GENERAL AUDIENCE: GLORY OF THE TRINITY AT PENTECOST

VATICAN CITY, MAY 31, 2000 (VIS) - In today's general audience which was held in St. Peter's Square in the presence of 40,000 pilgrims, John Paul II spoke on "the glory of the Trinity at Pentecost."

The Pope recalled that "Christian Pentecost celebrates the effusion of the Holy Spirit" which "is made manifest, given and communicated as a divine person."

"As a support to witness and as a font of unity in plurality," said the Pope, "the whole Trinity is involved in the inrush of the Holy Spirit, which poured forth upon the first community and on the Church of all times as a seal of the New Covenant announced by the prophets. By virtue of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles announce the Risen Christ and all believers, in the diversity of their languages - and therefore of their cultures and history - profess the one faith in the Lord."

Pentecost, continued the Pope, makes the glory of the Trinity shine forth: (the glory) "of the Risen Christ who shows Himself in His glorious body, of the Father, who is the source of the apostolic mission and of the Holy Spirit, which surges forth as gift of peace."

The Holy Father affirmed that the symbolic breath "means to evoke the act of the Creator. ... The Risen Christ communicates another breath of life, the 'Holy Spirit.' Redemption is a new creation, a divine work in which the Church is called to collaborate through the ministry of reconciliation."

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