Straight Answers: Breath of the Savior

By Fr. Paul Scalia
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 5/12/05)

When our Lord appeared to the apostles on Easter, He did something a bit unusual: "He breathed on them" (Jn 20:22). Needless to say, this would be an awkward gesture in our society. Not the kind of thing to try at a dinner party. But neither was it typical in our Lord’s time. Our Lord did not intend it as just a gesture or a form of greeting. He breathed on them to give them the Holy Spirit, saying as He did so, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22). Yet since our Lord can and does give the Holy Spirit in other ways, it seems that His breathing on the apostles conveys something more. Indeed, He wanted to give not only the Holy Spirit, but also an instruction about the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the most obvious lesson is intimacy. Breath itself indicates intimacy. It comes from within a person, and can only be felt and received by those who are near. Receiving the Holy Spirit — the breath of God — demands and deepens intimacy with God. By His breathing God gives something of Himself, indeed His very Self. The breath He breathes is His own Spirit, coming from deep within Himself, welling up from eternity. And to receive His breath, we cannot stand far off or remain aloof. We must seek the Lord, ask for His Spirit and draw close to Him, near to His face.

As our Lord breathed on them, perhaps the apostles recalled two other accounts of God breathing. First, at creation the breath of God brought man to life: "[T]he Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being" (Gen 2:7). God breathed once at creation. On Easter Sunday, God breathes again, recreating man, making him a "new creation" (cf. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).

Second, after man’s fall and death’s entrance, God revealed to the prophet Ezekiel that His breath brings the dead to life. Showing Ezekiel a valley of dry bones, He told him to prophesy: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live" (Ez 37: 9). God raised the bones, and as Ezekiel prophesied "the breath came into them and they lived" (Ez 37: 10). In the upper room our Lord fulfills the vision of Ezekiel. He breathes, and dead souls come back to life.

Breath itself implies life, just as surely as the failure to breathe indicates death. That is why you do not want to lose your breath and at times have to stop to catch your breath. A basic emergency medical procedure — mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — aims at restoring a person’s breathing. This natural truth has a supernatural parallel. By giving us His breath, our Lord gives us His life. He does not merely "resuscitate" us, that is, bring us back to what we were. His breath imparts not merely natural life but eternal life — the life of God Himself.

Of course, our Lord’s gift of the Holy Spirit extends beyond the upper room. In the same breath (you might say) He also commissions the apostles to continue His work: "As the father has sent me, so I send you" (Jn 20:21). The Holy Spirit, the breath of God, is inseparable from the Church. Just as a body must have a soul in order to live, so the Body of Christ, the Church, also has a soul. And the Holy Spirit is her soul, her very life breath. The Holy Spirit protects the Church’s teachings, sanctifies her sacraments and unites her members. The Church is, as St. Hippolytus put it, the place "where the Spirit flourishes."

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