Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In St Peter’s Square in the early evening of Saturday June 3 the eve of Pentecost, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI presided the celebration of the 1st Vespers of Pentecost with an estimated three hundred thousand representatives of Church Movements and new Communities. The Holy Father was welcomed to this 2nd encounter of the Pope with Church Movements and new Communities by Archbishop Stanisław Ryłko president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. There followed the reading of a message from Chiara Lubich, foundress of the Focolari Movement and in between each of the three psalms reflections were given by two other Movement founders Andrea Riccardi, S. Egidio Community and Kiko Argüello, New Catechumen Way and Mgr. Julián Carrón, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation. After the Scripture reading the Pope gave his homily during which he did not fail to mention the first such Meeting with John Paul II on 30 May 1998 in the same St Peter’s Square.
“Who or what is the Holy Spirit? How can we recognise Him? How can we reach Him and how does He reach us? What does He do?” Pope Benedict XVI asked and then explained “the world in which we live is the work of the Spirit Creator … Pentecost is also the feast of creation. The world does not exist on its own; it comes from the creative Spirit of God, from the creative Word of God... Precisely people who, as Christians, believe in the Spirit Creator, realise that we cannot not use and abuse the world and matter as if it were simply material of our doing and willing; that we must consider creation as a gift entrusted to us not for it to be destroyed but so it may become the garden of God, and so the garden of mankind … however, God’s good creation in the course of human history has been covered with a massive layer of dirt which makes it difficult although not impossible to recognise it in the reflection of the Creator”.
The Spirit Creator entered history because “in Jesus Christ God became man allowing us, so to say, to look into the intimate life of God, … there exists the Son who speaks with the Father. Both are one in the Spirit who is, so to say, the atmosphere of giving and loving which makes of them One God. This unity of love, that is God, is a unity much more sublime than the unity of the tiniest indivisible particle could ever be. Precisely the Triune God is the one and only God.”
“Pentecost is this: Jesus, and through Him, God, comes to us and draws us into Himself” the Pope said explaining that “the Holy Spirit brings us life and freedom”. Reflecting closely on both these things the Pope recalled the parable of the Prodigal Son, and said “when a person tries only to take possession of life it becomes ever more empty and impoverished; it is easy to end up taking refuge in drugs, in the great disillusion. And there emerges the doubt whether life, all told, is really good … Jesus’ words about life in abundance are found in his discourse on the Good Shepherd… We find life only if we give it; we do not find it by trying to take possession of it … secondly the Lord tells us that life is born if we walk with the Shepherd who knows the pastures...we find life in communion with the One who is life in person...... the pasture, where the sources of life flow, is God’s Word which we find in Scripture, in the faith of the Church”.
With regard to the subject of freedom, the Pope explained that in Sacred Scripture the concept is connected with that of offspring. “Authentic freedom shows itself in responsibility, in a manner of behaviour which assumes co-responsibility for the world, for oneself and for others.... the Holy Spirit renders us sons and daughters of God. He involves us in God’s own responsibility for his world, for the whole of humanity. He teaches us to see the world, others, ourselves through the eyes of God. We do good not like slaves who are not free to do otherwise, we do it because we each bear personal responsibility for the whole; because we love truth and good, because we love God and therefore also His creatures. This is the true freedom, to which the Holy Spirit wishes to lead us. Church Movements want to be and must be schools of freedom, of this authentic freedom.”
The third gift of the Holy Spirit, following life and freedom, is the gift of unity. To illustrate this concept the Pope quoted the answer Jesus gave to Nicodemus: "The wind blows where it wills" (Jn 3, 8). “But the will of the Spirit is not arbitrary - Pope Benedict XVI explained -. It is the will of truth and good. So He does not blow from any side, turning first here and then there; His blowing does not disperse us, it gathers us together because truth unites and love unites... The Spirit blows where He wills and His will is unity become body, unity which encounters the world and transforms it …The Spirit is multiform in His gifts- the Pope continued -. But in Him multiplicity and unity go hand in hand… He wants you to be multiform, and he wants you for one body, in unison with lasting orders- the joints - of the Church, with the successors of the apostles and with the successor of Saint Peter… Once again: the Holy Spirit blows where he wills. But his will is unity.”
“The Holy Spirit desires unity, totality- the Pope continued - . Therefore His presence shows itself especially in missionary impulse. A person who finds something true, beautiful and good in life - the only real treasure, the precious pearl -, runs to share it with everyone, everywhere in the family, at work, in every area of his or her existence. He does so without fear because he knows he has been adopted as a child; without presumption, because everything is a gift; without discouragement because the Spirit of God precedes his action in the ‘hearts’ of men and women and like a seed in all the different cultures and religions. He does this without frontiers because he bears good news for all men and women, for all peoples”.
Lastly the Holy Father urged Church Movements and Communities to be “collaborators in the Pope’s universal apostolic ministry, opening doors to Christ” and he ended his homily asking those present to pray “that the celebration of Pentecost would be like ardent fire and impetuous wind for Christian life and the mission of the whole Church”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 5/6/2006 - righe 78, parole 1.219)
