Pope Francis delivered his homily from a wheelchair in front of the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica on June 5, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 5, 2022 / 05:30 am (CNA).
Here is the full text of Pope Francis’ homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost 2022, which was celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 5, 2022.
In the final words of the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus says something that can offer us hope and make us think. He tells his disciples: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all I have said to you (Jn 14:26). “Everything,” “all” – these words are striking; they make us wonder: how does the Spirit give this new and full understanding to those who receive him? It is not about quantity, or an academic question: God does not want to make us encyclopedias or polymaths. No. It is a question of quality, perspective, perception. The Spirit makes us see everything in a new way, with the eyes of Jesus. I would put it this way: in the great journey of life, the Spirit teaches us where to begin, what paths to take, and how to walk.
First, where to begin. The Spirit points out to us the starting point of the spiritual life. What is it? Jesus speaks of it in the first verse of the Gospel, when he says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (v. 15). If you love me, you will keep … this is the “logic” of the Spirit. We tend to think the exact opposite: if we keep the commandments, we will love Jesus. We tend to think that love comes from our keeping, our fidelity and our devotion. Yet the Spirit reminds us that without love as our basis, all the rest is in vain. And that love comes not so much from our abilities, but as his gift. He teaches us to love and we have to ask for this gift. The Spirit of love pours love into our hearts, he makes us feel loved and he teaches us how to love. He is the “motor” of our spiritual lives. He set it in motion within us. But if we do not begin from the Spirit, or with the Spirit or through the Spirit, we will get nowhere.
The Spirit himself reminds us of this, because he is the memory of God, the one who brings to our minds all that Jesus has said (cf. v. 26). The Holy Spirit is an active memory; he constantly rekindles the love of God in our hearts. We have experienced his presence in the forgiveness of our sins, in moments when we are filled with his peace, his freedom and his consolation. It is essential to cherish this spiritual memory. We always remember the things that go wrong; we listen to the voice within us that reminds us of our failures and failings, the voice that keeps saying: “Look, yet another failure, yet another disappointment. You will never succeed; you cannot do it.” This is a terrible thing to be told. Yet the Holy Spirit tells us something completely different. He reminds us: “Have you fallen? You are a son or daughter of God. You are a unique, elect, precious and beloved child. Even when you lose confidence in yourself, God has confidence in you!” This is the “memory” of the Spirit, what the Spirit constantly reminds us: God knows you. You may forget about God, but he does not forget about you. He remembers you always.
You, however, may well object: these are nice words, but I have problems, hurts and worries that cannot be removed by facile words of comfort! Yet that is precisely where the Holy Spirit asks you to let him in. Because he, the Consoler, is the Spirit of healing, of resurrection, who can transform the hurts burning within you. He teaches us not to harbor the memory of all those people and situations that have hurt us, but to let him purify those memories by his presence. That is what he did with the apostles and their failures. They had deserted Jesus before the Passion; Peter had denied him; Paul had persecuted Christians. We too think of our own mistakes. How many of them, and so much guilt! Left to themselves, they had no way out. Left to themselves, no. But with the Comforter, yes. Because the Spirit heals memories. How? By putting at the top of the list the thing that really matters: the memory of God’s love, his loving gaze. In this way, he sets our lives in order. He teaches us to accept one another, to forgive one another and to forgive ourselves; he teaches us to be reconciled with the past. And to set out anew.
In addition to reminding us where to begin, the Spirit teaches us what paths to take. We see this in the second reading, where Saint Paul explains that those “led by the Spirit of God” (Rom 8:14) “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v. 4). The Spirit, at every crossroads in our lives, suggests to us the best path to follow. It is important, then, to be able to distinguish his voice from the voice of the spirit of evil. Both speak to us: we need to learn to distinguish the voice of the Spirit, to be able to recognize that voice and follow its lead, to follow the things he tells us.
Let us consider some examples. The Holy Spirit will never tell you that on your journey everything is going just fine. He will never tell you this, because it isn’t true. No, he corrects you; he makes you weep for your sins; he pushes you to change, to fight against your lies and deceptions, even when that calls for hard work, interior struggle and sacrifice. Whereas the evil spirit, on the contrary, pushes you to always do what you want, what you find pleasing. He makes you think that you have the right to use your freedom any way you want. Then, once you are left feeling empty inside – it is bad, this feeling of emptiness inside, many of us have felt it – and when you are left feeling empty inside, he blames you and casts you down. He blames you, becomes the accuser. He throws you down, destroys you. The Holy Spirit, correcting you along the way, never leaves you lying on the ground, never. He takes you by the hand, comforts you and constantly encourages you.
Then again, whenever you feel troubled by bitterness, pessimism and negativity – how many times have we fallen into this! – then it is good to remember that these things never come from the Holy Spirit. Bitterness, pessimism, sad thoughts, these never come from the Holy Spirit. They come from evil, which is at home with negativity. It often uses this strategy: it stokes impatience and self-pity, and with self-pity the need to blame others for all our problems. It makes us edgy, suspicious, and querulous. Complaining is the language of the evil spirit; he wants to make you complain, to be gloomy, to put on a funeral face. The Holy Spirit on the other hand urges us never to lose heart and always to start over again. He always encourages you to get up. He takes you by the hand and says: “Get up!” How do we do that? By jumping right in, without waiting for someone else. And by spreading hope and joy, not complaints; never envying others, never — envy is the door through which the evil spirit enters. The Bible tells us this: by the envy of the devil, evil entered the world. So never be envious! — but the Holy Spirit brings you goodness; he leads you to rejoice in the success of others.
The Holy Spirit is practical, he is not an idealist. He wants us to concentrate on the here and now, because the time and place in which we find ourselves are themselves grace-filled. These are concrete times and places of grace, here and now. That is where the Holy Spirit is leading us. The spirit of evil, however, would pull us away from the here and now, and put us somewhere else. Often he anchors us to the past: to our regrets, our nostalgia, our disappointments. Or else he points us to the future, fueling our fears, illusions and false hopes. But not the Holy Spirit. The Spirit leads us to love, concretely, here and now, not an ideal world or an ideal Church, an ideal religious congregation, but the real ones, as they are, seen in broad light of day, with transparency and simplicity. How very different from the evil one, who foments gossip and idle chatter. Idle chatter is a nasty habit; it destroys a person’s identity.
The Holy Spirit wants us to be together; he makes us Church and today – here is the third and final aspect – he teaches the Church how to walk. The disciples were cowering in the Upper Room; the Spirit then came down and made them go forth. Without the Spirit, they were alone, by themselves, huddled together. With the Spirit, they were open to all. In every age, the Spirit overturns our preconceived notions and opens us to his newness. God, the Spirit, is always new! He constantly teaches the Church the vital importance of going forth, impelled to proclaim the Gospel. The importance of our being, not a secure sheepfold, but an open pasture where all can graze on God’s beauty. He teaches us to be an open house without walls of division. The worldly spirit drives us to concentrate on our own problems and interests, on our need to appear relevant, on our strenuous defense of the nation or group to which we belong. That is not the way of the Holy Spirit. He invites us to forget ourselves and to open our hearts to all. In that way, he makes the Church grow young. We need to remember this: the Spirit rejuvenates the Church. Not us and our efforts to dress her up a bit. For the Church cannot be “programmed” and every effort at “modernization” is not enough. The Spirit liberates us from obsession with emergencies. He beckons us to walk his paths, ever ancient and ever new, the paths of witness, poverty and mission, and in this way, he sets us free from ourselves and sends us forth into the world.
And finally, oddly, the Holy Spirit is the author of division, of ruckus, of a certain disorder. Think of the morning of Pentecost: he is the author… he creates division of languages and attitudes… it was a ruckus, that! Yet at the same time, he is the author of harmony. He divides with the variety of charisms, but it is a false division, because true division is part of harmony. He creates division with charisms and he creates harmony with all this division. This is the richness of the Church.
Brothers and sisters, let us sit at the school of the Holy Spirit, so that he can teach us all things. Let us invoke him each day, so that he can remind us to make God’s gaze upon us our starting point, to make decisions by listening to his voice, and to journey together as Church, docile to him and open to the world. Amen.
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@Letter to the Gazette
“Catholics do not oppose abortion for religious reasons” (Fr Ryan Sliwa). That is correct in context of natural law and discovery [discovery of natural law principles in Thomistic terms is the inherent apprehension of the intellect]. Natural law principles are not just religious principles, they are also the basis for justice and civil law.
“Catholics on this topic is very like that of the American mainstream, i.e. a majority is in favor of legal abortion, at least in most cases. The natural law tradition to which Fr. Sliwa refers is honorable and interesting, but by no means philosophically mandatory” (follow-up letter by John M. Connolly).
From a Catholic perspective Connolly ignores the fact that natural law is the basis of most juridical findings of right and wrong. Nor does the former professor acknowledge that natural law is the basis for moral law and religious doctrine. That most Catholics reject Church teaching [perhaps wrongly dismissed by Fr Sliwa] doesn’t remove the efficacy of Church doctrine based on natural law [the principles of natural law are apprehended through reasoned observation] as well as revelation.
For Catholics, Connolly’s unfortunate but correct view that most Catholics are not opposed to abortion – based on their refusal to obey the Church, their reliance on their own concepts of scientific knowledge, an indiscriminate libertarian idea of the common good is an apostasy from the truth that begs chastisement. If Sodom was destroyed for homosexuality by fire from heaven, how greater the wrath of God for those who sacrifice their own infants in their idolatry to material goods, that is, to the prince of this world? Unless our bishops take a necessary, courageous stand, Catholics [seemingly a majority] are destined for retribution.
The Continental Stage (#2 re Synodality)…Hurray, we have 26 “experts! We are all saved!
But, what’s the difference, if any, between these experts “compiling, aggregating, and now synthesizing” the synodal Plebiscite and, say, a low-cost kitchen blender? Of the synodal flip charts, no questions asked?
Who needs Successors of the Apostles when we can have—all kiss their ring now, or whatever–“experts!” But the article is dated Nov. 22, so we must ask and even hope that the more recent and striking remarks from Cardinal Quelette and even Pope Francis (below) might signal some kind of redirection? Or not?
A jaundiced eye might notice that Quelette (and Cardinal Ladaria Ferrer) are both over the age of retirement, and now fear that upstarts Grech and Hollerich are now positioned/ postured to replace even their dicastery offices and the Deposit of Faith with the new dispensation of 2023/24—that the ambulatory synodal process itself IS the message?
Lemming pie, anyone?
In the resurgent and anti-Christian, syncretic and natural religion of Islam, such a “paradigm shift” is well entrenched and called “abrogation.” The totally inscrutable God is simply incoherent. So, now, within the collapsing/relapsing walls of the Vatican, are the good guys winning, or not? Consult the “facilitator” bishops, subservient now to anointed/ascendant “experts”!
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/11/28/return-to-the-spirit-of-the-acts-of-the-apostles/
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/11/28/pope-francis-explains-to-america-magazine-why-women-cannot-be-ordained-priests/
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/11/28/pope-francis-jesus-did-not-create-bishops-conferences/
Liberalism and Religion (#1: symposium on Liberalism, Religion and Constitutionalism): I am reminded of a presentation and discussion yours truly delivered at a Newman Center, after which I sat with an Islamic barrister from Pakistan, a graduate student on scholarship studying western Constitutionalism (!)…
In the medical world an MRI image is sharpened by first adding high-contrast dye to the patient. In retrospect, and at the risk of preening, I propose that I added dye to the triangular theme of the Notre Dame Conference. The title of my subject book was/is: “Beyond Secularism and Jihad: A Triangular Inquiry into the Mosque [religion], the Manger [religion, but very different] & Modernity” [Liberalism and Constitutionalism, both very different] (University Press of America, 2012).
What do the distinction between Church and State, and then Catholic Social Teaching, have to say to both the rationalism of radical Secularism and the fideism of radical Sharia Law? Better than monologue or even dialogue is the three-way approach again open to the historical fact of the Incarnation. The 2017 CWR author-interview gives a peek. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/04/29/the-mosque-the-manger-and-modernity/
But there are – can be – circumstances when a Catholic must resist abortion on grounds of religion.
Bringing it to your attention. This would apply to all Natural Law issues and it demands vigilance.
Ultimately, the local is managing the Synod. The “Continental Phase” helps to add things to his bucket.
My bishop said this past week that it’s not the numbers that count so much in the responses to the recent parish survey; rather, he is noticing that “when the ‘ parish synthesis ‘ is read back to the parishoners” or “to the parish” it is being absorbed and accepted enthusiastically, everywhere.
He said that it’s a choice that has to be made between maturing into inclusivity and dialoguing or excluding yourself through “egotism and wilfulness”; and that his experience is that the Synod is progressing with very positive development according to this mode. People are understanding it for what it is.
“None of the surveys returned complained that what is going on is questionable. All submissions were along the lines of people acknowledging this or that; and adding, but this also.”
I have to relate some background, though. Over the past 15 years the Life in the Spirit Seminar has taken over the forefront in many if not all parishes. It has a central control of which the bishop was a part before he became bishop. To them all this is not merely normal, it is the Holy Spirit in every instant; and in every instant, extraordinary and miraculous. It’s not “inclusivity” or “dialogue”.
Liberalism
Has everyone watched the EWTN video on the ‘Liberal’ ‘Progressive’ ‘Democrats’?
EWTN’s ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ video will show you how the, ‘Liberal’ ‘Progressive’ ‘Democrats’ infiltrated the Catholic Church to destroy the Catholic Church. The Progressives started after WWI and have grown to become 800 covert organizations world wide, with the goal to destroy Christ’s Church. The Progressives have many operatives at top positions of power in our Catholic Church today.
https://youtu.be/ZnKB9NzgD4k
@ At Four Types of Theology.
David Schloss’ introductory premise is that the existence of God is virtually self evident knowledge according to Aristotle’s first principles. We simply need to contemplate existence to realize this. No need to prove, that came later with skepticism.
Either something is self evident or it’s not. Contemplation of existence can mean anything, here, most likely reasoned enquiry. God is known through reason exactly as the Apostle argues in Rm 1. That is why God gave us an intellect. Whereas the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth is not arrived at by reason, rather by faith. Faith that is the gift of grace. A supreme truth to which all other principles or truths are peripheral. Self evident as revealed to the intellect, lesser or subsidiary principles support this supreme truth as the measure of reason. The truth of Christ’s revelation of the Father, God is the rule to which reason acquiesces. That is why Catholicism teaches it is only in and through Christ that we know God.
All theology including the four ‘types’ of theology Systematic, Biblical, Historical, Practical are better served with the appreciation that all theology has its root and anchor in Christ’s singular revelation of God the Father.
Thank you, Father, for your response. I greatly appreciate your criticism and feedback.
God Bless.