"The Holy Spirit pushes us to enter the desert."Pope's Regina Coeli: "Encountering Christ means discovering peace of heart".Pope Francis presided in St. Peter's Basilica Holy Mass on the Feast of the Holy Spirit. The large celebrations with the faithful are back to normal in the Vatican after the pandemic. At the end of the ceremony, the Pope went out onto the balcony of his office to greet the pilgrims gathered there and to pray with them the Regina Caeli for the last time this year.
With his usual clear and approachable pedagogy, the pontiff highlighted two of the main tasks of the Holy Spirit, teach y remember. In the age of the Internet and globalization, the Gospel seems to many people to be a book that is out of date. Pope Francis commented: "There can be a concern that there is a great distance between the Gospel and daily life. Jesus lived two thousand years ago, there were other times, other situations, and for this reason the Gospel already seems outdated, inadequate to speak to our day with its demands and its problems".
Dealing with the Holy Spirit
The work of the Holy Spirit is fundamental for personal holiness and the work of evangelization, and for this reason Christians must have an attitude of attentive listening. "In fact, when the Spirit teaches, updates, keeps the faith always young. We run the risk of making the faith a museum thing, He instead puts it in tune with the times. For the Holy Spirit does not bind himself to epochs or passing fashions, but brings to the present the actuality of Jesus, risen and alive. How does the Spirit accomplish this? By making remember. Here is the second verb, re-memberi.e, bring back the heart".
In his final words, the Holy Father encouraged the faithful to make an examination of conscience and to read the Gospel in order to discover the will of God. "And we - let us try to ask ourselves - are we forgetful Christians? Perhaps an adversity, a fatigue, a crisis is enough to forget the love of Jesus and fall into doubt and fear? The remedy is to invoke the Holy Spirit. Let us do it often, especially at important moments, before difficult decisions. Let us take the Gospel in our hands and invoke the Spirit. We can say: Come, Holy Spirit, remind me of Jesus, enlighten my heart. Then, we open the Gospel and read a small passage, slowly. And the Spirit will make it speak to our lives".
