VATICAN - Pentecost, Pope Leo: The Holy Spirit gives us the courage to proclaim God's works to everyone

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - "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 neglected or disdained. In the Church there are only free men and women, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ." Pope Leo XVI quoted his predecessor Benedict XVI to emphasize that the Church's mission can only be fulfilled if she allows herself to be constantly animated and renewed by the action of the Holy Spirit. He said this today, Sunday, June 8, during the Solemnity of Pentecost, during which he presided over the Eucharistic liturgy celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica before a crowd of at least 80,000 faithful, including Romans and pilgrims who had come to the city for the Jubilee of movements, associations, and new communities.

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the various borders that the Spirit helps to cross and break down. The experience to look to, the Bishop of Rome suggests, is always that of the apostles, in whose lives the Spirit accomplished "something extraordinary." Following Jesus’ death, "they had retreated behind closed doors, in fear and sadness." Then they encounter the risen Jesus and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who "overcomes their fear, shatters their inner chains, heals their wounds, anoints them with strength and grants them the courage to go out to all and to proclaim God’s mighty works."
The Holy Spirit, the Pontiff recalled, "must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race." "He is the Gift that opens our lives to love," which "breaks down our hardness of heart, our narrowness of mind, our selfishness, the fears that enchain us and the narcissism that makes us think only of ourselves."
The Spirit "opens borders in our relationship with others. Jesus tells us that this Gift is the love between him and the Father that comes to dwell within us. We then become capable of opening our hearts to our brothers and sisters, overcoming our rigidity, moving beyond our fear of those who are different, and mastering the passions that stir within," including the hidden dangers that contaminate relationships. "I think too, with great pain," the Pope added, "of those cases where relationships are marked by an unhealthy desire for domination, an attitude that often leads to violence, as is shown, tragically, by numerous recent cases of femicide."

The Holy Spirit," the Successor of Peter continued, "also opens borders between peoples. At Pentecost, the Apostles spoke the languages of those they met, and the confusion of Babel was finally resolved by the harmony brought about by the Spirit. Whenever God’s “breath” unites our hearts and makes us view others as our brothers and sisters, differences no longer become an occasion for division and conflict but rather a shared patrimony from which we can all draw, and which sets us all on journey together, in fraternity." However, "our world today," Pope Leo emphasized, quoting Pope Francis, "there is so much discord, such great division. We are all ‘connected’, yet find ourselves disconnected from one another, anesthetized by indifference and overwhelmed by solitude." And of all this, "the wars plaguing our world are a tragic sign of this. Let us invoke the Spirit of love and peace," the Pontiff continued, "so that he may open borders, break down walls, dispel hatred and help us to live as children of our one Father who is in heaven." Still in St. Peter's Square, on the afternoon of Saturday, June 7, Pope Leo XIV presided over the Pentecost Vigil with tens of thousands of members of movements, associations, and new communities who had come to Rome to participate in their Jubilee event. "Evangelization," the Pontiff said in his homily during the Vigil, "is not our attempt to conquer the world, but the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the Kingdom of God. It is the way of the Beatitudes, a path that we tread together, between the “already” and the “not yet,” hungering and thirsting for justice, poor in spirit, merciful, meek, pure of heart, men and women of peace." And "Jesus himself chose this path – the Pope added - to follow it, we have no need of powerful patrons, worldly compromises, or emotional strategies. Evangelization is always God’s work. If at times it takes place through us, it is thanks to the bonds that it makes possible. So be deeply attached to each of the particular Churches and parish communities in which you cultivate and exercise your charisms."

On the morning of Friday, June 6, Pope Leo met in the Clementine Hall with the "moderators" of the associations of the faithful, ecclesial movements, and new communities who participated in the meeting organized by the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. In his address on that occasion, Pope Leo recalled, among other things, that "the Christian life is not lived in isolation, as a kind of intellectual or sentimental experience, confined to the mind and the heart. It is lived with others, in a group and in community, because the risen Christ is present wherever disciples gather in his name."

Addressing the "moderators of associations, movements, and new communities," Pope Leo also recalled that "everything in the Church is understood in reference to grace: the institution exists so that grace may always be offered, and charisms are given so that this grace may be received and bear fruit. Without charisms," the Pontiff added, "there is a risk that Christ’s grace, offered in abundance, may not find good soil to receive it. That is the reason why God raises up charisms: to awaken in hearts a desire to encounter Christ and a thirst for the divine life that he offers us. In a word, grace." (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 8/6/2025)

Share:

papa leone xiv

---

---

evangelization

---

---

jubilee

---

---

ecclesial movements

---

---