Pope on Pentecost: the spirit breaks our interior chains and transforms us

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

“Today too, what happened in the upper room takes place again among us. Like a powerful wind that goes beyond us, like an accident that surprises us, like a fire that enlightens us, the gift of the Holy Spirit descends on us.”

Pope Leo XIV offered this comforting reminder during his mass for the solemnity of the Pentecost, which also marked the mass of the jubilee of ecclesial movements, associations and new communities, Sunday morning on Saint-Pierre square.

During his homily, the Holy Father stressed how the Holy Spirit accomplished “something extraordinary” in the life of the apostles.

Break the interior chains of the apostles and the ones

While “following the death of Jesus, they had withdrawn behind closed doors, in fear and sadness”, now, Pope Leo observed: “They receive a new way of seeing things, an inner understanding that helps them to interpret the events that occurred and to intimately experiment with the Risen Lord.”

In this context, the Pope has amazed that the Holy Spirit “overcomes their fear, breaks their inner chains, heals their wounds, ones forcefully and grants them the courage to go to everyone and proclaim the powerful works of God.”

Pope Leo XIV recalled that in Pentecost, the doors of the upper room were open because the spirit opens borders, because he cited the words of the deceased Pope Benedict XVI in a homily of Pentecost 2005: “The Holy Spirit understands.

‘The Spirit opens borders’

Calling this an eloquent image of Pentecost, Pope Leo XIV then thought about this idea, noting the spirit “opens the border” first of all in our hearts, and “is the gift that opens our lives to love”.

“His presence”, reassured the pope, “breaks down our hardness of heart, our narrowness of the mind, our selfishness, the fears that deepen us and the narcissism that makes us think of ourselves.”

The Holy Spirit, he suggested, comes “to challenge us”.

New way of approaching life

In addition, the Spirit, underlined Pope Leo, allows us to find a new way of approaching and living life, of observing: “He puts us in contact with our deepest self, under all the masks that we carry. He brings us to a meeting with the Lord by teaching us to live the joy which is his gift.”

“He convinces us that by respecting love,” suggested the pope, “will be received the strength to remain faithful to his word and let it transform us.”

Open our hearts, overcome our rigidity and our passions

He also observed that the mind also opens borders in our relationship with others.

Recalling the explanation of Jesus that the gift of the Spirit “is the love between him and the Father who has just got used to us”, the Pope said that this allows us to “open our hearts to our brothers and sisters, overcoming our rigidity, going beyond our fear of those who are different and by mastering the passions that stir inside.”

In addition, he said, the spirit “transforms these deeper and hidden dangers which disturb our relationships, such as suspicion, prejudices or the desire to manipulate others,” adding: “I also think, with great pain, cases where relationships are marked by an unhealthy desire for domination, an attitude which often leads to violence, as tragically, by many recent cases. “”

“Criminal critic for the Church”

The Pope explained that the Holy Spirit leads the fruits in us to maturity in order to cultivate good and healthy relationships, and in doing so, widens the boundaries of our relationships and opens up to the joy of fraternity.

“This”, he underlined, “is also a critical criterion for the Church,” recalling that we are only “really the church of the resurrected Lord and the disciples of Pentecost”, “if there are no borders or divisions among us; if we are able to dialogue and become a welcoming and hospitalized place, and to reproduce our diversities; hospital for all the various. “

Pentecost renewal

The Holy Father also recognized that the Holy Spirit also opens boundaries between the peoples, stressing that “the breath of God unites our hearts”, “makes us consider others as our brothers and sisters” and “breaks the barriers and demolish the walls of indifference and hatred”.

In this spirit, Pope Leo XIV reaffirmed: “Pentecost renews the Church, renews the world!”

“Let the strong wind of the spirit,” concluded Pope Leo before imposing the Holy Mother in prayer, “Commez on us and in us, open the borders of our hearts, give us the grace of the meeting with God, agrees the horizons of our love and maintain our efforts to build a world in which peace reigns.”