We begin the third part of the Creed by affirming: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” The Spirit is called “holy” because He proceeds from the Father and is a source of sanctification in the faithful. The title “Lord” affirms divinity, since its application derives from the use of “Yahweh” in the Old Testament. Thus, when the Church applies the title “Lord” to the Holy Spirit, she says that the Holy Spirit is truly God, co-equal with the Father and the Son.

We also profess that the Holy Spirit is the “giver of life”. For the ancients, breath in the body (which is what “spirit” literally means) was the sign of life. Then it came to mean the source or principle of life. God’s Spirit was involved in the production of all life in the world as we read in Genesis (1:2): “the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” It is the Spirit that gives life, both physical and spiritual. To have eternal life a man must be born “of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5). According to St. Paul, “the Spirit brings life” (2 Cor 3:6). Since it is the Holy Spirit who pours out charity in the hearts of the faithful (Gal 5:5), he is the source of all true life in God. So in the Creed, we proclaim our belief that the Holy Spirit is “the giver of life”.