COMMENTARY BY SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
It was for us that Christ received the Holy Spirit at Baptism.
The Creator of the universe had decided to recapitulate all things in Christ, in a magnificent achievement, and to restore human nature to its first state. He therefore promised to restore to her, along with all the other gifts, the Holy Spirit. Indeed, she could not otherwise have regained peaceful and lasting possession of her possessions.
That’s why God has fixed the moment when the Holy Spirit will descend upon us, and has promised us: In those days – obviously those of our Savior – I will pour out my Spirit on every creature of flesh.
When the time of this generosity brought the only-begotten Son to earth, that is, a man born of a woman, according to Sacred Scripture, God the Father also gave us his Spirit, and the first to receive it was Christ, as the first exemplar of renewed nature. As John the Baptist affirmed: I saw the Spirit descend from heaven and dwell upon him. ~
If we say that Christ received the Holy Spirit, it is insofar as He became man, and insofar as it was fitting for man to receive Him.
Undoubtedly, he is the Son of God the Father, and begotten of his substance, and this before the incarnation and even before all centuries. Yet he feels no sadness at hearing the Father say to him, now that he has become man: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
He who was God, begotten by him before the ages, the Father says is begotten today: this means that he welcomes us into himself as adopted sons, for all humanity was contained in Christ as man. In this sense, it is said that the Father, while his Son already possessed his Spirit, gives it to him anew, so that we are graced with the Spirit in him. This is why, according to Scripture, he took on the descendants of Abraham, and made himself like his brothers in every way.
So it was not for himself that the only-begotten Son received the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit is his, in him and through him, as we have already said. But because, having become man, he possessed in himself the whole of human nature, he received the Spirit in order to recapitulate it in its entirety, restoring it to its first state. ~ We can therefore see, by wise reasoning and by relying on the affirmations of Holy Scripture, that Christ did not receive the Holy Spirit for himself, but rather for us, who were in him. For it is through him that all good things come to us.
Response
R/ The Lord is the Spirit,
the Spirit of the Lord is freedom.
All of us, with unveiled face,
reflect the glory of God as in a mirror.
Let us be transformed
into the image of the Lord, ever more glorious.
Oraison
Lord, with your beloved Son, the dawn of your eternal day has risen over all nations: grant your people to recognize the glory of their Redeemer and to reach the light that never fades.
