Acts of the Apostles 2,1-11. When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, "Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."
Psalms 104(103)
- Bless the LORD, my soul! O LORD, my God, you are great indeed! How manifold are your works, O LORD! the earth is full of your creatures;
If you take away their breath, they perish and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.
If you May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD be glad in his works! Pleasing to him be my theme; I will be glad in the LORD.
First Letter to the Corinthians 12,3b-7.12-13. Brothers and sisters: No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 20,19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, «Peace be with you.» When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. (Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
FAUSTI - "Being therefore evening" For the Jews, evening is the beginning of the new day. Here, on the other hand, it is the fulfilment of day "one", "that day" which is the "today" of God, always present in the Word. Let us therefore hasten to enter into this today (Heb 4:11). The evening, the beginning of the night, recalls Easter, when the cloud illuminated the darkness (Ex 14:20). Now the light returns to visit the night of the disciples and all the nights of man. It is the eighth day without end, the day of the Lord. Now we always live on that day. But it is dark until we open our eyes to the Light of the world, which comes to be among us. The scene is no longer outside, in the garden, where Magdalene is. Instead we are inside, in the cenacle, where Jesus anticipated the gift of Himself and gave His Spirit and His mission. The disciples have made a tomb of it. The tomb of Jesus is open and empty, their house barred and full of death, like their heart. The sheep are locked up waiting for the beautiful Shepherd to lead them to the pastures of life. They are in this situation because they did not believe the announcement of the Magdalene. They don't say that the disciples are "together". They are not in communion. They are all orphans and alone, behind closed doors. John does not speak of apostles, but of disciples, a broader term that embraces all believers in Jesus, of all times. He says "the" and not "some" disciples, to indicate that they are all in this situation and always will be. It is the place where they meet the Lord. Fear divides the people; everyone, closed in on himself, is in defense and attack against others.In this situation, in many ways opposite to that of Mary, Jesus comes. He is not ashamed of His brethren, (Heb 2:11), even if they have abandoned Him, denied Him and betrayed Him. He chose them and bound them not because they are wise and strong, but because they are small and weak, in need of Him. From Mary Magdalene who seeks Him, Jesus makes Himself found. By the disciples, instead, He comes of His own initiative, not sought by them, even if He is loved. While the people are closed, each one in his room, the Lord comes out of His dwelling and comes to visit it (Is 26:20). No closure stops the Risen One . The light enters into the darkness of the disciples. The Lord does not save them from death - He did not even save Himself - but in the death in which they are. Jesus does not enter through the door, barred. It is not an obstacle for Him, just as it was not the wall of death nor the stone of the tomb. He Himself is the door of life (10, 7-10). He stands upright, victorious over death. He is in the middle, in the center of the disciples and in the heart of each one. He is light that dissolves darkness, love that drives away all fear (1Jn 4:18). Where death reigned, now there is the Living One. He chose them and bound them not because they are wise and strong, but because they are small and weak, in need of Him. From Mary Magdalene who seeks Him, Jesus makes Himself found. By the disciples, instead, He comes of His own initiative, not sought by them, even if He is loved. While the people are closed, each one in his room, the Lord comes out of His dwelling and comes to visit him () (Is 26:20). No closure stops the Risen One . Thou light enters into the darkness of the disciples. The Lord does not save them from death - He did not even save Himself - but in the death in which they find themselves. Jesus does not enter through the door, barred. It is not an obstacle for Him, just as it was not the wall of death nor the stone of the tomb. He Himself is the door of life (10, 7-10). He stands upright, victorious over death. He is in the middle, in the center of the disciples and in the heart of each one. He is light that dissolves darkness, love that drives away all fear (1Jn 4:18). Where death once reigned, now there is the Living One. He who loves us to the extreme shows His Glory. God is in the midst of His people.
-->The Lord wants to be with us always, even in us. That is why he entered where we were, into death and into the grave. "Peace to you" 'Peace' is not simply the usual greeting of the Jews. It indicates the fullness of every messianic blessing. It is the gift of Jesus who says: "I leave you peace, I give you my peace", that peace that the world does not know. It is the peace of love that overcomes hatred. "Have peace in me. You will have tribulations in the world; but trust me: I have conquered the world". The pierced hands and the pierced side are the identity of the Risen One. It is the Crucified One, the Word become Flesh, who exposed, disposed and laid down His life and took it up again (10:11-18), after facing the Kingdom of death. His wounds are the source of this peace, they bring back to unity the children of God who are lost. It is the plagues that heal us (Is 53:5), an exposition of His extreme Love. In His hands lies all the power that the Father has given to the Son. They, who have washed and dried feet, are nailed to the love and service of every lost one. They are those hands from which no one can abduct us (10:28). They are in fact the same as the Father's hands. "The Father and Me are one" (10:30). His torn side is Flesh from which we are born, wounded by which we are begotten. In those who look to Him whom they have pierced, a Spirit of grace and consolation is poured out (Zc 12:10). From the crack in the rock that saves us gushes forth the gushing spring, opened in Jerusalem to wash away all sin and impurity (Zc 13:1- 14,8). From there comes the river of living water that gushes forth from the side of the temple. It is an immense river that fertilizes the earth and heals the bitter waters, reviving what has died. All sorts of fruit trees grow on its shores, whose branches do not wither and whose fruits ripen every month; and the fruits are life and the leaves medicine for man (Ez 47, 1-12). "He that thirsteth, come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his breast"(7,37) The disciples, contemplating the hands and the side, the perennial memory of God's love, see the light of the world. They receive everlasting peace and joy. Then "the Lord will be king of all the earth and there will be the Lord alone, and only His name" (Zech 14:9). Here Jesus, through His wounds, is presented as the Paschal Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world (1:29), His Blood frees us from death and His Body is nourishment for the Exodus (Ex 12:8-13). That day is now the day in which we also live: by celebrating the Eucharist, we remember Lord's love, we receive His Spirit and are sent into the world to bring reconciliation. The disciples are sent like Him to bear witness to the Father's love (3:16-17:6,26). "Father, as you sent me into the world, I sent them into the world"(17,18). That is why He has chosen them (15,16). The sending makes the envoys the equal of those who send them: "He who welcomes him whom I will send, welcomes me". (13,20). He who is sent is called to do as He does: to love and wash feet (13:13-17), doing His own works (14:2). Associated with His destiny, He is like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and bears much fruit (12,24). The mission to the brothers expresses the nature of the son. It is by loving the brother that one becomes son. "To those to whom you forgive sins" The Spirit of the Lord is forgiveness. For if love is a gift, per-gift is a super-love. The community of disciples receives the exclusive power of God: to forgive sins. It is given the possibility to separate, untie and absolve the sinner from his sin, freeing the present from all the mortgages of the past. Forgiving sins is a greater miracle than raising the dead. He who forgives makes the other live, because he recognizes him as a brother, so he himself is born as a son equal to the Father, because he loves like Him. The Spirit, Love that creates and recreates everything, is the principle of creation and redemption: forgiveness makes all things new.
BENEDICT XVI (Der Gott Jesu Christi). The Christianity of the Spirit is the Christanism of the Word who became Flesh, that is, life. Already from the creaturely point of view , the reality of the "Spirit" is made present in the "Word," and not departing from it; and for this reason the "Word" is, so to speak, the "house" of the Spirit. Jesus is the Source from which the Spirit flows. The more we penetrate Him, the more truly we penetrate the Spirit and the more It permeates us. The Spirit does not become more visible if we turn our gaze away from the Son, but rather if we fix it in Him. In his account of the first appearance of the Risen One to the Eleven, John expressed this with an eloquent image :the Spirit is the life-breath of the Son. We receive it to the extent that we come so close to Him, so close that we feel His breath,so close that we let Jesus breathe on us . (Bavarian Radio15-5-86) Only if we are not afraid of the Tongues of Fire and the Storm it brings can the Church become an icon of the Holy Spirit, and only then will it open the world wide to the Light that comes from God. The Church began when the Apostles gathered unanimously at home, praying and remembering the Lord's Supper. Thus it always begins anew. We want to pray to the Holy Spirit to always raise it up among us.
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Sunday, 31 May 2020 “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4), as the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians. He continues: “There are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone” (vv. 5-6). Diversity and unity: Saint Paul puts together two words that seem contradictory. He wants to tell us that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings together the many; and that the Church was born this way: we are all different, yet united by the same Holy Spirit.
Let us go back to the origin of the Church, to the day of Pentecost. Let us look at the Apostles: some of them were fishermen, simple people accustomed to living by the work of their hands, but there were also others, like Matthew, who was an educated tax collector. They were from different backgrounds and social contexts, and they had Hebrew and Greek names. In terms of character, some were meek and others were excitable; they all had different ideas and sensibilities. They were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. No. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit. With the anointing comes their union – union in diversity. At Pentecost, the Apostles understand the unifying power of the Spirit. They see it with their own eyes when everyone, though speaking in different languages, comes together as one people: the people of God, shaped by the Spirit, who weaves unity from diversity and bestows harmony because in the Spirit there is harmony. He himself is harmony.
Let us now focus on ourselves, the Church of today. We can ask ourselves: “What is it that unites us, what is the basis of our unity?”. We too have our differences, for example: of opinions, choices, sensibilities. But the temptation is always fiercely to defend our ideas, believing them to be good for everybody and agreeing only with those who think as we do. This is a bad temptation that brings division. But this is a faith created in our own image; it is not what the Spirit wants. We might think that what unite us are our beliefs and our morality. But there is much more: our principle of unity is the Holy Spirit. He reminds us that first of all we are God’s beloved children; all equal, in this respect, and all different. The Spirit comes to us, in our differences and difficulties, to tell us that we have one Lord – Jesus – and one Father, and that for this reason we are brothers and sisters! Let us begin anew from here; let us look at the Church with the eyes of the Spirit and not as the world does. The world sees us only as on the right or left, with one ideology or the other; the Spirit sees us as sons and daughters of the Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus. The world sees conservatives and progressives; the Spirit sees children of God. A worldly gaze sees structures to be made more efficient; a spiritual gaze sees brothers and sisters pleading for mercy. The Spirit loves us and knows everyone’s place in the grand scheme of things: for him, we are not bits of confetti blown about by the wind, rather we are irreplaceable fragments in his mosaic.
-->If we go back to the day of Pentecost, we discover that the first task of the Church is proclamation. Yet we also see that the Apostles devised no strategy; when they were locked in there, in the Upper Room, they were not strategizing, no, they were not drafting any pastoral plan. They could have divided people into groups according to their roots, speaking first to those close by and then to those far away, in an orderly manner... They could have also waited a while before beginning their preaching in order to understand more deeply the teachings of Jesus, so as to avoid risks... No. The Spirit does not want the memory of the Master to be cultivated in small groups locked in upper rooms where it is easy to “nest”. This is a terrible disease that can also infect the Church: making her into a nest instead of a community, a family or a Mother. The Spirit himself opens doors and pushes us to press beyond what has already been said and done, beyond the precincts of a timid and wary faith. In the world, unless there is tight organization and a clear strategy, things fall apart. In the Church, however, the Spirit guarantees unity to those who proclaim the message. The Apostles set off: unprepared, yet putting their lives on the line. One thing kept them going: the desire to give what they received. The opening part of the First Letter of Saint John is beautiful: “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you” (cf. 1:3).
Here we come to understand what the secret of unity is, the secret of the Spirit. The secret of unity in the Church, the secret of the Spirit is gift. For the Spirit himself is gift: he lives by giving himself and in this way he keeps us together, making us sharers in the same gift. It is important to believe that God is gift, that he acts not by taking away, but by giving. Why is this important? Because our way of being believers depends on how we understand God. If we have in mind a God who takes away and who imposes himself, we too will want to take away and impose ourselves: occupying spaces, demanding recognition, seeking power. But if we have in our hearts a God who is gift, everything changes. If we realize that what we are is his gift, free and unmerited, then we too will want to make our lives a gift. By loving humbly, serving freely and joyfully, we will offer to the world the true image of God. The Spirit, the living memory of the Church, reminds us that we are born from a gift and that we grow by giving: not by holding on but by giving of ourselves.
-->Dear brothers and sisters, let us look within and ask ourselves what prevents us from giving ourselves. There are, so to speak, three main enemies of the gift, always lurking at the door of our hearts: narcissism, victimhood and pessimism. Narcissism makes us idolize ourselves, to be concerned only with what is good for us. The narcissist thinks: “Life is good if I profit from it”. So he or she ends up saying: “Why should I give myself to others?”. In this time of pandemic, how wrong narcissism is: the tendency to think only of our own needs, to be indifferent to those of others, and not to admit our own frailties and mistakes. But the second enemy, victimhood, is equally dangerous. Victims complain every day about their neighbour: “No one understands me, no one helps me, no one loves me, everyone has it in for me!”. How many times have we not heard these complaints! The victim’s heart is closed, as he or she asks, “Why aren’t others concerned about me?”. In the crisis we are experiencing, how ugly victimhood is! Thinking that no one understands us and experiences what we experience. This is victimhood. Finally, there is pessimism. Here the unending complaint is: “Nothing is going well, society, politics, the Church…”. The pessimist gets angry with the world, but sits back and does nothing, thinking: “What good is giving? That is useless”. At this moment, in the great effort of beginning anew, how damaging is pessimism, the tendency to see everything in the worst light and to keep saying that nothing will return as before! When someone thinks this way, the one thing that certainly does not return is hope. In these three – the narcissist idol of the mirror, the mirror-god; the complaint-god: “I feel human only when I complain”; and the negativity-god: “everything is dark, the future is bleak” – we experience a famine of hope and we need to appreciate the gift of life, the gift that each of us is. We need the Holy Spirit, the gift of God who heals us of narcissism, victimhood and pessimism. He heals us from the mirror, complaints and darkness.
Brothers and sisters, let us pray to him: Holy Spirit, memory of God, revive in us the memory of the gift received. Free us from the paralysis of selfishness and awaken in us the desire to serve, to do good. Even worse than this crisis is the tragedy of squandering it by closing in on ourselves. Come, Holy Spirit: you are harmony; make us builders of unity. You always give yourself; grant us the courage to go out of ourselves, to love and help each other, in order to become one family. Amen.
Acts of the Apostles 2,1-11.
RispondiEliminaWhen the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, "Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his own native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."
Psalms 104(103)
- Bless the LORD, my soul!
O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
the earth is full of your creatures;
If you take away their breath, they perish
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the earth.
If you May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD be glad in his works!
Pleasing to him be my theme;
I will be glad in the LORD.
First Letter
to the Corinthians 12,3b-7.12-13.
Brothers and sisters: No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;
there are different forms of service but the same Lord;
there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.
To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ
according to Saint John 20,19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, «Peace be with you.»
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
(Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."
FAUSTI - "Being therefore evening" For the Jews, evening is the beginning of the new day.
RispondiEliminaHere, on the other hand, it is the fulfilment of day "one", "that day" which is the "today" of God, always present in the Word. Let us therefore hasten to enter into this today (Heb 4:11).
The evening, the beginning of the night, recalls Easter, when the cloud illuminated the darkness (Ex 14:20).
Now the light returns to visit the night of the disciples and all the nights of man.
It is the eighth day without end, the day of the Lord.
Now we always live on that day.
But it is dark until we open our eyes to the Light of the world, which comes to be among us.
The scene is no longer outside, in the garden, where Magdalene is. Instead we are inside, in the cenacle, where Jesus anticipated the gift of Himself and gave His Spirit and His mission.
The disciples have made a tomb of it. The tomb of Jesus is open and empty, their house barred and full of death, like their heart. The sheep are locked up waiting for the beautiful Shepherd to lead them to the pastures of life.
They are in this situation because they did not believe the announcement of the Magdalene.
They don't say that the disciples are "together". They are not in communion.
They are all orphans and alone, behind closed doors. John does not speak of apostles, but of disciples, a broader term that embraces all believers in Jesus, of all times.
He says "the" and not "some" disciples, to indicate that they are all in this situation and always will be. It is the place where they meet the Lord.
Fear divides the people; everyone, closed in on himself, is in defense and attack against others.In this situation, in many ways opposite to that of Mary, Jesus comes.
He is not ashamed of His brethren, (Heb 2:11), even if they have abandoned Him, denied Him and betrayed Him. He chose them and bound them not because they are wise and strong, but because they are small and weak, in need of Him.
From Mary Magdalene who seeks Him, Jesus makes Himself found. By the disciples, instead, He comes of His own initiative, not sought by them, even if He is loved. While the people are closed, each one in his room, the Lord comes out of His dwelling and comes to visit it (Is 26:20).
No closure stops the Risen One .
The light enters into the darkness of the disciples.
The Lord does not save them from death - He did not even save Himself - but in the death in which they are. Jesus does not enter through the door, barred. It is not an obstacle for Him, just as it was not the wall of death nor the stone of the tomb.
He Himself is the door of life (10, 7-10).
He stands upright, victorious over death. He is in the middle, in the center of the disciples and in the heart of each one. He is light that dissolves darkness, love that drives away all fear (1Jn 4:18).
Where death reigned, now there is the Living One. He chose them and bound them not because they are wise and strong, but because they are small and weak, in need of Him.
From Mary Magdalene who seeks Him, Jesus makes Himself found. By the disciples, instead, He comes of His own initiative, not sought by them, even if He is loved. While the people are closed, each one in his room, the Lord comes out of His dwelling and comes to visit him () (Is 26:20).
No closure stops the Risen One .
Thou light enters into the darkness of the disciples.
The Lord does not save them from death - He did not even save Himself - but in the death in which they find themselves. Jesus does not enter through the door, barred. It is not an obstacle for Him, just as it was not the wall of death nor the stone of the tomb.
He Himself is the door of life (10, 7-10).
He stands upright, victorious over death. He is in the middle, in the center of the disciples and in the heart of each one. He is light that dissolves darkness, love that drives away all fear (1Jn 4:18).
Where death once reigned, now there is the Living One. He who loves us to the extreme shows His Glory. God is in the midst of His people.
-->The Lord wants to be with us always, even in us.
RispondiEliminaThat is why he entered where we were, into death and into the grave.
"Peace to you" 'Peace' is not simply the usual greeting of the Jews. It indicates the fullness of every messianic blessing. It is the gift of Jesus who says: "I leave you peace, I give you my peace", that peace that the world does not know. It is the peace of love that overcomes hatred. "Have peace in me. You will have tribulations in the world; but trust me: I have conquered the world".
The pierced hands and the pierced side are the identity of the Risen One. It is the Crucified One, the Word become Flesh, who exposed, disposed and laid down His life and took it up again (10:11-18), after facing the Kingdom of death.
His wounds are the source of this peace, they bring back to unity the children of God who are lost. It is the plagues that heal us (Is 53:5), an exposition of His extreme Love.
In His hands lies all the power that the Father has given to the Son. They, who have washed and dried feet, are nailed to the love and service of every lost one.
They are those hands from which no one can abduct us (10:28).
They are in fact the same as the Father's hands. "The Father and Me are one" (10:30).
His torn side is Flesh from which we are born, wounded by which we are begotten. In those who look to Him whom they have pierced, a Spirit of grace and consolation is poured out (Zc 12:10).
From the crack in the rock that saves us gushes forth the gushing spring, opened in Jerusalem to wash away all sin and impurity (Zc 13:1- 14,8).
From there comes the river of living water that gushes forth from the side of the temple.
It is an immense river that fertilizes the earth and heals the bitter waters, reviving what has died. All sorts of fruit trees grow on its shores, whose branches do not wither and whose fruits ripen every month; and the fruits are life and the leaves medicine for man (Ez 47, 1-12).
"He that thirsteth, come to Me, and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his breast"(7,37) The disciples, contemplating the hands and the side, the perennial memory of God's love, see the light of the world.
They receive everlasting peace and joy. Then "the Lord will be king of all the earth and there will be the Lord alone, and only His name" (Zech 14:9).
Here Jesus, through His wounds, is presented as the Paschal Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world (1:29), His Blood frees us from death and His Body is nourishment for the Exodus (Ex 12:8-13). That day is now the day in which we also live: by celebrating the Eucharist, we remember Lord's love, we receive His Spirit and are sent into the world to bring reconciliation.
The disciples are sent like Him to bear witness to the Father's love (3:16-17:6,26).
"Father, as you sent me into the world, I sent them into the world"(17,18).
That is why He has chosen them (15,16). The sending makes the envoys the equal of those who send them: "He who welcomes him whom I will send, welcomes me". (13,20).
He who is sent is called to do as He does: to love and wash feet (13:13-17), doing His own works (14:2).
Associated with His destiny, He is like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and bears much fruit (12,24).
The mission to the brothers expresses the nature of the son. It is by loving the brother that one becomes son.
"To those to whom you forgive sins" The Spirit of the Lord is forgiveness. For if love is a gift, per-gift is a super-love. The community of disciples receives the exclusive power of God: to forgive sins. It is given the possibility to separate, untie and absolve the sinner from his sin, freeing the present from all the mortgages of the past.
Forgiving sins is a greater miracle than raising the dead. He who forgives makes the other live, because he recognizes him as a brother, so he himself is born as a son equal to the Father, because he loves like Him. The Spirit, Love that creates and recreates everything, is the principle of creation and redemption: forgiveness makes all things new.
BENEDICT XVI (Der Gott Jesu Christi).
RispondiEliminaThe Christianity of the Spirit is the Christanism of the Word who became Flesh, that is, life. Already from the creaturely point of view , the reality of the "Spirit" is made present in the "Word," and not departing from it; and for this reason the "Word" is, so to speak, the "house" of the Spirit.
Jesus is the Source from which the Spirit flows. The more we penetrate Him, the more truly we penetrate the Spirit and the more It permeates us.
The Spirit does not become more visible if we turn our gaze away from the Son, but rather if we fix it in Him.
In his account of the first appearance of the Risen One to the Eleven, John expressed this with an eloquent image :the Spirit is the life-breath of the Son.
We receive it to the extent that we come so close to Him, so close that we feel His breath,so close that we let Jesus breathe on us .
(Bavarian Radio15-5-86) Only if we are not afraid of the Tongues of Fire and the Storm it brings can the Church become an icon of the Holy Spirit, and only then will it open the world wide to the Light that comes from God.
The Church began when the Apostles gathered unanimously at home, praying and remembering the Lord's Supper.
Thus it always begins anew.
We want to pray to the Holy Spirit to always raise it up among us.
SOLEMNITY OF PENTECOST
RispondiEliminaHOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Sunday, 31 May 2020
“There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4), as the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians. He continues: “There are different forms of service, but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone” (vv. 5-6). Diversity and unity: Saint Paul puts together two words that seem contradictory. He wants to tell us that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings together the many; and that the Church was born this way: we are all different, yet united by the same Holy Spirit.
Let us go back to the origin of the Church, to the day of Pentecost. Let us look at the Apostles: some of them were fishermen, simple people accustomed to living by the work of their hands, but there were also others, like Matthew, who was an educated tax collector. They were from different backgrounds and social contexts, and they had Hebrew and Greek names. In terms of character, some were meek and others were excitable; they all had different ideas and sensibilities. They were all different. Jesus did not change them; he did not make them into a set of pre-packaged models. No. He left their differences and now he unites them by anointing them with the Holy Spirit. With the anointing comes their union – union in diversity. At Pentecost, the Apostles understand the unifying power of the Spirit. They see it with their own eyes when everyone, though speaking in different languages, comes together as one people: the people of God, shaped by the Spirit, who weaves unity from diversity and bestows harmony because in the Spirit there is harmony. He himself is harmony.
Let us now focus on ourselves, the Church of today. We can ask ourselves: “What is it that unites us, what is the basis of our unity?”. We too have our differences, for example: of opinions, choices, sensibilities. But the temptation is always fiercely to defend our ideas, believing them to be good for everybody and agreeing only with those who think as we do. This is a bad temptation that brings division. But this is a faith created in our own image; it is not what the Spirit wants. We might think that what unite us are our beliefs and our morality. But there is much more: our principle of unity is the Holy Spirit. He reminds us that first of all we are God’s beloved children; all equal, in this respect, and all different. The Spirit comes to us, in our differences and difficulties, to tell us that we have one Lord – Jesus – and one Father, and that for this reason we are brothers and sisters! Let us begin anew from here; let us look at the Church with the eyes of the Spirit and not as the world does. The world sees us only as on the right or left, with one ideology or the other; the Spirit sees us as sons and daughters of the Father and brothers and sisters of Jesus. The world sees conservatives and progressives; the Spirit sees children of God. A worldly gaze sees structures to be made more efficient; a spiritual gaze sees brothers and sisters pleading for mercy. The Spirit loves us and knows everyone’s place in the grand scheme of things: for him, we are not bits of confetti blown about by the wind, rather we are irreplaceable fragments in his mosaic.
-->If we go back to the day of Pentecost, we discover that the first task of the Church is proclamation. Yet we also see that the Apostles devised no strategy; when they were locked in there, in the Upper Room, they were not strategizing, no, they were not drafting any pastoral plan. They could have divided people into groups according to their roots, speaking first to those close by and then to those far away, in an orderly manner... They could have also waited a while before beginning their preaching in order to understand more deeply the teachings of Jesus, so as to avoid risks... No. The Spirit does not want the memory of the Master to be cultivated in small groups locked in upper rooms where it is easy to “nest”. This is a terrible disease that can also infect the Church: making her into a nest instead of a community, a family or a Mother. The Spirit himself opens doors and pushes us to press beyond what has already been said and done, beyond the precincts of a timid and wary faith. In the world, unless there is tight organization and a clear strategy, things fall apart. In the Church, however, the Spirit guarantees unity to those who proclaim the message. The Apostles set off: unprepared, yet putting their lives on the line. One thing kept them going: the desire to give what they received. The opening part of the First Letter of Saint John is beautiful: “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you” (cf. 1:3).
RispondiEliminaHere we come to understand what the secret of unity is, the secret of the Spirit. The secret of unity in the Church, the secret of the Spirit is gift. For the Spirit himself is gift: he lives by giving himself and in this way he keeps us together, making us sharers in the same gift. It is important to believe that God is gift, that he acts not by taking away, but by giving. Why is this important? Because our way of being believers depends on how we understand God. If we have in mind a God who takes away and who imposes himself, we too will want to take away and impose ourselves: occupying spaces, demanding recognition, seeking power. But if we have in our hearts a God who is gift, everything changes. If we realize that what we are is his gift, free and unmerited, then we too will want to make our lives a gift. By loving humbly, serving freely and joyfully, we will offer to the world the true image of God. The Spirit, the living memory of the Church, reminds us that we are born from a gift and that we grow by giving: not by holding on but by giving of ourselves.
-->Dear brothers and sisters, let us look within and ask ourselves what prevents us from giving ourselves. There are, so to speak, three main enemies of the gift, always lurking at the door of our hearts: narcissism, victimhood and pessimism. Narcissism makes us idolize ourselves, to be concerned only with what is good for us. The narcissist thinks: “Life is good if I profit from it”. So he or she ends up saying: “Why should I give myself to others?”. In this time of pandemic, how wrong narcissism is: the tendency to think only of our own needs, to be indifferent to those of others, and not to admit our own frailties and mistakes. But the second enemy, victimhood, is equally dangerous. Victims complain every day about their neighbour: “No one understands me, no one helps me, no one loves me, everyone has it in for me!”. How many times have we not heard these complaints! The victim’s heart is closed, as he or she asks, “Why aren’t others concerned about me?”. In the crisis we are experiencing, how ugly victimhood is! Thinking that no one understands us and experiences what we experience. This is victimhood. Finally, there is pessimism. Here the unending complaint is: “Nothing is going well, society, politics, the Church…”. The pessimist gets angry with the world, but sits back and does nothing, thinking: “What good is giving? That is useless”. At this moment, in the great effort of beginning anew, how damaging is pessimism, the tendency to see everything in the worst light and to keep saying that nothing will return as before! When someone thinks this way, the one thing that certainly does not return is hope. In these three – the narcissist idol of the mirror, the mirror-god; the complaint-god: “I feel human only when I complain”; and the negativity-god: “everything is dark, the future is bleak” – we experience a famine of hope and we need to appreciate the gift of life, the gift that each of us is. We need the Holy Spirit, the gift of God who heals us of narcissism, victimhood and pessimism. He heals us from the mirror, complaints and darkness.
RispondiEliminaBrothers and sisters, let us pray to him: Holy Spirit, memory of God, revive in us the memory of the gift received. Free us from the paralysis of selfishness and awaken in us the desire to serve, to do good. Even worse than this crisis is the tragedy of squandering it by closing in on ourselves. Come, Holy Spirit: you are harmony; make us builders of unity. You always give yourself; grant us the courage to go out of ourselves, to love and help each other, in order to become one family. Amen.