Nature of the Holy Spirit

[Cabeelibob]

I’m having a bit of trouble understanding the details of the Holy Trinity.
The other forums that I have visited don’t seem to help.
I have a general understanding, but I find the details hard to understand.
I understand that God the Father is the Creator of all things.
I understand that His Son, God the Son, died for our sins and rose from the dead and showed us how to live.
An understanding of God the Holy Spirit somewhat eludes me. As I understand, the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Holy Trinity that is what interacts with the universe.
I imagine that this is an extreme oversimplification of the nature of the Holy Trinity.
Can someone try to explain who/what the Holy Spirit is and what It does?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Bishop Barron explains the Trinity like this:

God is love.
God is three persons in one God.
In order to have love, you have the lover (the one who loves), the beloved (the one who is loved) , and the love between the lover and the beloved.

The lover is God the Father.
The beloved is God the Son.
The love between them is the Holy Spirit.

The usual ending to the collect prayer at Mass, which is directed to God (begins normally “O God” or “God our father”), is “Through Christ our Lord, who Lives and Reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever, Amen.”

As shown above, when we pray to God the Father, we pray “through Christ our Lord” (Jesus is our mediator with His Father) and in the Holy Spirit (in the love between God the Father and God the Son aka Jesus.

Bishop Barron suggests we picture this as us praying to God the Father while Jesus stands there with his arm around our shoulders and we stand in the beam of love between God the Father and Jesus which is the Holy Spirit.

Hope this helps.

 

[RedDuke]

The Holy Ghost is said to be the Sanctifier, so works of sanctification and of love are attributed to Him. For example, He grants us grace and pardons our sins in the Sacraments, inspired the prophets, and dwells within our bodies sanctifying them and making us “temples of the Holy Ghost”. He also brought about the Incarnation and was the One who descended on the Apostles on Pentecost.

Although the intrinsic works of the most Holy Trinity are common to the Three Persons, yet many of them are attributed specially to the Holy Ghost, to signify that they arise from the boundless charity of God towards us. For as the Holy Ghost proceeds from the divine will, inflamed, as it were, with love, we can perceive that these effects which are referred particularly to the Holy Ghost, are the result of God’s supreme love for us.

Hence it is that the Holy Ghost is called a gift; for by the word gift we understand that which is kindly and gratuitously bestowed, without expectation of any return. Whatever gifts and graces, therefore, have been conferred on us by God – and what have we, says the Apostle, that we have not received from God? – we should piously and gratefully acknowledge as bestowed by the grace and gift of the Holy Ghost. - Roman Catechism

 

[Dan_Defender]

‘Christ did not will to entirely complete and finish this office Himself on earth, but as He had received it from the Father, so He transmitted it for its completion to the Holy Spirit. He made it clear that the Holy Spirit is equally sent by-and therefore proceeds from—Himself and the Father; that He would complete, in His office of Intercessor, Consoler, and Teacher, the work which Christ Himself had begun in His mortal life.’ - DIVINUM ILLUD MUNUS (On the Holy Spirit) by Pope Leo XIII

 

[awesomecatholic]

The Holy Spirit is our comforter and sanctifier. He helps to understand God’s word and guides us on the path to holiness.

 

[Vico]

…
Can someone try to explain who/what the Holy Spirit is and what It does?

Catechism

252 The Church uses (I) the term “substance” (rendered also at times by “essence” or “nature”) to designate the divine being in its unity, (II) the term “person” or “hypostasis” to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and (III) the term “relation” to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the relationship of each to the others.

253 The Trinity is One . We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”.83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85

687 "No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."7 Now God’s Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who “has spoken through the prophets” makes us hear the Father’s Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith. The Spirit of truth who “unveils” Christ to us "will not speak on his own."8 Such properly divine self-effacement explains why “the world cannot receive [him], because it neither sees him nor knows him,” while those who believe in Christ know the Spirit because he dwells with them.9

7 1 Cor 2:11: Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.
8 Jn 16:13: But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.
9 Jn 14:17: the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.