Dominum
et Vivificantem Encyclical of
Pope John Paul II
"Lord and Giver of Life," 18 May 1986.
From section 10
In his intimate life, God "is love," the
essential love shared by the three divine Persons:
personal love is the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the
Father and the Son. Therefore he, "searches even the
depths of God," as uncreated Love-Gift. It can be
said that in the Holy Spirit the intimate life of the
Triune God becomes totally gift, an exchange of mutual
love between the divine Persons, and that through the
Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift. It is the
Holy Spirit who is the personal expression of this
self-giving, of this being-love. He is Person-Love. He is
Person-Gift. Here we have an inexhaustible treasure of
the reality and an inexpressible deepening of the concept
of person in God, which only divine Revelation makes
known to us.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit, being
consubstantial with the Father and the Son in divinity,
is love and uncreated gift from which derives as from its
source (Fons vivus) all giving of gifts vis-a-vis
creatures (created gift): the gift of existence to all
things through creation; the gift of grace to human
beings through the whole economy of salvation. As the
Apostle Paul writes: "God's love has been poured
into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been
given to us." The salvific self-giving of God in the
Holy Spirit.