Day 100: God's Word and Spirit

From the beginning until "the fullness of time," The joint mission of the Father's Word and Spirit remains hidden, but it is at work. God's Spirit prepares for the time of the Messiah. Neither is fully revealed but both are already promised, to be watched for and welcomed at their manifestation. So, for this reason, when the Church reads the Old Testament, she searches there for what the Spirit, "who has spoken through the prophets," wants to tell us about Christ. CCC 702

In today's reading, the Catechism speaks of how God revealed himself in the Old Testament. Each time, especially in the various theophanies, we "have hints of the reality, the power, and the working of the Holy Spirit from the very beginning all the way to now" (p. 204). He was there at Creation, for it belongs to Him to "rule, sanctify, and animate creation" and "he preserves creation in the Father through the Son" (CCC 703). God also worked through the prophets in the Old Testament, as the Catechism Compendium notes:

The term “prophets” means those who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak in the name of God. The Spirit brings the prophecies of the Old Testament to their complete fulfillment in Christ whose mystery he reveals in the New Testament. (#140)

 Although we became "disfigured in sin and death" after the Fall, we're still made "in the image of God" even though we are deprived of "the glory of God" (CCC 705). It is through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, and the sacrament of Baptism that we are restored "in the Father's 'likeness' by [His] giving it again his Glory, the Spirit who is 'the giver of life'." It was a long, arduous process, but slowly God revealed more and more to us, fulfilling our hope of salvation. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I notes:

The Holy Spirit works in the midst of a place where there is no hope, and he gives hope. The Law was powerful in its ability to teach, but could not give salvation. We need the Holy Spirit. We are not called to be assimilated into the culture; we are called to live differently. That takes strength Tat takes the Holy Spirit. (p. 204)