Pope: Only the Holy Spirit can lead us to testify that Jesus is the Lord
The Holy Spirit is "a gift, the great gift of Jesus,” who does not lead us astray. “It is precisely within our hearts that we carry the Holy Spirit. The Church calls the Spirit ‘the sweet guest of the heart’: He is there. But He cannot enter a closed heart. ‘Ah, but where can one buy the keys to open the heart?’ No! That too is a gift.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Only the Holy Spirit can lead us to testify that Jesus is the Lord, reassuring us about salvation, said Pope Francis in the homily he delivered in this morning’s Mass at Casa Santa Marta.
In his sermon, the Holy Father gave his reflections on Jesus' long speech to his disciples during the Last Supper, in particular with respect to his remarks about the Holy Spirit.
Only the Holy Spirit, Francis said, teaches us to say, “Jesus is the Lord”. Indeed, “Without the Holy Spirit, none of us is able to say it, to perceive it, to live it. Jesus, in other places in this long speech, said of Him [the Holy Spirit]: ‘He will lead you into all truth,’ He will accompany you towards the full truth. ‘He will bring to your remembrance of all that I have said to you; He will teach you all things.’ That is, the Holy Spirit is the travelling companion of every Christian, and also the travelling companion of the Church. And this is the gift that Jesus gives us.”
The Holy Spirit, the pope went on to say, is “a gift, the great gift of Jesus,” who does not lead us astray. But where does the Spirit dwell? the pope asked. In the Acts of the Apostles, he noted, we see the figure of Lydia, a merchant in purple cloth, someone who “knew how to do things” and the “The Lord opened her heart, so that she might follow the Word of God”.
“The Lord opened her heart so that the Holy Spirit could enter, and she became a disciple. It is precisely within our hearts that we carry the Holy Spirit. The Church calls the Spirit ‘the sweet guest of the heart’: He is there. But He cannot enter a closed heart. ‘Ah, but where can one buy the keys to open the heart?’ No! That too is a gift. It is a gift of God: ‘Lord, open my heart so that the Spirit can enter it, and I can understand that Jesus is the Lord’.”
This, the pope noted, is a prayer we should say every day: “Lord, open my heart so that I can understand what You have taught us; so that I can remember Your words; so that I can follow Your words; so that I can come to the fullness of the truth.”
We must thus have open hearts “so that the Holy Spirit can enter, so that we can hear the Spirit.” This, the pope suggested, raises two questions that we can ask ourselves.
“The first: Do I ask the Lord for the grace that my heart might be opened? The second question: Do I seek to hear the Holy Spirit, His inspirations, the things He tells my heart that I might advance in the Christian life, and that I too might bear witness that Jesus is the Lord?
“Think about these two things today: Is my heart open? Do I make an effort to listen to the Holy Spirit, to what He tells me? And so we advance in the Christian life, and we too bear witness to Jesus Christ.”
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