How does the Holy Spirit work?

This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on May 24, 2025.

The most accurate answer to the above question—how does the Holy Spirit work?—is that we don’t know exactly. Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus says that the Spirit blows where it wills, which also means the Spirit works as it wills. Its workings can be mysterious. 

But they are not to be doubted. 

A few weeks ago, after Pope Francis died, many Catholics wondered how the cardinal-electors in the conclave could ever find someone who could replace Pope Francis, let alone shoulder all the tasks that a pope has to do: proclaim the Gospel to an increasingly secular world; meet with heads of state and navigate complex political realities; name cardinals and bishops to help run dioceses in every country; write encyclicals and sometimes map out new ways of looking at old teachings; and, not incidentally, run the Vatican Curia. Among some people, even if you weren’t a fan of Pope Francis (though I was and am) there was a sense of confusion, hopelessness and even despair. Where were we going? 

Maybe too many of us saw the movie “Conclave,” in which the cardinal-electors seemed somewhat spiritual, but extremely political. In one scene, Cardinal Ralph Fiennes says “This is a conclave….It’s not a war. And Cardinal Stanley Tucci says, “It is a war!” So, in the film, except for the wind blowing through the Sistine Chapel, there is little sense of the Holy Spirit.

By contrast, nearly all of the cardinal-electors at the conclave spoke of feeling a sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit. That was not simply for the media’s consumption. The cardinals I spoke with afterwards told me of a deep sense of the Spirit as the votes began to move in the direction of Cardinal Robert Prevost, at that time the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. And when Cardinal Prevost walked onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and announced his choice of name—Leo XIV—there was among many of us a sense of the Holy Spirit doing something new, the same thing many people felt when Pope Francis walked out onto the balcony in his unadorned white cassock and said, very simply, “Buona sera!” 

But this shouldn’t surprise us. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises his disciples that after he departs from them, the Father will send the Advocate, or the Paraclete, or the Holy Spirit, to be with them. When I was younger, I thought, “Well, that’s a poor substitute for the presence of Jesus or the Risen Christ among the disciples.” But the great difference is that the Spirit can be everywhere, all at once, and fully present. A few years ago on retreat, a Jesuit said that when Jesus says that the Spirit is not “rationed,” it means that the same Spirit—the one that drove Jesus into the desert, that was with him on the cross and that he breathed on the disciples—is fully and completely present to all of us. That’s quite a powerful idea. 

So as believers, we need to trust that the Spirit is with us. And as those who follow Ignatian and, more broadly, Christian spirituality, we believe that we can discern what the Spirit might be inviting us to. We know that God not only wants us to make good decisions, but will help us to make good decisions. God will help us to recognize the signs of the Spirit, which are often experiences of calm, peace, and confidence. That makes sense. Jesus says in today’s Gospel that the Spirit also reminds us of Christ’s teaching, which includes of course peace, the very first words that Pope Leo uttered on the balcony of St. Peter.

So how does it all work? Well, the Holy Spirit doesn’t direct us like robots. The Holy Spirit works with us and through us, through our limited human nature, in our confused discussions, even through seemingly political moves. In today’s first reading, when the early church is coming to a decision, we hear the wonderful phrase, “It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit.” It’s a kind of participation.

Nevertheless, people can still make poor decisions. 

As Pope Benedict XVI himself said, it’s not accurate to say that the Holy Spirit picks popes.  “I would not say so,” he explained, “in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope. . . . I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. . . . There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!” 

But Benedict was still clear: the Holy Spirit is part of the process.

You don’t have to participate in a conclave or live in the time of early church to rely on the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit that helped the cardinals elect Pope Leo XIV can help you make good and life-giving decisions. The same Holy Spirit that guided their deliberations can help you understand what to do at home, on the job, in the world. The Spirit is not rationed; it is available to you, present to you, always with you. Fully. We are all baptized into the Holy Spirit, and so when we say during the Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” we remind ourselves of its abundant presence in our lives.