(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis held his weekly General Audience in St. Peter's Square
on Wednesday. Please find below Vatican Radio's translation of the text:
Dear brothers and sisters, good day.
The season of Easter that
we are living with joy, guided by the liturgy of the Church, is par excellence the
time of the Holy Spirit, given to us "not by measure" (cf. John 3:34) by the crucified
and risen Jesus. This time of grace ends with the feast of Pentecost, when the Church
relives the outpouring of the Spirit upon Mary and the Apostles gathered in prayer
in the Upper Room.
But who is the Holy Spirit? In the Creed we profess with
faith: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life." The first truth
to which we adhere in the Creed is that the Holy Spirit is Kyrios, Lord. This
means that He is truly God as are the Father and the Son, on our part object of the
same act of worship and glorification that we direct to the Father and the Son. The
Holy Spirit, in fact, is the third Person of the Blessed Trinity; the Holy Spirit
is the great gift of the Risen Christ who opens our minds and our hearts to faith
in Jesus as the Son sent by the Father, and who leads us to friendship, to communion
with God
But I would like to focus on the fact that the Holy Spirit is the
inexhaustible source of God's life in us. In all times and in all places man has
yearned for a full and beautiful life, a just and good one, a life that is not threatened
by death, but that can mature and grow to its fullest. Man is like a traveler who,
crossing the deserts of life, has a thirst for living water, gushing and fresh, capable
of quenching his deep desire for light, love, beauty and peace. We all feel this desire!
And Jesus gives us this living water: it is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the
Father and who Jesus pours into our hearts. Jesus tells us that "I came that they
may have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10, 10).
Jesus promised the
Samaritan woman that he would donate an eternally abundant ‘"living water” to all
those who recognize him as the Son sent by the Father to save us (John 4: 5-26; 3:17).
Jesus came to give us this' "living water" that is the Holy Spirit, so that our life
may be guided by God, may be animated by God, may be nourished by God. When we say
that a Christian is a spiritual man, this is what we mean: a Christian is a person
who thinks and acts according to God, according to the Holy Spirit. And do we believe
in God? Do we act according to God? Or do we let ourselves be guided by so many other
things that are not God?
At this point we can ask ourselves: how can this water
quench our deep thirst? We know that water is essential for life; without water we
die; it quenches our thirst, it cleanses, it renders the earth fertile. In the Epistle
to the Romans we find this sentence: "God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (5:5). The '"living water," the Holy
Spirit, the Gift of the Risen One who comes to dwell in us, cleanses us, enlightens
us, renews us, transforms us because rendering us partakers of the very life of God
who is Love. This is why the Apostle Paul says that the Christian's life is animated
by the Spirit and by its fruits, which are "love, joy, peace, generosity, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal 5:22 -23). The Holy Spirit
leads us to divine life as "children of the Only Son." In another passage from
the Letter to the Romans, which we have mentioned several times, St. Paul sums it
up in these words: "All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. And you…
have you received the Spirit who renders us adoptive children, and thanks to whom
we cry out, "Abba! Father. “The Spirit itself, together with our own spirit, attests
that we are children of God. And if we are His children, we are also His heirs, heirs
of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we take part in his suffering so we
can participate in his glory "(8, 14-17). This is the precious gift that the Holy
Spirit brings into our hearts: the very life of God, the life of true children, a
relationship of familiarity, freedom and trust in the love and mercy of God, which
as an effect has also a new vision of others, near and far, seen always as brothers
and sisters in Jesus to be respected and loved. The Holy Spirit teaches us to look
with the eyes of Christ, to live life as Christ lived, to understand life as Christ
did. That's why the living water that is the Holy Spirit quenches our lives because
it tells us that we are loved by God as His children, that we can love God as his
children, and that by his grace we can live as children of God, as did Jesus. And
us? Do we listen to the Holy Spirit who tells us: God loves you? Do we really love
God and others as Jesus did?