Holy Spirit: a "female" presence?

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It might not be a huge problem to attribute some feminine characteristics to the Holy Spirit. If the Catholic Church is the Bride of Christ, that is, essentially feminine, and the Holy Spirit is the soul, or form, of the Church, then is it such a stretch to think that the Holy Spirit my have feminine attributes?

As I recall, I believe St. Maximillian Kolbe went as far to call the Virgin Mary the quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I realize that I am just re-hashing Scott Hahn, but I think there might be something to that.

But I will accept the Church’s judgment in all things. If I am wrong, I recant.
 
When God made people, He made them male and female.

Why? Because they made a complete unit. Neither man alone, nor woman alone, contained a complete unit.

The Trinity makes a complete unit. In a very abstract way I could argue that could imply the Holy Spirit has aspects the other males don’t, but I think it’s mostly intellectual self-stimulus, so to speak.

Having such poor theological knowledge can be fun … I just make it up as I go! :dancing:

Alan
 
Well, the scriptures call God our FATHER. Now that sure doesn’t portray a “she”, but a masculine noun. Obviously our Lord is a man, because he became man and rose as a man. Thirdly, God is spirit. But yet he is our father. Since his spirit comes from him, his spirit must also be masculine. Otherwise we would have a feminine spirit coming forth from both the Father and the Son who are masculine…
 
Hi Alan,
Yes I am sure it is emotional, not merely intellectual, autophysis 🙂

Hi KBarn,
That’s interesting.

Men who are male, do have some feminine characteristics, but they are not therefore spoken of as female. If a spirit has a gender, I would expect it to align with the gender of the person whose spirit it is. The soul is the essential form of the body.

There is a role for male and female in the relationship of marriage.
But I don’t expect that the union of souls in a marriage constitutes a gender change for the man’s soul in that union to a feminine one.

Each person remains the same person, but the flesh is united into a singular unit. My body is no longer my own, but belongs to my wife as her body belongs to me. In natural marriage this union lasts until the loss of a body at death.

In the supernatural marriage of christ, which is an analogy, Jesus is male and therefore marries a church which must be female.
Since preiests are in persona Christi, they too must be male – for they marry the church in persona Christi.
This is the sign of the priesthood on earth.

Now the holy spirit being the soul of the church is another thing.
It is tempting to think of the Holy Spirit in a feminine sense rather than just as beyond gender. ( Poetically, you can ).

However, as the spirit of the Church, the Holy Spirit was not created. When Adam died the death of sleep, God took a rib from him and formed a woman. Her soul, however, was created at that moment – it wasn’t taken from the man. The two were one flesh, as an identity of source of flesh, but two souls.

In the case of the Church, something different exists.
Jesus, in the death of the cross, opens his side from whence comes the church. But the Spirit of the church was not created, rather the Spirit of Jesus gave life to the church.

The question of the gender of the Spirit is not really affected by the marriage analogy as far as I can see.

Other opinions?
 
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AlanFromWichita:
When God made people, He made them male and female.

Why? Because they made a complete unit. Neither man alone, nor woman alone, contained a complete unit.
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In His image he created them.
SO if males and females are created in God’s image. God is not male or female but He must have qualities that reflect in us as male- and femaleness.
The Trinity makes a complete unit. In a very abstract way I could argue that could imply the Holy Spirit has aspects the other males don’t, but I think it’s mostly intellectual self-stimulus, so to speak.
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Having such poor theological knowledge can be fun … I just make it up as I go! :dancing:
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Alan
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Yes the Trinity form a Unity but they are three separate Persons.
I don’t know why people get so upset by the idea of the Holy Spirit as “a female principle” unless it’s because mostly feminazis are pushing it. I don’t think the idea is heterodox per se. Thinking about it, I realize I’ve always unconsciously vaguely thought of the Holy Spirit as female. Maybe that’s because of the OT “Spirit of Wisdom” imagery or a subliminal assumption that at least one Person must be female.
 
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didymus:
I don’t know why people get so upset by the idea of the Holy Spirit as “a female principle” unless it’s because mostly feminazis are pushing it. I don’t think the idea is heterodox per se. Thinking about it, I realize I’ve always unconsciously vaguely thought of the Holy Spirit as female. Maybe that’s because of the OT “Spirit of Wisdom” imagery or a subliminal assumption that at least one Person must be female.
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I’ve never thought any of this before, but I think it’s interesting.

Now that you mentino it, I don’t know why people get so upset about any idea???

I mean, think about it. Physically, there are some electric fields and electric devices that change my punching a bunch of buttons into words, and then someone goes and reads those words and gets all upset. When they do that, they are literally allowing my buttons in my apartment to stand as proxies for their buttons.

Like I have a serious reason to lose my peace because somebody on the other side of the planet punched buttons on his keyboard in a certain order. It’s like one big worldwide videogame of emotions. You type stuff, you get stuff typed back by other consciousness units in places unknown. It’s fascinating. It’s like we have everything we need to hook up verbally, intellectually, and emotionally and help piece together the Kingdom of God.

Alan
 
Hi! I haven’t had time to read all the posts on this thread. I’ve never heard before of the idea of the Holy Spirit being a “female” presence. However, I would like to point out that in the original Aramaic version of the “Our Father”, Christ himself referred to God as “Oh Birther, Father-Mother of the Cosmos”. So there must be female characteristics in God. This is of course assuming that I have a correct translation from the Bible.

Just thought I would throw that in…

Love in God,
Caramel
 
My humble understanding is that God/Holy Spirit - are spirit. neither male nor femail as we know male and female.

However, God as the Creator chose His Son as our Redeemer our Heavenly Spouse. His Church is His Bride. So God chose His gender if you will.

We do not have the choice of un-choosing what God has done.
 
Some people got very upset about what Dr. Hahn wrote in that book. I kind of liked it myself.

To summarize/paraphrase:

God has no gender, being pure Spirit.

Causality requires that anything a mortal has, God has more, bigger, better. In other words, God is a community of persons, and within that community, there must exist ‘super qualities’, of which the genders as we perceive them as extremely pale, blurry images.

Reaffirming every stated above about the grammatical genders being a wash, except in Hebrew, but you cannot base theology on grammatical gender.

God, in Holy Scripture, says certain things about the Holy Spirit that imply a maternal quality:

Mark 3-
. 28 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”

(reminiscent of how human males defend the honor of a mother even when they allow other insults! - note also that blaspheme in Greek means to ‘speak ill of’ - this verse is immediately followed by a verse discussing Jesus’ Mother!)

Eph 4
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
  • evokes the image of a Jewish mother telling her boys not to make her sad 🙂
Rom 8
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

-Abba means Daddy; just as a Mom teaches a baby to call its father Daddy, to the Spirit teaches us

Also at least two early saints/church fathers called the Holy Spirit ‘Mother’
 
The word for “spirit” in Hebrew is ruach which is grammatically feminine.
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The Holy Spirit is presented as sometimes in the masculine, and sometimes in the feminine, Luke for example presents the Spirit in the masculine since He overshadows the Virgin.

The Hebrew word ruach can be BOTH Masculine and Feminine, in the Bible the Holy Spirit sometimes talks in the masculine and sometimes in the feminine. (see Jewish Encyclopedia on Holy Spirit to see so)

Some of the Early Church Fathers, mostly the Syrian ones like Dr. St. Ephraim and St Aphraates the Persian Sage referred to the Holy Spirit in the feminine in continuation of the Rabbinical custom of doing so, since they heavily relied on it, and the Aramaic translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as “She”

The Early Church writing from the late 1st to early 2nd century the Odes of Solomon explicitly refers to the Holy Spirit was a She and it even sort of metaphorically feminizes the Father.

“who is it that leaves father and mother to take wife? The meaning is this. As long as a man has not taken a wife he loves and reveres God his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and he has no other love…”–St Aphraates the Persian Sage, Demonstration XVIII

“it is not to be said that the Spirit is a daughter or sister, but that (She) is from God and consubstantial with Him.”-St Ephraim, EC Ar, 19,15

“May the Holy Spirit listen to the priest…May She receieve vows with sacrifice…”–Balai

Pope John Paul I in his one month as Pope did refer to God as being a Father and a “Mother”.

As far as feminists go, I do not understand their objective in making God a woman. I suppose they will want to expand their annoying influence to Mormonism too and demand they call themselves “Morpersons” since Morman would be unfair to all the “Morwomym”

Anyway. The Catechism says God is not a male or female, God’s God.

To learn more about the Syrian Fathers read “Symbols of church and kingdom: a study in early Syriac tradition” by Fr Robert Murray, where he includes an occasional discussion where the Syrian Fathers refer to the Spirit in the feminine
 
BerhaneSelassie said:
The Holy Spirit is presented as sometimes in the masculine, and sometimes in the feminine, Luke for example presents the Spirit in the masculine since He overshadows the Virgin.

The Hebrew word ruach can be BOTH Masculine and Feminine, in the Bible the Holy Spirit sometimes talks in the masculine and sometimes in the feminine. (see Jewish Encyclopedia on Holy Spirit to see so)

Some of the Early Church Fathers, mostly the Syrian ones like Dr. St. Ephraim and St Aphraates the Persian Sage referred to the Holy Spirit in the feminine in continuation of the Rabbinical custom of doing so, since they heavily relied on it, and the Aramaic translations of the New Testament refer to the Holy Spirit as “She”

The Early Church writing from the late 1st to early 2nd century the Odes of Solomon explicitly refers to the Holy Spirit was a She and it even sort of metaphorically feminizes the Father.

“who is it that leaves father and mother to take wife? The meaning is this. As long as a man has not taken a wife he loves and reveres God his Father and the Holy Spirit his Mother, and he has no other love…”–St Aphraates the Persian Sage, Demonstration XVIII

“it is not to be said that the Spirit is a daughter or sister, but that (She) is from God and consubstantial with Him.”-St Ephraim, EC Ar, 19,15

“May the Holy Spirit listen to the priest…May She receieve vows with sacrifice…”–Balai

Pope John Paul I in his one month as Pope did refer to God as being a Father and a “Mother”.

As far as feminists go, I do not understand their objective in making God a woman. I suppose they will want to expand their annoying influence to Mormonism too and demand they call themselves “Morpersons” since Morman would be unfair to all the “Morwomym”

Anyway. The Catechism says God is not a male or female, God’s God.

To learn more about the Syrian Fathers read “Symbols of church and kingdom: a study in early Syriac tradition” by Fr Robert Murray, where he includes an occasional discussion where the Syrian Fathers refer to the Spirit in the feminine
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Wow, good stuff, thanks!
One thing puzzled me - I wasn’t quite certain how you got masculinity from
overshadowing.
 
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
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Because in the Bible overshadowing is a euphemism for having sex and marriage, it refers to the husband’s cloak coming over his wife, many point to Ruth 3:9 where similar language is used: “I am Ruth, your handmaid, and you shall spread your skirt over your handmaid, for you are a near kinsman.” In addition the overshadowing particularly occurred to the Ark, so there seems to have a double meaning as Luke also alludes to the Ark.

The Scripture also says “the power of the Most High” the word Power can be a circumlocution for God, but the word power in a martial context was another euphemism for sex, since we do not have the Aramaic original its difficult to know, but second meaning seems more reasonable since Most High is another circumlocution for God and the verse uses that.

You can read more on this here cin.org/users/james/files/talmud.htm
 
BerhaneSelassie said:
Because in the Bible overshadowing is a euphemism for having sex and marriage,
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hopefully this won’t sound like nitpicking but…

I understand what you’re saying about ‘overshadowing’ as a euphemism for marriage in eg., Ruth’s case, but ‘overshadowing’ doesn’t only mean sex/marriage in all contexts. Otherwise you’d get wierd verses like,

Mark 9:7 And there was a cloud that overshadowed (had sex with) them [Peter, James and John]: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.

Acts 5:15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow (have sex with) some of them.

:eek:
 
Particularly in the Eastern Church, many churches have been dedicated to “Saint Sophia” - Holy Wisdom in a feminine form. Most of these churches, particularly the most famous, the patriarchal Cathedral of Constantinople, were also dedicated to Mary. However a detailed theology of Sophia does not seem to exist in either East or West. Perhaps like may things of Christianity, it is paradox.
 
Confiteor said:
If I understand the Church teaching, the people who promote the “female” Holy Spirit are misguided or worse (i.e. they’ve got their own agenda in mind). I know their support goes to the Old Testment: wisdom, Sophia, but where can I find the authoritative teaching on this? (I’m aware of the masculine pronouns in the Creed and the Catechism). What else is there? I’ve heard JP II had a homily equating wisdom with Christ, but I can’t seem to find that? Did CDF address this? Any help would be appreciated…
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In my humble opinion, referring to the Holy Spirit as a she is alien to our theological tradition and therefore ought to be avoided. I think the idea stems from Dr. Scott Hahn’s works. It is my understanding that it’s just that he likes St. Maximillian Kolbe’s theological opinion of Mary being the Quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit as well as perhaps the modern theology of Pope John Paul II and others about the human family symbolizing the Trinity. This means that Mary was acting on behalf of the Holy Spirit when she conceived and bore the third Person of the Trinity: Christ. It’s much like how we see the Pope, Bishops, and Priests acting in persona christi, so Mary would be in persona spiritus. This helps to explain why in the proposed 5th Marian dogma of Mary Mediatrix of all Graces and Co-Redemptrix, all graces that are given for our salvation which was purchased by Christ flows through Mary. So, then by logical extension of this theology then the Holy Spirit can be addressed with feminine pronouns. It is also reasoned that the human family (especially Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) is in the image of the Holy Trinity. So, if there is a Father and Son, should not the Holy Spirit represent the Mother? But, this is just a result of modern theological developments. The Holy Spirit is obviously gender neutral, and no one denies that including Scott Hahn, the question is how to best address the Holy Spirit with our finite human language in popular piety and in the liturgy. In my opinion, the male pronouns has already been settled on and there’s no sense in changing that. Changing it only causes confusion and disharmony.
 
it does not always mean the martial act, in the context Luke 1:

“the power of the Most High will overshadow you. **Therefore **the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

Jesus was conceived “by the power of the Most High overshadowing” Mary, that is why the Angel says “therefore” to link the two.

Jesus’ conception it would be reasonable to think that. As I mentioned before overshadowing was also done with the Ark and the Tabernacle in the OT. Mark 9 is a literal cloud? over them from which God speaks, this is likely alluding Exodus 40 Acts is just the absence of light from the Apostles blocking the light…

Sometimes overshadow just means overshadow and sometimes it means martial act, it depends on the context, as it is a figure of speech, just like we have figures of in English for all sorts of stuff.
So, if there is a Father and Son, should not the Holy Spirit represent the Mother? But, this is just a result of modern theological developments.
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Its not modern, in one of my previous posts I quoted where ST Aphraates presents the Holy Spirit as a man’s Mother, and the Father as the Father, of course. Some of the Pope and Church Fathers/Doctors do refer to God in the feminine at times for a certain reason, as does Baruch 3, Sirach 24, Proverbs 8 among other texts. These texts have generally been linked to the Incarnation
 
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