"Paraclitus autem Spiritus Sanctus, quem mittet Pater in nomine meo, ille vos docebit omnia, et suggeret vobis omnia quaecumque dixero vobis." (Jn xiv, 26)
The Holy Spirit reminds us, He reminds us of all that Jesus said. He is the living memory of the Church. And while he reminds us, He makes us understand the Lord's words.
This recollection in the Spirit and thanks to the Spirit is not reduced to a mnemonic reality, it is an essential aspect of the presence of Christ in us and in His Church. The Spirit of truth and of charity reminds us of all that Christ spoke, so that we can enter always more fully into the meaning of His words. And we all have this experience: in a moment, in any situation, there is an idea, and then another one linked with a passage from Scripture... [sic] It is the Spirit that makes us go through this path: the path of the living memory of the Church. This demands a response from us: the more generous our response is, the more the words of Jesus become life in us, they become attitudes, choices, gestures, testimony. Essentially, the Spirit reminds us of the commandment of love, and calls us to live it.
A Christian with no memory is not a true Christian: he is a halfway Christian, a man or a woman prisoner of the moment, who does not know how to treasure his history, how to read it and live it as history of salvation. Instead, with the help of the Holy Spirit, may we interpret the interior inspirations, and life events, in light of the words of Jesus. And thus the wisdom of memory grows within us, the wisdom of the heart, that is a gift of the Spirit. May the Holy Spirit enliven Christian memory in all of us! And on that day, with the Apostles, there was the Lady of Memory, the one who initially pondered all those things in her heart. There was Mary, our Mother. May She help us in this road of memory.
Franciscus
Homily for Pentecost Sunday [in italiano]
June 8, 2014
[In the image, with a cover rightly featuring Pope Saint Gregory the Great, the last of the great Romans, is the Italian version of Fr. Edward Norman's 2007 'The Roman Catholic Church - an illustrated history'. Fr. Norman joined the Church via the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in 2012.]
