love and there is a logic to the assumption that in Love there must be a lover, a beloved and the love that passes between them.  The Son, the Word is the beloved part of the one Love. 

Obviously, as John 1 shows,  Christians were clear on the "One in Being" part by the beginning of the second century AD.