(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 go "beyond the limits, go ever forward."
Emer McCarthy reports Listen:
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."
All the contents on this site are copyrighted ©. |