Pentecost

In the solemn celebration of Pentecost, we are invited to profess our faith in the presence and in the action of the Holy Spirit and to invoke His outpouring upon us, upon the Church, and upon the whole world. With special intensity, let us make our own the Church's invocation: Veni, Sancte Spiritus! It is such a simple and spontaneous invocation, yet also extraordinarily profound, which came first of all from the heart of Christ. The Spirit is indeed the gift that Jesus asked and continues to ask of His Father for His friends: the first and principal gift that He obtained for us through His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.

The universality of the Church is expressed by the list of peoples according to the ancient tradition given in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles: We are "Parthians, Medes, Elamites", etc. Here, one may observe that Saint Luke goes beyond the number 12, which itself always expresses a universality, He looks beyond the horizons of Asia and northwest Africa, and adds three other elements: the "Romans", that is, the Western world; the "Jews and proselytes", encompassing in a new way the unity between Israel and the world; and finally "Cretans and Arabians", who represent the West and the East, islands and land. This opening of horizons subsequently confirms the newness of Christ in the dimension of human space, in the history of the nations. The Holy Spirit involves individuals and peoples and, through them, overcomes walls and barriers.

We are always in need of hearing the Lord Jesus tell us what He often repeated to His friends: "Be not afraid". Like Simon Peter and the others, we must allow His presence and His grace to transform our heart, which is always subject to human weakness. We must know how to recognize that losing something, indeed, losing ourselves for the true God, the God of love and of life, is actually gaining ourselves, finding ourselves more fully. Whoever entrusts himself to Jesus already experiences in this life the peace and joy of heart that the world cannot give and that it cannot even take away once God has given it to us, So it is worthwhile to let ourselves be touched by the fire of the Holy Spirit! The suffering that it causes us is necessary for our transformation. It is the reality of the Cross. It is not without reason that in the language of Jesus, "fire" is above all a representation of the mystery of the Cross, without which Christianity does not exist. Thus enlightened and comforted by these words of life, let us lift up our invocation: Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire of your love!