Entry 0279: Reflections on Pentecost Sunday by Pope Benedict XVI
On eight occasions during his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI delivered reflections on the Pentecost Sunday, on 15 May 2005, 4 June 2006, 27 May
2007, 11 May 2008, 31 May 2009, 23 May 2010, 12 June 2011, and 27 May 2012. Here are the texts of eight brief addresses prior to the recitation of
the Regina Caeli, seven homilies, and one speech delivered on these
occasions.
REGINA
St Paul explains and
underlines this in the Second Reading when he says: “It was in one Spirit that
all of us, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, were baptized into one body.
All of us have been given to drink of the one Spirit” (I Cor 12: 13).
REGINA
REGINA
REGINA
Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 11 May 2008
REGINA
Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 31 May 2009
REGINA
REGINA
Vatican Basilica, Sunday, 12 June 2011
REGINA
Like when it was born, today the Church still gathers
with Mary and prays: “Veni Sancte Spiritus! - Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts
of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love!”. Amen.
BENEDICT
XVI
St
Peter’s Square, Pentecost Sunday, 15 May 2005
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I ask you above
all to excuse me for my great lateness! I had the honour of being able to
ordain today, the day of the Holy Spirit, 21 new priests for the Diocese of
Rome. And such a harvest of God naturally takes a bit of time! Thank you for
your understanding!
A little while
ago this Eucharistic Celebration concluded, during which I had the joy of
ordaining 21 new priests. It is an event that signifies a moment of important
growth for our Community. In fact, from ordained ministers one receives life,
above all through the service of the Word of God and of the Sacraments.
This, therefore,
is a day of celebration for the Church of Rome. And for the new priests, this
is in a special way their Pentecost: I renew my greeting to them and pray that
the Holy Spirit accompanies them always in their ministry. Let us thank God for
the gift of new priests, and let us pray that in Rome as well as in the entire world numerous
and holy priestly vocations blossom and come to maturity.
The happy
coincidence between Pentecost and the Priestly Ordinations invites me to
underline the indissoluble bond that exists in the Church between the Spirit
and the institution. I already mentioned this last Saturday, in taking
possession of the Chair of the Bishop of Rome in St John Lateran. The Chair and
the Spirit are an intimately connected reality, as also are the charism and the
ordained ministry. Without the Holy Spirit, the Church would be reduced to
merely a human organization, weighed down by its own structures. But, for its
part, in the plans of God, the Spirit habitually makes use of human mediations
to act in history. Precisely for this, Christ, who established the Church on
the foundation of the Apostles closely around Peter, has also given it the gift
of his Spirit, so that throughout the centuries he would be the comfort (see Jn
14: 16) and the guide to the entire truth (see Jn 16: 13). May the Ecclesial
Community remain always open and docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, to be
among men and women a credible sign and efficacious instrument of God’s action!
We entrust this
hope to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, who today we contemplate in the
glorious mystery of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, who at Nazareth descended upon her to make her the
Mother of the Word Incarnate (see Lk 1: 35), descended today on the nascent
Church joined together around her in the Upper Room (see Acts 1: 14). We invoke
with trust Mary Most Holy, in order to obtain a renewed outpouring of the
Spirit on the Church in our days.
I wish a happy
Feast of Pentecost to all! Happy Sunday! Thank you!
MASS
OF PRIESTLY ORDINATION
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St
Peter’s Basilica, Pentecost Sunday, 15 May 2005
Dear Brothers in the Episcopate
and in the Priesthood,
Dear Ordinandi,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The First
Reading and the Gospel of Pentecost Sunday
offer us two great images of the mission of the Holy Spirit. The reading
from the Acts of the Apostles speaks of how, on the day of Pentecost, under the
signs of a strong wind and fire, the Holy Spirit sweeps into the community of
the disciples of Jesus who are in prayer, thus bringing the Church into being.
For Israel ,
Pentecost - celebration of the harvest - had become the celebration marking the
conclusion of the Covenant on Mt Sinai. In wind and fire, God made his presence
known to the people and then gave them the gift of his Law, the Ten
Commandments. In this singular way was the work of liberation, begun with the
Exodus from Egypt ,
brought to fulfilment: human freedom is always a shared freedom, a “togetherness”
of liberty. Common freedom lasts only in an ordered harmony of freedom that
reveals to each person his or her limits.
In this way the
gift of the Law on Mt Sinai was not a restriction nor an abolition of freedom,
but the foundation of true liberty. And since a correct human ordering finds
stability only if it comes from God and if it unites men and women in the
perspective of God, the Commandments that God himself gives us cannot be
lacking in a correct ordering of human freedom.
In this way, Israel
fully became a people, through the Covenant with God on Mt Sinai. Israel ’s
encounter with God on Sinai could be considered to be the foundation and the
guarantee of its existence as a people. The wind and fire, which enveloped the
community of Christ’s disciples gathered in the Upper Room, becomes a further
development of the event of Mt Sinai and gives it new fullness.
They were
gathered in Jerusalem
on that day, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles: “devout
Jews of every nation under heaven” (Acts 2: 5). Here is made manifest the
characteristic gift of the Holy Spirit: all understood the words of the
Apostles: “each one heard these men speaking his own language” (Acts 2: 6). The
Holy Spirit gives understanding.
Overcoming the “breach”
begun in Babel
- the confusion of hearts, putting us one against the other - the Spirit opens
borders.
The People of
God who found its first configuration on Mt Sinai, now becomes enlarged to the
point of recognizing no limitations. The new People of God, the Church, is a
people that derives from all peoples. The Church is catholic from her beginning
and this is her deepest essence.
The Church must
always become anew what she already is; she must open the borders between
peoples and break down the barriers between class and race. In her, there
cannot be those who are forgotten or looked down upon. In the Church there are
only free brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. The wind and fire of the Holy
Spirit must continually break down those barriers that we men and women
continue to build between us; we must continually pass from Babel - being closed in on ourselves - to
Pentecost.
Thus, we must
continually pray that the Holy Spirit opens us and gives us the grace of
understanding, so that we become the People of God deriving from all peoples. St Paul tells us more
along these lines: in Christ, who as the one Bread feeds all of us in the
Eucharist and draws us to him in his Body wracked on the Cross, we must become
only one body and one spirit.
The second image
of the sending of the Spirit that we find in the Gospel is much more hidden.
Exactly in this way, however, all of the greatness of the Pentecost event is
perceived. The Risen Lord passes through the closed doors and enters the place
where the disciples are, and greets them twice with the words: “Peace be with
you”.
We continually
close our doors; we continually want to feel secure and do not want to be
disturbed by others and by God. And so, we can continually implore the Lord
just for this, that he come to us, overcoming our closure, to bring us his
greeting: “Peace be with you”.
This greeting of
the Lord is a bridge that he builds between heaven and earth. He descends to
this bridge, reaching us, and we can climb up on this bridge of peace to reach
him. On this bridge, always together with him, we too must reach our neighbour,
reach the one who needs us. It is in lowering ourselves, together with Christ,
that we rise up to him and up to God. God is Love, and so the descent, the
lowering that love demands of us, is at the same time the true ascent. Exactly
in this way, lowering ourselves, coming out of ourselves, we reach the dignity
of Jesus Christ, the human being’s true dignity.
The Lord’s
greeting of peace is followed by two gestures that are decisive for Pentecost:
the Lord wants the disciples to continue his mission: “As the Father has sent
me, so I send you” (Jn 20: 21).
After this, he
breathes on them and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men’s sins,
they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound” (Jn 20:
23). The Lord breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit, his own
Spirit. The breath of Jesus is the Holy Spirit.
We recognize
here, in the first place, an allusion made to the story of creation in the Book
of Genesis, where it is written: “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of
the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gn 2: 7). Man is
this mysterious creature who comes entirely from the earth, but in whom has
been placed the breath of God. Jesus breathes on the Apostles and gives them
the breath of God in a new and greater way.
In people,
notwithstanding all of their limitations, there is now something absolutely
new: the breath of God. The life of God lives in us. The breath of his love, of
his truth and of his goodness. In this way we can see here too an allusion to
Baptism and Confirmation, this new belonging to God that the Lord gives to us.
The Gospel Reading invites us to this: to live always within the breath of
Jesus Christ, receiving life from him, so that he may inspire in us authentic
life, the life that no death may ever take away.
To his breath,
to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord joins the power of forgiveness. We
heard earlier that the Holy Spirit unites, breaks down barriers, leads us one
to the other. The strength that opens up and overcomes Babel is the strength of forgiveness.
Jesus can grant
forgiveness and the power to forgive because he himself suffered the
consequences of sin and dispelled them in the flame of his love. Forgiveness
comes from the Cross; he transforms the world with the love that is offered.
His heart opened on the Cross is the door through which the grace of
forgiveness enters into the world. And this grace alone is able to transform
the world and build peace.
If we compare
the two events of Pentecost - the strong wind of the 50th day and the gentle
breath of Jesus on the evening of Easter - we might think about this contrast
between the two episodes that took place on Mt Sinai, spoken of in the Old
Testament.
On the one hand,
there is the narration of fire, thunder and wind, preceding the promulgation of
the Ten Commandments and the conclusion of the Covenant (see Ex 19 ff.); on the
other, there is the mysterious narration of Elijah on Mt Horeb. Following the
dramatic events on Mt Carmel, Elijah fled from the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel.
Following God’s orders, he journeyed to Mt Horeb. The gift of the holy
Covenant, of faith in the one God, seemed to have disappeared from Israel .
In a certain
way, Elijah must rekindle the flame of faith on God’s mountain and bring it
back to Israel .
He experiences, in that place, wind, earthquake and fire. But God is not
present in all of this. He then perceives a sweet soft murmur; and God speaks
to him in this soft breath (see I Kings 19: 11-18).
Is this not
precisely what takes place the evening of Easter, when Jesus appeared to his
Apostles to teach them what it means here? Might we perhaps see here a
prefiguration of the servant of Yahweh, of whom Isaiah says: “He will not cry
or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street” (42: 2)? Does not the
humble figure of Jesus appear this way, as the true revelation in whom God
manifests himself and speaks to us? Are not the humility and goodness of Jesus
the true epiphany of God?
On Mt Carmel,
Elijah sought to overcome the distancing from God with fire and the sword,
killing the prophets of Baal. In this way, though, he was unable to restore the
faith.
On Mt Horeb, he
was made to understand that God is not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire;
Elijah has to learn and perceive the soft voice of God, and in this way to
recognize in advance the One who overcame sin not with power but by his
Passion; the One who, by his suffering, has given us the ability to forgive.
This is how God wins.
Dear Ordinandi,
in this way the message of Pentecost is now aimed directly at you. The
Pentecostal scene of the Gospel of John speaks to you and of you. To each one
of you, in a very personal way, the Lord says: Peace to [all of] you - peace to
you! When the Lord says this, he does not give something, but he gives himself.
Indeed, he himself is peace (see Eph 2: 14).
In this greeting
of the Lord, we can also foresee a reference to the great mystery of faith, to
the Holy Eucharist, in which he continually gives himself to us, and, in this
way, true peace.
Sacrament of the
Eucharist
This greeting is
placed at the centre of your priestly mission: the Lord entrusts to you the
mystery of this Sacrament. In his Name you can say: “This is my Body.... This
is my Blood”. Allow yourselves to be drawn ever anew by the Holy Eucharist, by
communion of life with Christ. Consider the centre of each day the possibility
to celebrate the Eucharist worthily. Lead people ever anew to this mystery.
Help them, starting from this, to bring the peace of Christ into the world.
In the Gospel
Reading we have just heard, a second phrase of the Risen One resounds: “As the
Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20: 21). Christ says this in a very
personal way to each one of you.
With priestly
ordination you are inserted into the Apostolic mission. The Holy Spirit is
wind, but it is not amorphous; it is an orderly Spirit. It becomes manifest
precisely when it orders the mission, in the Sacrament of the Priesthood, in
which the ministry of the Apostles is continued.
Through this
ministry, you are inserted in the multitude of those who, beginning with
Pentecost, have received the apostolic mission. You are inserted into the
communion of priests, into communion with the Bishop and with the Successor of
St Peter, who here in Rome
is also your Bishop. All of us are inserted in the network of obedience to the
Word of Christ, to the word of the One who gives us true freedom because he
leads us in the free spaces and open horizons of the truth.
It is precisely
in this common bond with the Lord that we can and must live the dynamism of the
Spirit. As the Lord came from the Father and has given us light, life and love,
so too the mission must continually set us in motion, make us restless, to
bring the joy of Christ to those who suffer, those who are in doubt, as well as
to the reluctant.
Lastly, there is
the power of forgiveness. The Sacrament of Penance is one of the Church’s
precious treasures, since authentic world renewal is accomplished only through
forgiveness. Nothing can improve the world if evil is not overcome.
Evil can be
overcome only by forgiveness. Certainly, it must be an effective forgiveness;
but only the Lord can give us this forgiveness, a forgiveness that drives away
evil not only with words but truly destroys it. Only suffering can bring this
about and it has truly taken place with the suffering love of Christ, from whom
we draw the power to forgive.
In closing, dear
Ordinandi, I recommend that you love the Mother of the Lord. Do as St John did, welcoming her
deeply into your own heart. Allow yourselves to be continually renewed by her
maternal love. Learn from her how to love Christ. May the Lord bless your
journey as priests!
Amen.
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST 2006
BENEDICT
XVI
St.
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 4 June 2006
Today’s
Solemnity of Pentecost invites us to return to the origins of the Church,
which, as we affirm in the Second Vatican Council, was “made manifest in the
outpouring of the Spirit” (Lumen Gentium, no. 2).
At Pentecost,
the Church shows herself as one, holy, catholic and apostolic; she shows
herself as missionary, with the gift of speaking all the languages of the
world, because the Good News of God’s love is destined for all peoples.
The Spirit, the
Council again teaches, “[g]uiding the Church in the way of all truth and
unifying her in communion and in the works of ministry, he bestows upon her
varied hierarchic and charismatic gifts, and in this way directs her; and he
adorns her with his fruits” (ibid., no. 4).
Among the
realities raised up in the Church by the Holy Spirit are the Movements and
Ecclesial Communities, which yesterday I had the joy of meeting in this Square
in a great worldwide gathering. The entire Church, as beloved Pope John Paul II
used to say, is one great movement animated by the Holy Spirit, a river that
travels through history to irrigate it with God’s grace and make it full of
life, goodness, beauty, justice and peace.
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST 2006
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St.
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 4 June 2006
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On the day of
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended with power upon the Apostles; thus began
the mission of the Church in the world.
Jesus himself
prepared the Eleven for this mission, appearing to them on many occasions after
his Resurrection (see Acts 1: 3).
Prior to the
Ascension into Heaven, he ordered them “not to depart from Jerusalem , but to wait for the promise of the
Father” (see Acts 1: 4-5); that is, he asked them to stay together to prepare
themselves to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And they gathered in prayer
with Mary in the Upper Room, awaiting the promised event (see Acts 1: 14).
To stay together
was the condition laid down by Jesus in order to receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit; the premise of their harmony was prolonged prayer. In this way we are
offered a formidable lesson for every Christian community.
Some think at
times that missionary effectiveness depends primarily on careful programming
and its subsequent intelligent application through a concrete commitment.
The Lord
certainly does ask for our collaboration, but before any other response his
initiative is necessary: his Spirit is the true protagonist of the Church. The
roots of our being and of our action are in the wise and provident silence of
God.
The images used
by St Luke to indicate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit - wind and fire -
recall Sinai, where God revealed himself to the people of Israel and offered
his covenant (see Ex 19: 3ff.). The feast of Sinai, which Israel celebrated 50 days after the
Passover, was the feast of the Covenant.
Speaking of the
tongues of fire (see Acts 2: 3), St Luke wants to show Pentecost as a new
Sinai, as the feast of the New Covenant, where the Covenant with Israel
is extended to all the nations of the earth.
The Church has
been catholic and missionary from her birth. The universality of salvation is
meaningfully manifested with the list of the numerous ethnic groups to which
those who heard the Apostles’ first proclamation belonged (see Acts 2: 9-11).
The People of
God, which had found its first configuration in Sinai, extends today to the
point of surmounting every barrier of race, culture, space and time. As opposed
to what occurred with the tower of Babel (see Gn 11: 1-9), when people wanted
to build a way to heaven with their hands and ended up by destroying their very
capacity of mutual understanding, in Pentecost the Spirit, with the gift of
tongues, demonstrates that his presence unites and transforms confusion into
communion.
Human pride and
egoism always create divisions, build walls of indifference, hate and violence.
The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, makes hearts capable of understanding the
languages of all, as he re-establishes the bridge of authentic communion
between earth and heaven. The Holy Spirit is Love.
But how is it
possible to enter into the mystery of the Holy Spirit? How can the secret of
Love be understood?
The Gospel
passage takes us today to the Upper Room where, after the Last Supper, a sense
of loss has saddened the Apostles. This is due to the fact that Jesus’ words
arouse disturbing questions: He spoke of the world’s hatred of him and of his
own, he spoke of his mysterious departure; and there were still many other
things to be said, but for the time being the Apostles were not able to bear
the weight (see Jn 16: 12).
To console them,
he explains the meaning of his departure: he will go, but he will return;
meanwhile, he will not abandon them, will not leave them orphans. He will send
the Consoler, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit will enable them to
understand that Christ’s work is a work of love: love of the One who gave
himself, love of the Father who has given him.
This is the
mystery of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit illuminates the human spirit and, by
revealing Christ Crucified and Risen, indicates the way to become more like
him, that is, to be “the image and instrument of the love which flows from
Christ” (Deus Caritas Est, no. 33).
The Church,
gathered with Mary as at her birth, today implores: “Veni, Sancte Spiritus! -
Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire
of your love!”. Amen.
BENEDICT XVI
Saint Peter’s Square, Pentecost Sunday, 27 May 2007
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today,
we celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, in which the liturgy has us relive
the birth of the Church, according to what St Luke narrates in the book of the Acts
of the Apostles (2: 1-13).
Fifty
days after Easter, the Holy Spirit descended on the community of disciples - “with
one accord devoted themselves to prayer” - gathered with “Mary, the mother of
Jesus” and with the Twelve Apostles (see Acts 1: 14; 2: 1). We can therefore
say that the Church had its solemn beginning with the descent of the Holy
Spirit.
In this
extraordinary event we find the essential and qualifying characteristics of the
Church: the Church is one, like the community at Pentecost, who were
united in prayer and “concordant”: “were of one heart and soul” (Acts 4: 32).
The
Church is holy, not by her own merits, but because, animated by the Holy
Spirit, she keeps her gaze on Christ, to become conformed to him and to his
love.
The
Church is catholic, because the Gospel is destined for all peoples, and
for this, already at the beginning, the Holy Spirit made her speak all
languages.
The
Church is apostolic, because, built upon the foundation of the Apostles,
she faithfully keeps their teaching through the uninterrupted chain of
episcopal succession.
What is
more, the Church by her nature is missionary, and from the day of
Pentecost the Holy Spirit does not cease to move her along the ways of the
world to the ends of the earth and to the end of time.
This
reality, which we can verify in every epoch, is already anticipated in the Book
of Acts, where the Gospel passage from the Hebrews to the pagans, from Jerusalem to Rome ,
is described. Rome
represents the pagan world, and hence, all people who are outside of the
ancient People of God. Actually, Acts concludes with the arrival of the
Gospel to Rome .
It can
be said, then, that Rome
is the concrete name of catholicity and missionary spirit, it expresses
fidelity to the origins, to the Church of all times, to a Church that speaks
all languages and extends herself to all cultures.
Dear
brothers and sisters, the first Pentecost took place when Mary Most Holy was
present amid the disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem and prayed. Today, too, let us
entrust ourselves to her maternal intercession, so that the Holy Spirit may
descend in abundance upon the Church in our day, fill the hearts of all the
faithful and enkindle in them the fire of his love.
SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
BENEDICT XVI
St Peter’s Square, Sunday, 11 May 2008
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today
we are celebrating the Solemnity of Pentecost, an ancient Jewish feast on which
the Covenant that God made with his People on Mount Sinai
(see Ex 19) was commemorated. It also became a Christian feast because of what
happened on that day 50 days after Jesus’ Pasch. We read in the Acts of the
Apostles that the disciples were praying all together in the Upper Room
when the Holy Spirit descended upon them powerfully, as wind and as fire. They
then began to proclaim in many tongues the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection (see
2: 1-4). This was the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” which had been foretold by
John the Baptist: “I baptize you with water”, he said to the crowds, “but he
who is coming after me is mightier than I... he will baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and with fire” (Mt 3: 11). In fact, Jesus’ entire mission aimed at
giving the Spirit of God to men and women and at baptizing them in his
regenerative “bath”. This was brought about with his glorification (see Jn 7:
39), that is, through his death and Resurrection: then the Spirit of God was
poured out in superabundance, like a cascade capable of purifying every heart,
extinguishing the fire of evil and kindling the flame of divine love in the
world.
The Acts
of the Apostles present Pentecost as the fulfilment of this promise and
hence as the culmination of Jesus’ entire mission. After his Resurrection, he
himself ordered the disciples to stay in Jerusalem, because, he said, “before
many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1: 5); and he
added: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you
shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end
of the earth” (Acts 1: 8). Thus Pentecost is in a special way the Baptism of the
Church which carries out her universal mission starting from the roads of Jerusalem with the
miraculous preaching in humanity’s different tongues. In this Baptism of the
Holy Spirit the personal and community dimension, the “I” of the disciple and
the “we” of the Church, are inseparable. The Holy Spirit consecrates the person
and at the same time makes him or her a living member of the Mystical Body of
Christ, sharing in the mission of witnessing to his love. And this takes place
through the Sacraments of Christian initiation: Baptism and Confirmation. In my
Message for the next World Youth Day 2008,
I have proposed to the young people that they rediscover the Holy Spirit’s
presence in their lives and thus the importance of these Sacraments. Today I
would like to extend the invitation to all: let us rediscover, dear brothers
and sisters, the beauty of being baptized in the Holy Spirit; let us recover
awareness of our Baptism and our Confirmation, ever timely sources of grace.
Let us ask the
Virgin Mary to obtain also today a renewed Pentecost for the Church that will
imbue in all, and especially in the young, the joy of living and witnessing to
the Gospel.
BENEDICT
XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St
Peter’s Square, Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Greeting
to His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II,
Supreme
Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians
It is my great
joy today to greet His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and
Catholicos of All Armenians, and the distinguished delegation accompanying him.
Your Holiness, I pray that the light of the Holy Spirit will illumine your
pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the important meetings
you will have here, and particularly our personal conversations. I ask all who
are present today to pray for God’s blessing upon this visit.
Your Holiness, I
thank you for your personal commitment to the growing friendship between the Armenian Apostolic Church Rome to meet Pope John
Paul II, and a year later, you graciously received him in Holy Etchmiadzin. You
came once again to Rome
together with many Church leaders from East and West, for the funeral liturgy
of Pope John Paul II. I am sure that this spirit of friendship will be further
deepened during the coming days.
In an external
niche of Saint Peter’s Basilica, there is a fine statue of Saint Gregory the
Illuminator, founder of the Armenian Church. It serves to remind us of the
severe persecutions suffered by Armenian Christians, especially during the last
century. Armenia ’s
many martyrs are a sign of the power of the Holy Spirit working in times of
darkness, and a pledge of hope for Christians everywhere.
Your Holiness,
dear Bishops and dear friends, together with you I implore Almighty God,
through the intercession of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, to help us grow in
unity, in one holy bond of Christian faith, hope and love.
*
* *
Pentecost
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As you see we
have with us this morning His Holiness Catholicos Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch
and Catholicos of All Armenians, and a distinguished delegation. I renew the
expression of my joy at the possibility of welcoming him which has been granted
to me this morning. His presence today rekindles our hope for the full unity of
all Christians. I gladly take this opportunity also to thank him for the
friendly welcome he recently offered my Cardinal Secretary of State in Armenia .
It is likewise a pleasure for me to recall the Catholicos’ unforgettable visit
to Rome in
2000, just after his election. On meeting him, my beloved Predecessor John Paul
II gave him a famous relic of St Gregory the Illuminator and later went to Armenia
to reciprocate his visit.
The efforts made
by the Armenian Apostolic Church for ecumenical dialogue are well known, and I
am sure that this visit of the venerable Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of
All Armenians will help to intensify the relations of fraternal friendship that
bind our Churches. These days of immediate preparation for the Solemnity of
Pentecost encourage us to rekindle our hope in the Holy Spirit’s help so that
we may advance on the path of ecumenism. We are certain that the Lord Jesus
will never abandon us in our quest for unity, since his Spirit is tirelessly at
work to sustain our efforts in striving to overcome every division and mend
every tear in the living fabric of the Church.
It was precisely
this that Jesus promised his disciples in the last days of his earthly mission,
as we have just heard in the Gospel passage: he assured them of the help of the
Holy Spirit that he would send to continue to make them aware of his presence (see
Jn 14: 16-17). This promise became reality when, after the Resurrection, Jesus
entered the Upper Room, greeted the disciples with the words, “Peace be with
you”, and breathing on them said: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20: 22). He
authorized them to forgive sins. Here, therefore, the Holy Spirit, appears as a
power for the forgiveness of sins, for renewing our hearts and our lives; and
thus he renews the earth and creates unity where there was division.
Furthermore, on the Feast of Pentecost the Holy Spirit showed himself in other
signs: in the sign of a mighty wind, tongues of fire, and the Apostles’ ability
to speak all languages. This was a sign that the Babylonian dispersion, the
result of pride that separates men and women, had been overcome in the Spirit
who is love and gives unity in diversity. Since the very first moment of her
existence the Church has spoken in all languages - thanks to the power of the
Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire - and has lived in all cultures, she does
not destroy any of the various gifts, of the different charisms, but draws all
of them together in a great, new unity that reconciles: unity and multiformity.
The Holy Spirit,
who is eternal charity, the bond of unity in the Trinity, with his power of
divine charity unites scattered humanity thereby creating the vast multiform
community of the Church throughout the world. In the days following the
Ascension of the Lord until Pentecost Sunday, the disciples, with Mary, were
gathered in the Upper Room to pray. They knew that they themselves could not
create or organize the Church: the Church had to be born and organized by
divine initiative; she is not created by us, she is a gift of God. And this is
likewise the only way in which she creates unity, a unity that must grow. The
Church in every time - and particularly in these nine days between the
Ascension and Pentecost - is spiritually united in the Upper Room with the
Apostles and Mary to ceaselessly implore the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Driven onwards by his mighty wind she will thus be able to proclaim the Gospel
to the very ends of the earth.
This is why even
in the face of difficulties and divisions, Christians cannot be resigned nor
yield to discouragement. The Lord asks this of us: to persevere in prayer in
order to keep alive the flame of faith, love and hope which nourishes the
desire for full unity. “Ut unum sint!”, says the Lord. May Christ’s invitation
always resound in our hearts, an invitation I was able to relaunch on my recent
Apostolic Journey in the United
States of America , when I referred to the centrality of prayer
in the ecumenical movement. In this epoch of globalization and at the same time
of fragmentation, “without [prayer], ecumenical structures, institutions and
programs would be deprived of their heart and soul” (Ecumenical Prayer
Service and Meeting, St Joseph ’s Church, New York , 18 April
2008). Let us give thanks to the Lord for the goals reached in ecumenical
dialogue thanks to the Holy Spirit’s action; let us be docile, listening to his
voice so that our hearts, filled with hope, may continuously seek the path that
leads to the full communion of all Christ’s disciples.
In his
Letter to the Galatians, St Paul recalls that “the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control” (Gal 5: 22-23). These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we
also implore today for all Christians, so that in the common and generous
service to the Gospel, they may be a sign of God’s love for humanity in the
world. Let us turn our gaze confidently to Mary, the Shrine of the Holy Spirit
and through her pray: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and
kindle in them the fire of your love”. Amen.
EUCHARISTIC
CELEBRATION ON THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
St Luke places
the account of the event of Pentecost that we heard in the First Reading in the
second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The chapter is introduced by the
words: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place”
(Acts 2: 1). These words refer to the previous setting in which Luke described
the small company of disciples that had gathered perseveringly in Jerusalem after Jesus’
Ascension into Heaven (see Acts 1: 12-14). It is a description rich in detail:
the place “where they were staying” - the Cenacle - was an “Upper Room”; the 11
Apostles are listed by name and the first three are Peter, John and James, the “pillars”
of the community; mentioned with them are “the women” and “Mary the Mother of
Jesus, and “his brethren”, already an integral part of this new family, no
longer based on blood ties but on faith in Christ.
The total number
of people which was “about a hundred and twenty”, a multiple of the “Twelve” of
the Apostolic College ,
alludes to this “new Israel ”.
The group constitutes an authentic “qlhll”, an “assembly” in accordance
with the model of the First Covenant, the community summoned to listen to the
Lord’s voice and to walk in his ways. The Acts of the Apostles stresses that “[a]ll
these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer” (1: 14). Prayer, therefore,
is the principle activity of the nascent Church through which she receives her
unity from the Lord and lets herself be guided by his will, as shown by the
decision to cast lots in order to elect the one who would take Judas’ place (see
Acts 1: 26).
This community
was gathered in the same place, the Upper Room, on the morning of the Jewish
Feast of Pentecost, the feast of the Covenant which commemorated the Sinai
event, when God, through Moses, proposed that Israel be his own possession among
all peoples to be a sign of his holiness (see Ex 19). According to the Book of
Exodus, that ancient pact was accompanied by a terrifying manifestation of
power by the Lord when we read: “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord
descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a
kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly” (Ex 19: 18). We find the elements
of wind and fire in the Pentecost of the New Testament, but untainted by fear.
The fire specifically took the form of tongues of flame which settled on each
one of the disciples who “were all filled with the Holy Spirit” and through the
effect of this outpouring “began to speak in other tongues” (Acts 2: 4). It was
a true and proper “baptism” of fire of the community, a sort of new creation.
At Pentecost, the Church was not established by human will but by the power of
God’s Spirit. And it is immediately clear how this Spirit gives life to a
community which is at the same time one and universal, thereby overcoming the
curse of Babel
(see Gn 11: 7-9). Indeed, it is only the Holy Spirit who creates unity in love
and in the reciprocal acceptance of diversity which can free humanity from the
constant temptation to acquire earthly power that seeks to dominate and
standardize all things.
“Societas
Spiritus”, a society of the Spirit, is what St Augustine calls the Church in one of his
homilies (71, 19, 32: PL 38, 462). However, prior to him St Irenaeus had
already formulated a truth which I would like to recall here: “Where the Church
is, there also is God’s Spirit; where God’s Spirit is, there is the Church and
every grace; and the Spirit is the truth; to distance oneself from the Church
is to reject the Spirit”, and thus “exclude oneself from life” (Adversus
Haereses III, 24, 1). Beginning with the event of Pentecost this union
between Christ’s Spirit and his Mystical Body, in other words the Church, was
fully manifest. I would like to reflect on a particular aspect of the Holy
Spirit’s action, that is, the manner in which multiplicity and unity are
interwoven. The Second Reading speaks of this, addressing the harmony of the
different charisms in the communion of the same Spirit. But already in Acts we
heard the account of this interweaving which is revealed with extraordinary
clarity. In the event of Pentecost it becomes clear that many languages and
different cultures are part of the Church; in faith they can be understood and
make one another fruitful. St Luke aims unambiguously to convey a fundamental
idea, which is, that the very act of the Church’s birth is already “catholic”
or universal. From the outset the Church speaks in all languages, because the
Gospel entrusted to her is destined for all peoples, according to the will and
mandate of the Risen Christ (see Mt 28: 19). The Church which is born at
Pentecost is not primarily a particular Community - the Church of Jerusalem
In this regard,
it is necessary to add another aspect: that of the theological vision of the
Acts of the Apostles concerning the journey to Rome
of the Church of Jerusalem Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, Luke also
mentions “visitors from Rome ”
(Acts 2: 10). At that time Rome
was still distant, “foreign” to the newborn Church: it was a symbol of the
pagan world in general. But the power of the Holy Spirit was to guide the
footsteps of the witnesses “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1: 8), even to Rome . The Acts of the
Apostles ends precisely when St Paul, through a providential plan, reaches the
capital of the Empire and proclaims the Gospel there (see Acts 28: 30-31). Thus
the journey of the Word of God which began in Jerusalem
reached its destination, because Rome
represents the entire world and therefore embodies Luke’s idea of catholicity.
The universal Church is brought into being, the Catholic Church, which is the
extension of the Chosen People and makes its history and mission her own.
At this point,
and to conclude, John’s Gospel offers a word that harmonizes very well with the
mystery of the Church created by the Spirit. The word that came twice from the
lips of the Risen Jesus when he appeared among his disciples in the Upper Room
on the evening of Easter Day: Shalom - “peace be with you!” (Jn 20: 19,
21). The expression “shalom” is not a mere greeting; it is far more: it
is the gift of peace promised (see Jn 14: 27) and won by Jesus at the price of
his blood, it is the fruit of his victory in the battle against the spirit of
evil. Thus, it is a peace “not as the world gives” but as God alone can give
it.
On this feast of
the Spirit and the Church, let us thank God for having given to his people,
chosen and formed in the midst of all peoples, the precious good of peace, of his
peace! At the same time, let us renew the awareness of the responsibility that
is connected with this gift: the Church’s responsibility to be,
constitutionally, a sign and instrument of God’s peace for all peoples. I
sought to pass on this message recently by going to the Headquarters of the
United Nations Organization in order to address my words to the representatives
of the peoples. However, we must not
only think of these events “at the summit”. The Church carries out her service
to Christ’s peace above all in the ordinary presence and action among men and
women, with the preaching of the Gospel and the signs of love and mercy that
accompany it (see Mk 16: 20).
Of course, among
these signs it is mainly the Sacrament of Reconciliation that should be
emphasized. The Risen Christ instituted it at the very moment he gave the
disciples his peace and his Spirit. As we heard in the Gospel passage, Jesus
breathed on the Apostles and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the
sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained” (Jn 20: 22-23). How important and, unfortunately, insufficiently
understood is the gift of Reconciliation which sets hearts at rest! Christ’s
peace is only spread through the renewed hearts of reconciled men and women who
have made themselves servants of justice, ready to spread peace in the world
with the force of the truth alone, without descending to compromises with the
world’s mentality because the world cannot give Christ’s peace: this is how the
Church can be the leaven of that reconciliation which comes from God. She can
only be so if she remains docile to the Spirit and bears witness to the Gospel,
only if she carries the Cross like Jesus and with Jesus. The saints of every
epoch witness precisely to this!
In the light of
this word of life, dear brothers and sisters, may the prayer we are raising to
God in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary become ever more fervent and
intense. May the Virgin of listening, the Mother of the Church, obtain for our
communities and for all Christians a renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete. “Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur, et renovabis faciem terrae -
Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be recreated, and you shall renew the
face of the earth”. Amen.
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST
BENEDICT
XVI
Saint
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 31 May 2009
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today the Church
throughout the world is reliving the Solemnity of Pentecost, the mystery of her
birth, her own “Baptism” in the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:5) which occurred in
Jerusalem 50 days after Easter, precisely on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. The
Risen Jesus had told his disciples: “Stay in the city, until you are clothed
with power from on high” (Lk 24:49). This actually happened in the Upper Room,
while they were all gathered in prayer with Mary, the Virgin Mother.
As we read in
the Acts of the Apostles, that place was suddenly filled with the rush of a
mighty wind and tongues as of fire settled on each one of those present. The
Apostles then went out and began to proclaim in different languages that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, dead and risen (see Acts 2:1-4). The Holy
Spirit, who with the Father and the Son, created the universe, who guided the
People of Israel through history and spoke through the Prophets, who in the
fullness of time cooperated in our redemption, came down at Pentecost upon the
nascent Church and made her missionary, sending her out to proclaim to all
peoples the victory of divine love over sin and death.
The Holy Spirit
is the soul of the Church. Without him what would she be reduced to? She would
certainly be an important movement in history, a complex and solid social
institution, perhaps a sort of humanitarian agency. And to tell the truth she
is considered such by those who do not see her from a perspective of faith.
Yet, the reality is that in her true nature and also in her authentic presence
in history, the Church is ceaselessly formed and guided by the Spirit of her
Lord. She is a living body, whose vitality is, precisely, the fruit of the
invisible divine Spirit.
Dear friends,
this year the Solemnity of Pentecost occurs on the last day of the month of May
on which the beautiful Marian feast of the Visitation is normally celebrated.
This fact invites us to let ourselves be inspired and, as it were, instructed
by the Virgin Mary, who was the protagonist of both these events. In Nazareth she received the
announcement of her unique motherhood and, immediately after conceiving Jesus
by the power of the Holy Spirit, she was impelled by the same Spirit of love to
go and help her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth, who had reached the sixth month of
a pregnancy that was also miraculous. The young Mary who is carrying Jesus in
her womb and, forgetting herself, hurries to the help of her neighbour, is a
wonderful image of the Church in the perennial youthfulness of the Spirit, of
the missionary Church of the incarnate Word called to bring him to the world
and to witness to him especially in the service of charity. Let us therefore
invoke the intercession of Mary Most Holy, so that she may obtain for the
Church of our time that she be powerfully strengthened by the Holy Spirit. In
particular, may the ecclesial communities that are suffering persecution in
Christ’s name feel the comforting presence of the Paraclete so that,
participating in her suffering, they may receive the spirit of glory in
abundance (see 1 Pt 4:13-14).
EUCHARISTIC
CELEBRATION
ON
THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Every time we
celebrate the Eucharist we live in faith the mystery that is fulfilled on the
altar, that is, we take part in the supreme act of love that Christ
accomplished with his death and Resurrection. The one and only centre of the
liturgy and Christian life itself the Paschal Mystery acquires in the various
Solemnities and Feasts specific “forms”, with additional meanings and special
gifts of grace. Pentecost is distinguished from all the Solemnities by its
importance since what Jesus himself had announced as the purpose of the whole
of his mission on earth is brought about in it. Indeed, on his way up to Jerusalem he had declared
to his disciples: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were
already kindled!” (Lk 12: 49). These words were most visibly brought about 50
days after the Resurrection, at Pentecost, the ancient Jewish feast which in
the Church has become the feast par excellence of the Holy Spirit: “There
appeared to them tongues as of fire... and they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit” (Acts 2: 3-4). The real fire, the Holy Spirit, was brought to the earth
by Christ. He did not steal it from the gods like Prometheus, according to the
Greek myth, but rather made himself the mediator of the “gift of God”,
obtaining it for us with the greatest act of love in history: his death on the
Cross.
God wants to
continue giving this “fire” to every human generation and he is naturally free
to do so as and when he wishes. He is spirit, and the Spirit “blows where he
wills” (see Jn 3: 8). However, there is a “normal way” which God himself chose “to
cast fire upon the earth”: this way is Jesus, his Only-Begotten Son, incarnate,
dead and Risen. In his turn Jesus Christ constituted the Church as his Mystical
Body so that she might extend his mission in history. “Receive the Holy Spirit”,
the Lord said to the Apostles on the evening of the Resurrection, accompanying
these words with an expressive gesture: “he breathed” on them (see Jn 20: 22).
In this way he showed that he was communicating his Spirit to them, the Spirit
of the Father and of the Son. Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today’s
Solemnity Scripture tells us once again how the community should be, how we
should be in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the account which
describes the event of Pentecost, the sacred Author recalls that the disciples “were
all together in one place”. This “place” was the Cenacle, the “Upper Room”
where Jesus had eaten the Last Supper with his Apostles, where he had appeared
to them risen; that room which had become, so to speak, the “headquarters” of
the nascent Church (see Acts 1: 13). The Acts of the Apostles, however, rather
than insisting on the physical place, intend to point out the inner attitude of
the disciples: “All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer” (Acts
1: 14). Harmony among the disciples is thus the condition for the coming of the
Holy Spirit; and a presupposition of harmony is prayer.
Dear brothers
and sisters, this also applies to the Church today, it applies to us, who are
gathered here. If we want to prevent Pentecost from being reduced to a mere
rite or even an evocative commemoration but want it to be an actual event of
salvation, we must prepare ourselves in devout expectation for the gift of God
through humble and silent listening to his Word. Since Pentecost is renewed in
our time, perhaps taking nothing from the freedom of God the Church should
concentrate less on activities and be more dedicated to prayer. The Mother of
the Church, Mary Most Holy, Bride of the Holy Spirit, teaches us this. This
year Pentecost falls on the very last day of May on which the Feast of the
Visitation is normally celebrated. That too was a sort of miniature “pentecost”
which caused joy and praise to well up in the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary, one
barren and the other a virgin, who both became mothers through an extraordinary
divine intervention (see Lk 1: 41-45). The music and singing that accompany
this liturgy help us likewise to be with one accord devoted to prayer, and for
this I express my deep gratitude to the Cathedral Choir and the Kammerorchester
of Cologne .
Joseph Haydn’s Harmoniemesse has very appropriately been chosen for this
liturgy on the bicentenary of his death, the last of the “Masses” composed by
the great musician and a sublime symphony to the glory of God. I address my
most cordial greeting to all of you who are gathered here on this occasion.
In the account
of Pentecost the Acts of the Apostles uses two important images to indicate the
Holy Spirit: the image of the storm and the image of fire. Clearly, St Luke has
in mind the theophany of Sinai, recounted in the Books of Exodus (19: 16-19)
and Deuteronomy (4: 10-12, 36). In the ancient world the storm was seen as a
sign of divine power, before which man felt subjugated and terrified. However, I
would like to emphasize another aspect too: the storm is described as a “mighty
wind” and this makes one think of the air which distinguishes our planet from
the other stars and enables us to live on it. What air is for biological life,
the Holy Spirit is for spiritual life; and just as an atmospheric pollution
exists that poisons the environment and living beings, thus a pollution of
heart and spirit exists that mortifies and poisons spiritual life. In the same
way that one must not become inured to the poisons in the air and for this
reason ecological commitment is a priority today likewise one must not become
inured to what corrupts the mind. On the other hand it seems that it is not
difficult to become accustomed to the many products that contaminate both the
mind and the heart and that circulate in our society for example, images which
boost pleasure, violence or contempt for men and women. This is also freedom,
people say, without realizing that all this pollutes, and intoxicates the mind,
especially that of the new generations and moreover ends by conditioning their
very freedom. The metaphor of the mighty wind of Pentecost makes one think
instead of how precious it is to breathe clean air, physically with the lungs
and spiritually with the heart, the healthy air of the Spirit who is love!
The other image
of the Holy Spirit which we find in the Acts of the Apostles is fire. I
mentioned at the beginning the comparison between Jesus and the mythological
figure of Prometheus which recalls a characteristic aspect of modern man. In
possessing himself of the energies of the cosmos “fire” the human being seems
today to assert himself as a god and to wish to transform the world excluding,
setting aside or even rejecting the Creator of the universe. Man no longer
wants to be an image of God but of himself; he declares himself autonomous,
free and adult. Of course, this attitude reveals a relationship with God which
is not authentic, the consequence of a false image which has been fabricated of
him, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel parable who believes that he can
fulfil himself by distancing himself from his father’s house. In the hands of
such a man “fire” and its enormous potential become dangerous: they can
backfire against life and humanity itself, as history unfortunately shows. The
tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , where atomic energy used for the
purposes of war, ended by sowing death on an unheard of scale, serve as a
perennial warning.
It would truly
be possible to find many examples, less grave but equally symptomatic, in
everyday reality. Sacred Scripture reveals to us that the energy capable of
moving the world is not an anonymous and blind force but the action of the “Spirit
of God... moving over the face of the waters” (Gn 1: 2) at the beginning of the
Creation. And Jesus Christ “brought to the earth” not the vital force that
already lived in it but the Holy Spirit, that is, the love of God who “renews
the face of the earth”, purifying it from evil and setting it free from the
dominion of death (see Ps 103[104]: 29-30). This pure, essential and personal “fire”,
the fire of love, came down upon the Apostles gathered in prayer with Mary in
the Upper Room, to make the Church an extension of Christ’s work of renewal.
Lastly, a final
thought may also be found in the account of the Acts of the Apostles: the Holy
Spirit overcomes fear. We know that the disciples sought shelter in the Upper
Room after the arrest of their Lord and that they had remained isolated for
fear of suffering the same fate. After Jesus’ Resurrection their fear was not
suddenly dispelled. But here at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit rested upon
them, those men emerged fearless and began to proclaim the Good News of the
Crucified and Risen Christ to all. They were not afraid because they felt they
were in the hands of the strongest One. Yes, dear brothers and sisters,
wherever the Spirit of God enters he puts fear to flight; he makes us know and
feel that we are in the hands of an Omnipotence of love: something happens, his
infinite love does not abandon us. It is demonstrated by the witness of
martyrs, by the courage of confessors of the faith, by the undaunted zeal of
missionaries, by the frankness of preachers, by the example of all the saints,
even some who were adolescents and children. It is demonstrated by the very
existence of the Church which, despite the limitations and sins of men and
women, continues to cross the ocean of history, blown by the breath of God and
enlivened by his purifying fire. With this faith and joyful hope let us repeat
today, through the intercession of Mary: “Send forth your Spirit, O Lord,
and renew the face of the earth”.
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST
BENEDICT
XVI
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 23 May 2010
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Fifty days after
Easter we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost,
in which we recall the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit,
who as wind and as fire descended upon the Apostles gathered together in the
Upper Room, and enabled them to preach the Gospel to all nations with courage (see
Acts 2: 1-13). The mystery of Pentecost, which we rightly identify with the
event of the Church’s true “baptism”, is not, however, exhausted by this. The
Church in fact lives constantly from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, without
which she would exhaust her own strength, like a sailboat without the wind.
Pentecost is renewed in a special way in certain powerful moments, whether this
be at the local or the universal level, whether it be in small assemblies or in
large ones. The Councils, for example, had sessions graced by special
outpourings of the Holy Spirit, and among these is certainly the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council. We might also recall that famous meeting of the ecclesial
movements with Venerable John Paul II,
here in St Peter’s Square, precisely on Pentecost in 1998. But the
Church knows countless “pentecosts” that vivify the local communities. Let us
think of the liturgies, particularly those experienced in special moments of
the community’s life, in which the power of God is perceived in an evident way,
infusing joy and enthusiasm in hearts. We may think of many other prayer
gatherings in which young people clearly feel the call of God to root their
lives in his love, even consecrating themselves entirely to him.
Thus there is no
Church without Pentecost. And I would like to add that there is no Pentecost
without the Virgin Mary. This is how it was at the beginning, in the Upper
Room, where the disciples “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together
with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”, as the Acts
of the Apostles says (1: 14). And this is how it always is, in every place
and in every time. I witnessed it a short time ago at Fatima .
What did that great multitude on the square in front of the Shrine experience,
where we were truly all of one heart and one soul? It was a renewed Pentecost.
In our midst was Mary, the Mother of Jesus. This is the typical experience at
the great Marian sanctuaries Lourdes , Guadalupe,
Pompeii , Loreto
or even in the smaller ones. Wherever Christians gather in prayer with Mary,
the Lord grants his Spirit.
Dear friends, on
this Feast of Pentecost, we too would like to be spiritually united with the
Mother of Christ and of the Church, faithfully invoking a renewed outpouring of
the Paraclete. We invoke this for the whole Church, in particular, in this Year
for Priests, for all the ministers of the Gospel, that the message of salvation
be proclaimed to all the nations.
HOLY MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF
PENTECOST
HOMILY OF HIS
HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
St Peter’s Basilica, Sunday, 23 May
2010
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the solemn celebration of
Pentecost we are invited to profess our faith in the presence and in the action
of the Holy Spirit and to invoke his outpouring upon us, upon the Church and
upon the whole world. With special intensity, let us make our own the Church’s
invocation: Veni, Sancte Spiritus! It is such a simple and spontaneous
invocation, yet also extraordinarily profound, which came first of all from the
heart of Christ. The Spirit is indeed the gift that Jesus asked and continues
to ask of his Father for his friends; the first and principal gift that he
obtained for us through his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.
Today’s Gospel passage, which has
the Last Supper as its context, speaks to us of this prayer of Christ. The Lord
Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, to be with
you for ever” (Jn 14: 15-16). Here the praying heart of Jesus is revealed to
us, his filial and fraternal heart. This prayer reaches its apex and its
fulfilment on the Cross, where Christ’s invocation is one with the total gift
that he makes of himself, and thus his prayer becomes, so to speak, the very
seal of his self-gift out of love of the Father and humanity. Invocation and
donation of the Holy Spirit meet, they permeate each other, they become one
reality. “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor,
to be with you for ever”. In reality, Jesus’ prayers that of the Last Supper
and that on the Cross form a single prayer that continues even in heaven, where
Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. Jesus, in fact, always lives his
intercessional priesthood on behalf of the people of God and humanity and so
prays for all of us, asking the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The account of Pentecost in the Book
of the Acts of the Apostles we listened to it in the First Reading (see
Acts 2: 1-11) presents the “new course” of the work that God began with Christ’s
Resurrection, a work that involves mankind, history and the cosmos. The Son of
God, dead and Risen and returned to the Father, now breathes with untold energy
the divine breath upon humanity, the Holy Spirit. And what does this new and
powerful self-communication of God produce? Where there are divisions and
estrangement the Paraclete creates unity and understanding. The Spirit triggers
a process of reunification of the divided and dispersed parts of the human
family. People, often reduced to individuals in competition or in conflict with
each other, when touched by the Spirit of Christ open themselves to the
experience of communion, which can involve them to such an extent as to make of
them a new body, a new subject: the Church. This is the effect of God’s work:
unity; thus unity is the sign of recognition, the “business card” of the Church
throughout her universal history. From the very beginning, from the Day of
Pentecost, she speaks all languages. The universal Church precedes the
particular Churches, and the latter must always conform to the former according
to a criterion of unity and universality. The Church never remains a prisoner
within political, racial and cultural confines; she cannot be confused with
States nor with Federations of States, because her unity is of a different type
and aspires to transcend every human frontier.
From this, dear brothers, derives a
practical criterion for discerning Christian life: when a person or a community
limits itself to its own way of thinking and acting, it is a sign that it has
distanced itself from the Holy Spirit. The path of Christians and of the
particular Churches must always coincide with the path of the one, catholic
Church, and harmonize with it. This does not mean that the unity created by the
Holy Spirit is a kind of egalitarianism. On the contrary, that is rather the
model of Babel Babel
The account of the Acts of the
Apostles offers us another very concrete indication. The universality of
the Church is expressed by the list of peoples according to the ancient
tradition: We are “Parthians, Medes, Elamites”, etc. Here one may observe that
St Luke goes beyond the number 12, which itself always expresses a
universality. He looks beyond the horizons of Asia and northwest Africa, and
adds three other elements: the “Romans”, that is, the Western world; the “Jews
and proselytes”, encompassing in a new way the unity between Israel
At Pentecost the Holy Spirit is
manifest as fire. The Spirit’s flame descended upon the assembled disciples, it
was kindled in them and gave them the new ardour of God. Thus what Jesus had
previously said was fulfilled: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would
that it were already kindled!” (Lk 12: 49). The Apostles, together with diverse
communities of the faithful, carried this divine flame to the far corners of
the earth. In this way they opened a path for humanity, a luminous path, and
they collaborated with God, who wants to renew the face of the earth with his
fire. How different is this fire from that of war and bombing! How different is
the fire of Christ, spread by the Church, compared with those lit by the
dictators of every epoch of the last century too who leave scorched earth
behind them. The fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is that of the bush
that burned but was not consumed (see Ex 3: 2). It is a flame that blazes but
does not destroy, on the contrary, that, in burning, brings out the better and
truer part of man, as in a fusion it elicits his interior form, his vocation to
truth and to love.
A Father of the Church, Origen, in
one of his Homilies on Jeremiah, cites a saying attributed to Jesus, not
contained in the sacred Scriptures but perhaps authentic, which reads: “Whoever
is near to me, is near to the fire” (Homily on Jeremiah, L. I [III]). In
Christ, in fact, there is the fullness of God, who in the Bible is compared to
fire. We just observed that the flame of the Holy Spirit blazes but does not
burn. And nevertheless it enacts a transformation, and thus must also consume
something in man, the waste that corrupts him and hinders his relations with
God and neighbour. This effect of the divine fire, however, frightens us; we
are afraid of being “scorched” and prefer to stay just as we are. This is
because our life is often based on the logic of having, of possessing and not
the logic of self-gift. Many people believe in God and admire the person of
Jesus Christ, but when they are asked to lose something of themselves, then
they retreat; they are afraid of the demands of faith. There is the fear of
giving up something pleasant to which we are attached; the fear that following
Christ deprives us of freedom, of certain experiences, of a part of ourselves.
On the one hand, we want to be with Jesus, follow him closely, and, on the
other, we are afraid of the consequences entailed.
Dear brothers and sisters, we are
always in need of hearing the Lord Jesus tell us what he often repeated to his
friends: “Be not afraid”. Like Simon Peter and the others we must allow his
presence and his grace to transform our heart, which is always subject to human
weakness. We must know how to recognize that losing something indeed, losing
ourselves for the true God, the God of love and of life is actually gaining
ourselves, finding ourselves more fully. Whoever entrusts himself to Jesus
already experiences in this life the peace and joy of heart that the world
cannot give, and that it cannot even take away once God has given it to us. So
it is worthwhile to let ourselves be touched by the fire of the Holy Spirit!
The suffering that it causes us is necessary for our transformation. It is the
reality of the Cross. It is not without reason that in the language of Jesus “fire”
is above all a representation of the mystery of the Cross, without which
Christianity does not exist. Thus enlightened and comforted by these words of
life, let us lift up our invocation: Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire
of your love! We know that this is a bold prayer, with which we ask to be
touched by God’s flame; but above all we know that this flame and it alone has
the power to save us. We do not want, in defending our life, to lose eternal
life that God wants to give us. We need the fire of the Holy Spirit, because
only Love redeems. Amen.
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST
BENEDICT
XVI
St
Peter’s Square, Sunday, 12 June 2011
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Solemnity of
Pentecost which we are celebrating today concludes the liturgical season of
Easter. In fact, the paschal mystery — the passion, death and resurrection of
Christ and his ascension into Heaven — finds its fulfilment in the powerful
outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles gathered together with Mary,
Mother of the Lord, and the other disciples. It was the “baptism” of the
Church, baptism in the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:5). As the Acts of the Apostles
recount, on the morning of the feast of Pentecost, a noise as of wind burst
into the Upper Room and tongues of fire, as it were, came to rest upon each of
the disciples (see Acts 2:2-3). St Gregory the Great commented: “Today, the
Holy Spirit has come down upon the disciples with an unexpected sound and
changed the minds of carnal beings within his love; and while he appeared
externally in tongues of fire, their hearts blazed within them, because in
receiving God in the vision of fire, they burned gently with love” (Hom. in
Evang. XXX, 1: CCL 141, 256). God’s voice divinized the human language of
the Apostles who were enabled to proclaim the one divine Word in a “polyphonic”
manner. The breath of the Holy Spirit fills the universe, generates faith,
leads to truth, and predisposes people to unity. “At this sound the multitude
came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking
in his own language” of “the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:6,11).
Bl. Antonio
Rosmini explained that “on the day of Christian Pentecost God promulgated… his
law of love, writing it through the Holy Spirit not on stone but in the hearts
of the Apostles, and through the Apostles, subsequently communicating it to the
entire Church” (A Catechism of Christian Doctrine Arranged According to the
Order of Ideas, no. 737, Turin, 1863). The Holy Spirit, “who is the Lord
and Giver of life” — as we say in the Creed — is joined to the Father
through the Son and completes the revelation of the Blessed Trinity. He comes
from God like a breath from his mouth and has the power of sanctifying,
abolishing divisions, dispelling the confusion due to sin. Incorporeal and
immaterial, he lavishes divine goods upon living beings and sustains them so
that they may act in conformity with the good. As an intelligible Light he
gives meaning to prayer, vigour to the evangelizing mission, he makes the
hearts of those who listen to the happy message burn and inspires Christian art
and liturgical music.
Dear friends,
the Holy Spirit who creates faith within us at the moment of our Baptism
enables us to live as children of God, aware and consenting, in accordance with
the image of the Only-Begotten Son. The power to forgive sins is also a gift of
the Holy Spirit; in fact, in appearing to the Apostles on the evening of Easter
Day, Jesus breathed upon them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you
forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven” (Jn 20:22, 23). Let us entrust the
Church to the Virgin Mary, temple of the Holy Spirit, so that she may always
live by Jesus Christ, by his word, by his commandments and, under the perennial
action of the Spirit Paraclete, proclaim to one and all that “Jesus is Lord!”
(1 Cor 12:3).
PAPAL
MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today we are
celebrating the great Solemnity of Pentecost. If, in a certain sense, all the
liturgical solemnities of the Church are important, Pentecost is uniquely so.
This is because, having reached the 50th day, it marks the fulfilment of the
event of the passover, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus through the
gift of the Spirit of the Risen One. In the past few days the Church has prepared
us for Pentecost with her prayer, with her repeated and intense invocation to
God to obtain a fresh outpouring upon us of the Holy Spirit. The Church has
thus relived all that happened at her origins, when the Apostles gathered in
the Upper Room of Jerusalem “with one accord devoted themselves to prayer,
together with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”
(Acts 1:14).
They were
gathered in humble and trusting expectation that the Father’s promise,
announced to them by Jesus, would be fulfilled: “Before many days you shall be
baptized with the Holy Spirit... you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you” (Acts 1:5,8).
In the liturgy
of Pentecost Psalm 104[103], which we have heard, corresponds with the account
in the Acts of the Apostles of the birth of the Church (see Acts 2:1-11): a
hymn of praise of the whole creation which exalts the Creator Spirit who has
made all things with wisdom: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom
you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures…. May the glory of
the Lord endure for ever, may the Lord rejoice in his works” (Ps 104[103]:24,
31). This is what the Church wants to tell us: the Spirit Creator of all things
and the Holy Spirit whom the Lord caused to come down from the Father upon the
community of the disciples are one and the same. Creation and redemption belong
to each other and constitute, in depth, one mystery of love and of salvation.
The Holy Spirit is first and foremost a Creator Spirit, hence Pentecost is also
a feast of creation. For us Christians, the world is the fruit of an act of
love by God who has made all things and in which he rejoices because it is “good”,
it is “very good”, as the creation narrative tells us (see Gen 1:1-31). Consequently
God is not totally Other, unnameable and obscure. God reveals himself, he has a
face. God is reason, God is will, God is love, God is beauty. Faith in the
Creator Spirit and faith in the Spirit whom the Risen Christ gave to the
Apostles and gives to each one of us are therefore inseparably united.
Today’s Second
Reading and Gospel show us this connection. The Holy Spirit is the One who
makes us recognize the Lord in Christ and prompts us to speak the profession of
the Church’s faith: “Jesus is Lord” (see 1 Cor 12:3b). “Lord” is the title
attributed to God in the Old Testament, a title that in the interpretation of
the Bible replaced his unpronounceable name. The Creed of the Church is
nothing other than the development of what we say with this simple affirmation:
“Jesus is Lord”. Concerning this profession of faith St Paul tells us that it is precisely a
matter of the word and work of the Spirit. If we want to be in the Spirit, we
must adhere to this Creed. By making it our own, by accepting it as our word
we gain access to the work of the Holy Spirit. The words “Jesus is Lord” can be
interpreted in two ways. They mean: Jesus is God, and, at the same time: God is
Jesus. The Holy Spirit illuminates this reciprocity: Jesus has divine dignity
and God has the human face of Jesus. God shows himself in Jesus and by doing so
gives us the truth about ourselves. Letting ourselves be enlightened by this
word in the depths of our inmost being is the event of Pentecost. In reciting
the Creed we enter into the mystery of the first Pentecost: a radical
transformation results from the tumult of Babel ,
from those voices yelling at each other: multiplicity becomes a multi-faceted
unity, understanding grows from the unifying power of the Truth. In the Creed
— which unites us from all the corners of the earth and which, through the Holy
Spirit, ensures that we understand each other even in the diversity of
languages — the new community of God’s Church is formed through faith, hope and
love.
The Gospel
passage then offers us a marvellous image to clarify the connection between
Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father: the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the
breath of the Risen Jesus Christ (see Jn 20:22). Here the Evangelist John takes
up an image of the creation narrative, where it says that God breathed into the
nostrils of man the breath of life (see Gen 2:7). The breath of God is life.
Now, the Lord breathes into our soul the new breath of life, the Holy Spirit,
his most intimate essence, and in this way welcomes us into God’s family. With
Baptism and Confirmation this gift was given to us specifically, and with the
sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance it is continuously repeated: the Lord
breathes a breath of life into our soul. All the sacraments, each in its own
way, communicate divine life to human beings, thanks to the Holy Spirit who
works within them.
In today’s
liturgy we perceive another connection. The Holy Spirit is Creator, he is at
the same time the Spirit of Jesus Christ, but in such a way that the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. And in the light of the First Reading
we may add: the Holy Spirit gives life to the Church. She is not born from the
human will, from man’s reflection, from his ability or from his organizational
capacity, if this were so she would have ceased to exist long ago, as happens
with all that is human. Instead the Church is the body of Christ, enlivened by
the Holy Spirit. The images of wind and fire, used by St Luke to portray the
coming of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:2-3), evoke Sinai, where God revealed
himself to the People of Israel and granted it his Covenant. “Mount
Sinai was wrapped in smoke”, we read in the Book of Exodus, “because
the Lord descended upon it in fire” (19:18). Indeed Israel
celebrated the 50th day after the Passover, after the commemoration of the
flight from Egypt ,
as the feast of Sinai, the feast of the Covenant. When St Luke speaks of
tongues of fire to represent the Holy Spirit, this Old Covenant is called to
mind, established on the basis of the Law received by Israel on Sinai. Thus the event of
Pentecost is represented as a new Sinai, as the gift of a new Covenant in which
the Covenant with Israel was extended to all the peoples of the earth, in which
all the barriers fall from the old Law and its heart appears holier and more
unchangeable; in other words as love, which the Holy Spirit himself
communicates and spreads, a love that embraces all things. At the same time the
Law is expanded, it is opened, even though it becomes simpler: it is the New
Covenant which the Spirit “writes” in the hearts of all who believe in Christ.
The extension of the Covenant to all the peoples of the earth is represented by
St Luke with a list of peoples, that is considerably long for that epoch (see
Acts 2:9-11). With this we are told something most important: that the Church
was catholic from the very outset, that her universality is not the result of
the successive inclusion of various communities. Indeed, from the first moment
the Holy Spirit created her as the Church of all peoples; she embraces the
whole world, surmounts all distinctions of race, class and nation; tears down
all barriers and brings people together in the profession of the triune God.
Since the beginning the Church has been one, catholic and apostolic: this is
her true nature and must be recognized as such. She is not holy because of her
members’ ability but because God himself, with his Spirit, never ceases to
create her, purify her and sanctify her.
Lastly, today’s
Gospel presents these beautiful words to us: “the disciples were glad when they
saw the Lord” (Jn 20:20). These words are profoundly human. The Friend lost is
present once again and those who were formerly distraught rejoice. But it says
far more. For the lost Friend did not come from just anywhere but from the
night of death; and he passed through it! He is not just anyone; indeed he is
the Friend and at the same time the One who is the Truth that gives life to men
and women; and what he gives is not just any kind of joy but joy itself, a gift
of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is beautiful to live because I am loved and it is
the Truth who loves me. The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Today,
at Pentecost, these words are also addressed to us, because in faith we can see
him. In faith he comes among us and to us too he shows his hands and his side
and we are glad. Therefore let us pray: Lord, show yourself! Make us the gift
of your presence and we shall have the most beautiful gift: your joy. Amen!
SOLEMNITY
OF PENTECOST
BENEDICT
XVI
St
Peter’s Square
Dear Brothers and
Sisters,
Today
we celebrate the great Feast of Pentecost, which brings the Easter Season to a
close, 50 days after the Sunday of the Resurrection. This Solemnity makes us
remember and relive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and the
other disciples gathered in prayer with the Virgin Mary in the Upper Room (see
Acts 2:1-11). Jesus, risen and ascended into Heaven, sent his Spirit to the
Church so that every Christian might participate in his own divine life and
become his valid witness in the world. The Holy Spirit, breaking into history,
defeats aridity, opens hearts to hope, stimulates and fosters in us an interior
maturity in our relationship with God and with our neighbour.
The
Spirit, who “has spoken through the prophets”, with the gifts of wisdom and
knowledge continues to inspire women and men who engage in the pursuit of
truth, offering original ways of understanding and of delving into the mystery
of God, of man and of the world. In this context, I am delighted to announce
that on 7 October, at the start of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of
Bishops, I will proclaim St John of Avila and St Hildegard of Bingen Doctors of
the universal Church. These two great witnesses of the faith lived in two very
different historical periods and cultural environments. Hildegard was a
Benedictine nun in the heart of medieval Germany , an authentic teacher of
theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music. John, a diocesan
priest in the years of the Spanish Renaissance, shared in the travail of the
cultural and religious renewal of the Church and of all society at the dawn of
modern times. But the sanctity of their life and the profundity of their
doctrine render them perennially relevant: the grace of the Holy Spirit, in
fact, projected them into the experience of penetrating understanding of divine
revelation and intelligent dialogue with that world which constitutes the
eternal horizon of the life and action of the Church.
Especially
in light of the project for a new evangelization, to which the Assembly of the
Synod of Bishops, mentioned above will be dedicated on the eve of the Year of
Faith, these two Saints and Doctors are of considerable and timely importance.
Even today, through their teaching, the Spirit of the Risen Lord continues to
resonate his voice and illuminate the way which leads to the Truth that alone
can set us free and give full meaning to our lives.
Praying
the Regina Caeli together — for the last time this year — let us invoke the
intercession of the Virgin Mary that the Church may be powerfully animated by
the Holy Spirit, in order to witness to Christ’s Gospel with evangelical
honesty and to open herself ever more to the fullness of truth.
PAPAL
MASS ON THE SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Papal
Chapel, Sunday, 27 May 2012
Dear
brothers and sisters,
I am happy to celebrate this Holy Mass with you – a Mass
animated by the Choir of the Academy
of Santa Cecilia
This morning I want to reflect on an essential aspect of
the mystery of Pentecost, which maintains all its importance in our own day as
well. Pentecost is the feast of human unity, understanding and sharing.We can
all see how in our world, despite us being closer to one another through
developments in communications, with geographical distances seeming to
disappear – understanding and sharing among people is often superfical and
difficult. There are imbalances that frequently lead to conflicts; dialogue
between generations is hard and differences sometimes prevail; we witness daily
events where people appear to be growing more aggressive and belligerent;
understanding one another takes too much effort and people prefer to remain
inside their own sphere, cultivating their own interests. In this situation,
can we really discover and experience the unity we so need?
The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles,
which we heard in the first reading, is set against a background that contains
one of the last great frescoes of the Old Testament: the ancient story of the
construction of the Tower
of Babel Babel
This biblical story contains an eternal truth: we see
this truth throughout history and in our own time as well. Progress and science
have given us the power to dominate the forces of nature, to manipulate the
elements, to reproduce living things, almost to the point of manufacturing
humans themselves. In this situation, praying to God appears outmoded,
pointless, because we can build and create whatever we want. We don’t realise we
are reliving the same experience as Babel
The answer lies in Sacred Scripture: unity can only exist
as a gift of God’s Spirit, which will give us a new heart and a new tongue, a
new ability to communicate. This is what happened at Pentecost. On that morning,
fifty days after Easter, a powerful wind blew over Jerusalem
But let’s look at today’s Gospel in which Jesus affirms: “When
he comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to the whole truth”. Speaking
about the Holy Spirit, Jesus is explaining to us what the Church is and how she
must live in order to be herself, to be the place of unity and comunion in
Truth; he tells us that acting like Christians means not being closed inside
our own spheres, but opening ourselves towards others; it means welcoming the
whole Church within ourselves or, better still, allowing the Church to welcome
us. So, when I speak, think and act like a Christian, I don’t stay closed off
within myself – but I do so in everything and starting from everything: thus
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of unity and truth, can continue to resonate in
people’s hearts and minds, encouraging them to meet and welcome one another.
Precisely because it acts in this way, the Spirit introduces us to the whole
truth, who is Jesus, and guides us to examine and understand it. We do not grow
in understanding by closing ourselves off inside ourselves, but only by
becoming capable of listening and sharing, in the “ourselves” of the Church,
with an attitude of deep personal humility. Now it’s clearer why Babel is Babel
The contrast between Babel St Paul St Paul Babel
Dear friends, we must live according to the Spirit of
unity and truth, and this is why we must pray for the Spirit to enlighten and
guide us to overcome the temptation to follow our own truths, and to welcome
the truth of Christ transmitted in the Church. Luke’s account of Pentecost
tells us that, before rising to heaven, Jesus asked the Apostles to stay
together and to prepare themselves to receive the Holy Spirit. And they
gathered together in prayer with Mary in the Upper Room and awaited the
promised event.
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Book by Orestes J. González
