PENTECOST   SUNDAY

A  collection  of  statements of  two Popes,  Pope Benedict XVI  and  Pope  Francis,  expressed  at   different  times  on  different  occasions.

• Jesus said to his disciples: “I myself will send upon you the Holy Spirit that my Father has promised.” (Lk 24:49)
• Only Jesus can fulfil the most intimate aspirations that are in the heart of each person. Only Jesus can humanize humanity and lead it to its “divinization”.
• Through the power of his Spirit, Jesus instils divine charity within us, and this makes us capable of loving our neighbour and ready to be of service.
• The Holy Spirit enlightens us, revealing Christ crucified and risen, and shows us how to become more like Him so that we can be “the image and instrument of the love which flows from Christ”.
• Those who allow themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit understand that placing oneself at the service of the Gospel is not an optional extra, because they are aware of the urgency of transmitting this Good News to others.
• The Holy Spirit is “the principal agent of evangelization” and “the principal agent of mission”.
• Throughout the centuries, the Gospel has continued to spread by means of men and women inspired by that same missionary fervour.
• Today too there is a need for disciples of Christ to give their time and energy to serve the Gospel, to allow God’s love to burn within them and to respond generously to his urgent call.
• The Spirit of Jesus today is inviting people to be bearers of the Gospel to their contemporaries. In order to achieve this goal they must be holy and they must be missionaries since they can never separate holiness from mission.
• “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Be my witnesses throughout the world” (Acts 1:8).
• These were Jesus’ last words before his Ascension. When the Apostles heard them, they gathered together, united in prayer, with the women and Mary in the Upper Room ( Acts 1:14).
• God has made us for one another (Gen 2:24) and only in God and his Church we can find the unity we seek. It is the Spirit, in fact, who guides the Church in the way of all truth and unifies her in communion and in the works of ministry.
• Who satisfies that essential human yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be led to truth? The Holy Spirit! This is the Spirit’s role! He offers the consistency and certainty of Christian witness!
• The Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the Church forward. Sometimes we wish “to calm down the Holy Spirit, we want to tame it and this is wrong.
• The Holy Spirit is the strength of God, it’s what gives us the strength to go forward but many find this upsetting and prefer the comfort of laziness.
• Everybody seems happy about the presence of the Holy Spirit but there is still that temptation to resist.