Pope at Mass: The Holy Spirit makes the unthinkable possible
(Vatican Radio) "Who are we to close the doors " to the Holy Spirit? This was the
question that Pope Francis repeated this morning during his homily at Mass at Casa
Santa Marta, a homily dedicated to the conversion of the first pagans to Christianity.
The Holy Spirit, he reiterated, is what makes the Church to go "beyond the limits,
go ever forward."
The Spirit blows where it wills, but one of the most common
temptations of those who have faith is to bar its path and drive it in one direction
or another. A temptation that was not alien even in the early days of the Church,
as the experience of Simon Peter in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles
shows. A community of pagans welcomes the announcement of the Gospel and Peter is
an eyewitness to the descent of the Holy Spirit on them. First hesitates to make contact
with what he had always considered "unclean" and then he suffers harsh criticism from
the Christians of Jerusalem, shocked by the fact that their leader had eaten with
the "uncircumcised" and had even baptized them. A moment of internal crisis that Pope
Francis recalls with a hint of irony :
"That was unthinkable. If – for example
- tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here... Martians,
right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them... And
one says, 'But I want to be baptized!' What would happen?"
Peter understands
his error when a vision enlightens him to a fundamental truth: that which has been
purified by God cannot be called "profane" by anyone. And in narrating these facts
to the crowd that criticized him, the Apostle calms them all with this statement:
"If then God gave them the same gift He gave to us when we came to believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?"
"When the Lord shows
us the way, who are we to say, 'No, Lord, it is not prudent! No, lets do it this way'...
and Peter in that first diocese - the first diocese was Antioch - makes this decision:
‘Who am I to admit impediments?' A nice word for bishops, for priests and for Christians.
Who are we to close doors? In the early Church, even today, there is the ministry
of the ostiary [usher]. And what did the ostiary do? He opened the door, received
the people, allowed them to pass. But it was never the ministry of the closed door,
never."
Again Pope Francis repeated, God has left the guidance of the Church
"in the hands of the Holy Spirit." "The Holy Spirit - he continued - as Jesus said,
will teach us everything" and "remind us what Jesus taught us":
"The Holy
Spirit is the living presence of God in the Church. He keeps the Church going, keeps
the Church moving forward. More and more, beyond the limits, onwards. The Holy Spirit
with His gifts guides the Church. You cannot understand the Church of Jesus without
this Paraclete, whom the Lord sends us for this very reason. And He makes unthinkable
choices, but unimaginable! To use a word of St. John XXIII: it is the Holy Spirit
that updates the Church: Really, he really updates it and keeps it going. And we Christians
must ask the Lord for the grace of docility to the Holy Spirit. Docility in this Spirit,
who speaks to us in our heart, who speaks to us in all of life’s circumstances, who
speaks to us in the Church's life, in Christian communities, who is always speaking
to us."