VATICAN - Pope at Regina Caeli speaks on the Holy Spirit, “who at Pentecost descended upon the nascent Church and made it missionary, sending it to proclaim to all peoples the victory of divine love over sin and death,” and especially recalls “ecclesial communities that suffer persecution for Christ's name”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “The Church throughout the world relives to today the Solemnity of Pentecost, the mystery of her own birth, of her own 'baptism' in the Holy Spirit, which took place in Jerusalem, 50 days after Easter, precisely on the Jewish feast of Pentecost,” said Benedict XVI, prior to the recitation of the Regina Caeli with faithful gathered in Saint Peter's Square on May 31. “The Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son created the universe, guided the history of the people of Israel and spoke through the prophets, who in the fullness of time cooperated in our redemption, who at Pentecost descended upon the nascent Church and made it missionary, sending it to proclaim to all peoples the victory of divine love over sin and death.”
The Holy Father highlighted that “the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church,” which without Him “would certainly be a great historical movement, a complex and solid social institution, perhaps a kind of humanitarian agency...In reality, however, in its true nature and also in its most authentic historical presence, the Church is unceasingly formed and guided by the Spirit of the Lord. It is a living body, whose vitality is precisely the invisible divine Spirit.”
This year, the Solemnity of Pentecost falls on the last day of the month of May, in which we normally celebrate the Marian feast of the Visitation of Our Lady to Saint Elizabeth, the Pope mentioned. He continued, saying: “The young Mary, who carried Jesus in her womb and, forgetting herself, goes to help her neighbor, is a stupendous icon of the Church in the perennial youth of the Spirit, of the missionary Church of the Incarnate Word, called to bring this Word to the world and to testify to him especially in the service of charity.”
Benedict XVI then invoked the intercession of Mary Most Holy, “that the Church in our time may be powerfully strengthened by the Holy Spirit” and that “the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit is felt in a special way by the ecclesial communities that suffer persecution for Christ's name, so that, participating in his sufferings, they receive the Holy Spirit in the abundance of glory.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 1/6/2009)