Does Baptism impart the Holy Spirit?

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Perhaps someone can lead me in a good direction.

In Acts 8:15-17 it says that the people of Samaria had been baptized but hadn’t received the Holy Spirit until hands were laid on them.

And in Acts 19:5-6 it says that people who were just baptized didn’t receive the Spirit until Paul laid hands on them.

Obviously, the proper Baptism is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spiritin the name of.

The Catechism paragraph 1265 says Baptism makes one “a temple of the Holy Spirit”.

And the Catechism paragraph 1266 says a baptized person receives "the power to live and act under the prompting of the Holy Spirit through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

So I am not certain…the two passages of Acts I cited indicate that the Holy Spirit is not imparted at baptism. And the Catechism doesn’t exactly say that it is, but that gifts “of” the Holy Spirit are imparted.

What is the correct understanding?
 
The key to understanding this is that the Holy Spirit is God’s active principle in the world. To try to put it very simply, in Trinitarian theology, the Father is God being, the Son is God speaking, and the Holy Spirit is God acting.

For example, consider the creation of the world as explained by Genesis, John, and the Creed. The Father, God in His simple existence, did it through the Son, His spoken word, by the Holy Spirit, His action in the world.

Whenever God does some action in the world, it is the Holy Spirit. Because God can do all sorts of different things in the world, there are all sorts of different dispensations of His Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit was present at Creation, and through the Old Testament, and at Jesus’ baptism, and was given for the power to forgive sins on Easter, and finally was given for the strengthening and the understanding and charisms for evangelization on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit can be given in many different ways and at many different times because each time, it is performing a different action or, to put it somewhat coarsely, it is made ‘available’ to the world for the sake of accomplishing different actions.

Thus, some did receive the Holy Spirit before baptism, but not in the same way as when they had been baptized.

Most importantly, baptism imparts the ‘baptismal character,’ a sort of ‘mark’ on the soul that permanently identifies it as Christ’s. Some of the saints teach that when Christians go to hell, it is their baptismal mark that hurts the most.
 
Lazerlike42 said:
The key to understanding this is that the Holy Spirit is God’s active principle in the world. To try to put it very simply, in Trinitarian theology, the Father is God being, the Son is God speaking, and the Holy Spirit is God acting.

For example, consider the creation of the world as explained by Genesis, John, and the Creed. The Father, God in His simple existence, did it through the Son, His spoken word, by the Holy Spirit, His action in the world.

Whenever God does some action in the world, it is the Holy Spirit. Because God can do all sorts of different things in the world, there are all sorts of different dispensations of His Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit was present at Creation, and through the Old Testament, and at Jesus’ baptism, and was given for the power to forgive sins on Easter, and finally was given for the strengthening and the understanding and charisms for evangelization on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit can be given in many different ways and at many different times because each time, it is performing a different action or, to put it somewhat coarsely, it is made ‘available’ to the world for the sake of accomplishing different actions.

Thus, some did receive the Holy Spirit before baptism, but not in the same way as when they had been baptized.

Most importantly, baptism imparts the ‘baptismal character,’ a sort of ‘mark’ on the soul that permanently identifies it as Christ’s. Some of the saints teach that when Christians go to hell, it is their baptismal mark that hurts the most.
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Thank you for your reply.
So are you saying that the Holy Spirit was not upon those described in the Acts passages above because there is variance in when the Holy Spirit acts? Also, does the sacrament impart the Holy Spirit? That is what I am missing or misunderstanding.
 
CCC 1215 This sacrament [baptism] is also called “the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit” for it signifies and actually brings about the birth of water and the Spirit without which no one “can enter the kingdom of God.”
footnotes refer to Tiotus 3:5, Jn 3:5

CCC 1226 reads in part, quoting Peter
“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”
footnote refers to Acts 2:38

yes the anointing with chrism in baptism imparts the intial gift of the Holy Spirit which is confirmed and strengthened in the sacrament of confirmation. the two sacraments are so intimately linked, as the passage OP cites relates, that they cannot be separated, even though they may be in time in the West. Christian initiation is not complete without confirmation.
 
MarcoPolo said:
Thank you for your reply.
So are you saying that the Holy Spirit was not upon those described in the Acts passages above because there is variance in when the Holy Spirit acts? Also, does the sacrament impart the Holy Spirit? That is what I am missing or misunderstanding.
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There is a variance in how the Holy Spirit acts. Every action of God in the world is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is always acting in the world, from creation to giving graces to people to sanctifying people. I think a good way of thinking about it is to think about different things the Holy Spirit can do to us. Some of them, the Holy Spirit does to us any old time. Some, the Holy Spirit does to us after/through the Sacrament of Baptism. Some, after/through Confirmation. Others, after/through Confession, and so on.

The Holy Spirit is given through Baptism in that many of the things the Holy Spirit will do to us will not be done before Baptism. It is also given through Baptism in terms of infants particularly. Because they have had no oppurtunity to respond to Graces the Holy Spirit would offer them if they were older, they receive the Holy Spirit really for the first time in Baptism. Adults, on the other hand, have to be prompted by the Holy Spirit even to desire Baptism, so they are touched by it before, but not in the fuller sense they will be once Baptized.

All of this is why God can give the Holy Spirit at several different times and not be contradicting. On Easter, He gave the Holy Spirit to the apostles in that He gave them the power to forgive sins. At Pentecost, He gave it to them in that He gave them charismatic gifts. All the time they already had the Holy Spirit in them (because it is presumed that they were Baptized before, or received baptism of desire), but it was given here insofar as that now, the Holy Spirit would forgive sins through them.

To answer the question simply, we do receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, but many times adults will receive it through Baptism of desire even before the water touches their heads.
 
Yes. Baptism imparts the Holy Spirit.

When the Scripture passages you mention say that the people had been baptized in the name of Jesus but had not yet received the Holy Spirit, it seems to mean that they had not yet received the sacrament of confirmation and the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and uttering prophecies, that commonly accompanied the reception of that sacrament in the early days of the Church. The reception of such extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit at confirmation seems to have become less common as the Church became better established, though, as the lives of many saints throughout the Church’s history attest, the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit have never completely disappeared from the Church.
 
Todd_Easton said:
When the Scripture passages you mention say that the people had been baptized in the name of Jesus but had not yet received the Holy Spirit, it seems to mean that they had not yet received the sacrament of confirmation…
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Ah…I think this may make sense that in context the term “receiving the Spirit” refers to the sacrament of Confirmation, not that the Spirit was not imparted initially at Baptism. Thanks, Todd!
 
I haven’t done an exhaustive study, but it seems that in the New Testament there’s a distinction between “the gift of the Holy Spirit” received through baptism and when the Holy Spirit is “poured out” or “falls on” a person. The existence of a sacrament like Confirmation where the latter happens seems to be the only way to explain why the Apostles had to wait for the Holy Spirit to be “poured out” onto them, even after Jesus breathed and them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Can anyone confirm this?

Jeremy
 
Yes, those passages from Acts refer to the sacrament of Confirmation.

CCC 1288: From that time on the apostles, in fulfillment of Christ’s will, imparted to the newly baptized by the laying on of hands the givft of the Spirit that completes the grace of Baptism. For this reason in the Letter to the Hebrews the doctrine concerning Baptism and the laying on of hands is listed among the first elements of Christian instruction. The imposition of hands is rightly recognized by the Catholic tradition as the origin of the sacrament of Confirmation, which in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church. (Paul VI, Divinae consortium naturae, 659)

Maria
 
In Acts 10:39-48 We read that Peter is proclaiming the Gospel to Cornelius and his family. v. 44 while preaching “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.” v.47 After everyone witness this Peter says, “Can any one forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

It is possible to recieve the Holy Spirit before the actual water baptism. Although there is a necessity in recieving the sacrament of water baptism because if it wouldn’t be then Peter would not have Cornelius and his household baptized afterwards.
 
Along the lines of what jemfinch stated previously (sorry I tried to quote you but was having slight technical trouble) about how the Holy Spirit is poured out on us:

I havn’t studied it out much myself either but I believe that the Holy Spirit is much like grace. We recieve the Holy Spirit and we recieve initial grace but when we co-operate with the Spirit and grace we recieve an even greater out pouring from God. I believe like sanctifying grace we are given more when we show good stewardship of the gifts given to us freely from God.
 
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