Today’s weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, dedicated to the wind of the Holy Spirit, ended with a surprise announcement. In fact, Pope Francis revealed to the faithful that he will release a document on the Sacred Heart next September, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the first manifestation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St Margaret Mary Alacoque, “in order to re-propose today, to the whole Church, this devotion imbued with spiritual beauty to a world that seems to have lost its heart”, the Pope said. The document will bring together the reflections of previous Magisterial texts and a long history that was the object of popular devotion and that goes back to the Sacred Scriptures. The Pope renewed his appeal for peace in his final greetings to the Italian-speaking faithful: “Let us pray to the Lord to grant us the gift of peace, and that the world may not suffer so much from war.”
“Wind is the only thing that absolutely cannot be bridled, cannot be “bottled up” or put in a box”,
The Pope said in his catechesis. “The Spirit cannot be bridled, cannot be ‘bottled up’ or put in a box: it’s not possible. It is free”, he went on to explain in unscripted remarks. “To pretend to enclose the Holy Spirit in concepts, definitions, theses or treatises, as modern rationalism has sometimes attempted to do, is to lose it, nullify it, or reduce it to the purely human spirit, to a simple spirit”, Francis reminded the faithful. He remarked:
“There is a similar temptation in the ecclesiastical field, and it is that of wanting to enclose the Holy Spirit in canons, institutions, definitions.”
“The Spirit creates and animates institutions, but He himself cannot be “institutionalised,” “objectified”, Francis pointed out that “The wind blows “where it wills,” so the Spirit distributes its gifts “as it wills.” St Paul will make this the fundamental law of Christian action. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’”.
“A free Christion, is the one who has the Spirit of the Lord”,
he reiterated off-text. This is a very special freedom, quite different from what is commonly understood”, Francis pointed out: “It is not freedom to do what one wants, but the freedom to freely do what God wants! Not freedom to do good or evil, but freedom to do good and do it freely, that is, by attraction, not compulsion. In other words, the freedom of children, not slaves.” The Freedom of the Spirit, as we are taught by Saint Paul, can be the object of “abuse” or “misunderstanding”, if it becomes “a pretext for the flesh.” “This is a freedom that expresses itself in what appears to be its opposite, it is expressed in service, and in service is true freedom.” The Pope shared the “ever relevant” list found in the Letter to the Galatians, in cases whereby this freedom becomes a “pretext for the flesh”: “Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” “But so too is the freedom that allows the rich to exploit the poor, and everyone to exploit the environment with impunity.” Francis commented in unscripted remarks: “this is an ugly freedom, it is not the freedom of the Spirit.” To draw this freedom of the Spirit, “so contrary to the freedom of selfishness”, it is necessary to live “the freedom that Jesus gives us”, Francis concluded: “Let us ask Jesus to make us, through His Holy Spirit, truly free men and women. Free to serve, in love and joy.”
“Let us pray to the Lord to grant us the gift of peace, and that the world may not suffer so much from war”,
the Pope’s final appeal. “We invoke Mary’s intercession so that the Lord may grant us peace,” the appeal: “Peace in the martyred Ukraine, peace in Palestine, peace in Israel, peace in Myanmar. Let us pray to the Lord to grant us the gift of peace and that the world may not suffer so much from war.”
