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But there’s more: the Holy Spirit also lets us speak to men through prophecy, making us humble and docile “channels” of God’s Word. Prophecy is made with candour, to openly demonstrate the contradictions and injustices, but always with compassion and constructive intent. Charged with the Spirit of love, we can be signs and instruments of God who loves, who serves, who gives life. In summary: the Holy Spirit teaches us the way; he reminds us of and explains Jesus’ words; he lets us pray and say “Father” to God, and lets us speak to men and women in fraternal dialogue and lets us speak in prophecy.
The day of Pentecost, when the disciples “were all filled with the Holy Spirit”, was the baptism of the Church, which was born in “going out”, in “departure” to proclaim the Good News to everyone. The Mother Church, who departs in order to serve. Let us remember the other Mother, our Mother who sets out in haste to serve. Mother Church and Mother Mary: both virgins, both mothers, both women. Jesus was peremptory with the Apostles: do not depart from Jerusalem, but wait until you have received the power of the Holy Spirit from above (cf. Acts 1:4-8). Without Him there is no mission, there is no evangelization. For this, with the whole Church, with our Mother Catholic Church, let us implore: Come, Holy Spirit! |
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SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST POPE FRANCIS REGINA CAELI St. Peter's Square
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
The Feast of Pentecost commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered in the Upper Room. Like Easter, this event took place on a preexisting Jewish feast and ended with a surprise. The Acts of the Apostles describes the signs and fruits of that extraordinary outpouring: the strong wind and tongues of fire; fear disappeared, leaving courage in its place; tongues melted and everyone understood the message. Wherever the Spirit of God reaches, everything is reborn and transfigured. Pentecost is the event that signals the birth of the Church and her public manifestation; and two features strike us: the Church astounds and confuses.
A fundamental element of Pentecost is astonishment. Our God is a God of astonishment, this we know. No one expected anything more from the disciples: after Jesus’ death they were a small, insignificant group of defeated orphans of their Master. There occurred instead an unexpected event that astounded: the people were astonished because each of them heard the disciples speaking in their own tongues, telling of the great works of God (cf. Acts 2:6-7, 11). The Church born at Pentecost is an astounding community because, with the force of her arrival from God, a new message is proclaimed — the Resurrection of Christ — with a new language — the universal one of love. A new proclamation: Christ lives, he is risen; a new language: the language of love. The disciples are adorned with power from above and speak with courage — only minutes before they all were cowardly, but now they speak with courage and candour, with the freedom of the Holy Spirit.
Thus the Church is called into being forever: capable of astounding while proclaiming to all that Jesus Christ has conquered death, that God’s arms are always open, that his patience is always there awaiting us in order to heal us, to forgive us. The risen Jesus bestowed his Spirit on the Church for this very mission.
Take note: if the Church is alive, she must always surprise. It is incumbent upon the living Church to astound. A Church which is unable to astound is a Church that is weak, sick, dying, and that needs admission to the intensive care unit as soon as possible!
Some in Jerusalem would have liked for Jesus’ disciples, frozen in fear, to remain locked inside so as not to create confusion. Even today, many would like this from the Christians. Instead, the risen Lord pushes them into the world: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). The Church of the Pentecost is a Church that won’t submit to being powerless, too “distilled”. No, she doesn’t submit to this! She doesn’t want to be a decoration. She is a Church that doesn’t hesitate to go out, meet the people, proclaim the message that’s been entrusted to her, even if that message disturbs or unsettles the conscience, even if that message perhaps brings problems and sometimes leads to martyrdom. She is born one and universal, with a distinct identity, but open, a Church that embraces the world but doesn’t seize it; she sets it free, but embraces it like the colonnade in this Square: two arms that open to receive, but that don’t close to detain. We Christians are free, and the Church wants us free!
We turn to the Virgin Mary, who in that Pentecost morning was in the Upper Room, the Mother with her children. In her, the force of the Holy Spirit truly accomplished “great things” (Luke 1:49). She herself said so. May she, the Mother of the Redeemer and Mother of the Church, obtain through her intercession a renewed outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the Church and upon the world. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
After the Regina Caeli:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As you know, this evening at the Vatican, the Presidents of Israel and Palestine will join me and my brother, Bartholomaios, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, to invoke God for the gift of peace in the Holy Land, the Middle East, and throughout the world. I would like to thank all those who, individually and in community, have prayed and are praying for this encounter, and join spiritually in our plea. Thank you! Many thanks!
I wish all of you a good Sunday. Pray for me. Have a nice lunch and Arrivederci!
Acknowledgment: We thank the Vatican Publisher for allowing us to publish the Homilies Pope Francis I, so that they could be accessed by more people all over the world; as a source of God’s encouragements to all of us. |
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The Most holy Trinity, First Reading: Book of Exodus 34:4-6, 8-9 With the two tablets of stone in his hands, Moses went up the mountain of Sinai in the early morning as the Lord had commanded him. And the Lord descended in the form of a cloud, and Moses stood with him there. He called on the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger rich in kindness and faithfulness.’ And Moses bowed down to the ground at once and worshipped. ‘If I have indeed won your favour, Lord,’ he said ‘let my Lord come with us, I beg. True, they are a headstrong people, but forgive us our faults and our sins, and adopt us as your heritage.’ |
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Compare the aforesaid with what’s stated by the same Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:6b-13, where he warns us and wants us “not to have anything to do” with some “dangerous people”- See Encouragements-92 . |
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Gospel Acclamation cf. Revelations 1:8 Alleluia, alleluia! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; the God who is, who was, and who is to come. Alleluia! |
