Openness to the Holy Spirit brings true freedom, salvation

10 June, 2013 - True freedom is born from opening the heart to the Holy Spirit, that truly enables us understand the Lord, Pope Francis said on Monday. Celebrating morning Mass at his Casa Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, he said in his homily that salvation means living in the consolation of the Holy Spirit, not in the consolation of the spirit of the world, which is sin. Attending the Mass were employees of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and among those who concelebrated with the Pope was Indian Archbishop George Valiamattam of Tellicherry of the Eastern-rite Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. Picking up the theme of ‘consolation’ from the Second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, the Pope said that for early Christians, to accept Christ, they needed a special strength from God, which required one to open the heart for Him to enter. We need ‘conversion’. In opening one’s heart to the Holy Spirit that brings us consolation, the Pope explained, one cannot compromise and have a mixture of a bit of the Holy Spirit and the worldly spirit – a sort of fruit cocktail, so to say. The Pope recalled Jesus, who said one cannot serve two masters – either one serves the Lord or spirit of the world. This is why the Pope said, the Beatitudes of Monday’s Gospel cannot be understood only with human intelligence. If we don’t have an open heart and experience the consolation of the Holy Spirit, which is salvation, being poor, meek and merciful are foolishness as they do not bring success. We cannot understand them. If we want to follow the Lord only with our human freedom, we will finally end up as hypocrites like the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were quarrelling with the Jesus. Hypocrisy means not allowing the Sprit change the heart with his salvation. The Pope stressed that freedom of the Holy Spirit is a sort of slavery – slavery to the Lord that sets us free. It is another type of freedom, he added.