Bolivia - "The Church animated by the Holy Spirit"

"The Spirit of the Lord": this publication, directed to pastoral workers in the Bolivian diocese of El Alto, offers useful suggestions for further study on some fundamental aspects of the Spirit's action. In fact after the diocese's Fourth Plenary Assembly, it was seen that special attention needed to be paid to problems involving the Spirit, who "is mysterious, is not incarnated like the Son, is invisible and has neither form, nor voice nor name". In order to translate the Assembly's slogan: "The Church in El Alto animated by the Holy Spirit", into reality the publication discusses the Spirit's presence in four dimensions: personal, ecclesial, historical and cultural. In fact it stresses that the Spirit is life, thrust, movement, as can be seen also from the fluid and dynamic symbols that are used to describe him. And from reflection on the symbols of air, wind, fire, and so one, it concludes that the Old Testament presents the Spirit as a preparation for Jesus' coming. Instead, the symbols used in the Gospel reveal some of the Paraclete's other characteristics. While in Luke it is the Spirit who generates Jesus, who anoints him in Baptism, guides his life and prolongs his action in the Church (Acts), in John the perspective is different, complementary: it is Jesus who gives us his Spirit after he has returned to the Father. These points are examined in the course of the four celebrations proposed by the publication, and are completed with the insertion of a guide to the Mysteries of the Rosary, several pages devoted to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and some suggestions for celebrations of the Word, regarding the gifts of the Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord.

Finally, particular attention is given to advice on how it should be read. First of all it should be read with faith, we must meditate on what we read, realising that the message is meant for us. Then an attitude open to dialogue with God is necessary, ready for obedience and full of gratitude for the trust the Lord has placed in us by placing his mission in our hands. Only in this way, in the year dedicated to the Spirit, can the path of new evangelization be characterised by real "hope and a full life for all" (cf. Jn 10:10).