The calendrical advent of Whitsunday and Trinity tide inevitably directs the mind toward the epoch of the Holy Ghost, the revealer of the “Catholick Faith… whole and undefiled.” Whitsunday is sometimes accounted the Church’s birthday, because it marks the inauguration of the Church’s activity, the dispensation of the New Covenant, which will remain in effect until the Lord returns in glory.
It is therefore a fitting season to dwell a bit on the activity of the Holy Spirit. And the first initiative of the Holy Spirit that we first encounter in Scripture, his most primordial activity of all, is the creation of the world.
We meet the Holy Spirit, in the first verses of the first chapter of the first book of Scripture. He is the agent of all of God’s creative work. The first two verses of Genesis read:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
All that follows in the creation narrative, thus comes into focus as the activity of God’s Spirit: the bringing of light from darkness; the ordering of the heavens, the earth, and the seas; the creation of the invisible, angelic powers, and the conferral of dominion on them; the calling forth of the rich profusion of animal