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Pope Francis Cycle of Catechesis. The Spirit and the Bride 12
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday 6 November 2024
Cycle of Catechesis. The Spirit and the Bride.
The Holy Spirit guides the people of God towards Jesus our hope 12.
“The Spirit intercedes for us”. The Holy Spirit and Christian prayer”
Dear brothers and sisters,
The sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit, in addition to the Word of God and the Sacraments, is expressed in prayer, and it is to this that we wish to dedicate today’s reflection: prayer.
The Holy Spirit is both the subject and object of Christian prayer.
That is, He is the One who gives prayer and He is the One who is given through prayer.
We pray to receive the Holy Spirit, and we receive the Holy Spirit in order to truly pray, that is, as children of God, not as slaves.
Let us think a little about this: pray as children of God, not as slaves.
One must always pray with freedom. “Today I have to pray for this, this, and the other, because I promised this, this, and the other. Otherwise, I will go to hell”. No, that is not prayer! Prayer is free.
You pray when the Spirit helps you to pray. You pray when you feel the need to pray in your heart, and when you feel nothing, you stop and ask: “Why do I not feel the wish to pray?
What is happening in my life?”.
But always, spontaneity in prayer is what helps us the most.
This is what is means to pray as children, not as slaves.
First of all, we must pray to receive the Holy Spirit.
In this regard, Jesus has a very precise word on this in the Gospel: “If you then, being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will yourFather in heaven give the holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (Lk 11:13).
Everyone, each one of us, knows how to give good things to the little children, whether they are our children, our grandparents or our friends.
The little ones always receive good things from us. And yet, how will the Father not give the Spirit to us?
And this gives us courage and we can go on.
In the New Testament, we see the Holy Spirit always descend during prayer.
He descends upon Jesus in the baptism in the Jordan, while he “was praying” (Lk 3:21), and He descends at Pentecost upon the disciples, while they “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer” (Acts 1:14).
It is the only “power” we have over the Spirit of God. The power of prayer: He does not resist prayer.
We pray, and He comes. Remember this passage from the Bible: On Mount Carmel, the false prophets of Baal were agitating to invoke fire from heaven on their sacrifice, but nothing happened, because they were idolators, they worshipped a God that does not exist.
Elijah began to pray, and the fire descended and consumed the offering (cf. I Kings 18:20-38).
The Church faithfully follows this example: she always addresses the Holy Spirit with the invocation:“Come! Come! Holy Spirit!” to the Holy Spirit whenever she addresses Him..
And she does this especially at Mass, so that He may descend like dew and sanctify the bread and wine for the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
But there is another aspect, which is the most important and encouraging for us: the Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the true prayer.
Saint Paul affirms this: “In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness; for often we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes with groans that cannot be uttered. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will” (cf. Rm 8: 26-27).
It is true, we do not know how to pray, we do not know. We have to learn every day.
The reason for this weakness in our prayer has been expressed in the past in just one word, “mali”
used in three different ways: as an adjective, as a noun and as an adverb.
It is easy to remember, even for those who do not know Latin, and it is worth remembering, because it contains a whole treatise, these three things.
We humans, according to this saying, “mali, mala, male petimus”, which means that we are bad (mali).
We ask for the wrong things (mala) and in the wrong way (male).
Jesus says, “Seek ye first the kingdom [of God … and all these things will be given you as well” (Mt 6:33); instead, we seek the extra, namely, our interests – many times – and we completely forget to ask for the kingdom of God. Let us ask the Lord for the kingdom, and all things will be given to us
Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to help us in our weakness, but He does something even more importantl:
He testifies to us that we are children of God and puts on our lips the cry: “Abba! Father!” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). We cannot say “Father, Abba”. We cannot say “Father” without the power of the Holy Spirit.
Christian prayer is not the person on one end of the telephone talking to God on the other;
No, it is God who prays in us! We pray to God through God.
To pray is to enter into God so that God enters into us.
It is in prayer that the Holy Spirit is revealed as the “Paraclete”, that is, the Advocate and the Defender. He does not accuse us before the Father, but defends us.
Yes, He defends us, he convinces us of the fact that we are sinners (cf. Jn 16:8), but he does so to enable us to taste the joy of the Father’s mercy, not to destroy us with fruitless feelings of guilt.
Even when our heart reproaches us for something, He reminds us that “God is greater than our hearts” (1 Jn 3:20). God is greater than our sin. We are all sinners but think: perhaps some of you – I don’t know – are very afraid because of the things you have done, afraid of being reproached by God, afraid of many things and unable to find peace.
Pray, call on the Holy Spirit, and He will teach you how to ask for forgiveness.
And do you know what?
God does not know much grammar, and when we ask for forgiveness, He does not let us finish!
“For…” and there, He does not let us finish the word forgiveness.
He forgives us first, He always forgives, and He is always next to us to forgive us, before we finish the word forgiveness. We say “For…” and the Father always forgives us.
The Holy Spirit intercedes and He also teaches us how to intercede, in turn, for our brothers and sisters – He intercedes for us and He teaches us how to intercede for others.
He teaches us the prayer of intercession: pray for this person, pray for that sick person, pray for the person in prison, praying… even pray even for your mother in law! And pray, always. Always.
This prayer is particularly pleasing to God, because it is the most gratuitous and unselfish.
When someone prays for everyone, it happens – as Saint Ambrose used to say – that everyone prays for everyone else; prayer multiplies. This is what prayer is.
This is a task that is so precious and necessary in the Church, especially during this time of preparation for the Jubilee: to unite ourselves to the Paraclete who “intercedes for all of us according to God’s purpose”.
But please do not pray like parrots, please! Do not say, “Blah, blah, blah…”.
No. Say “Lord” but say it with your heart. “Help me, Lord”, “I love you, Lord”.
And when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, pray “Father, you are my Father”.
Pray with your heart, not with your lips; don’t be like parrots.
May the Holy Spirit help us in prayer, which we need so much. Thank you.
Summary of the Holy Father’s words:
Dear Brothers and Sisters:
In our continuing catechesis on the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, we are considering the role of the Spirit in prayer.
In the Gospels, Jesus teaches us to pray for the gift of the Spirit, who dwells in our hearts and testifies that, in union with the Risen Lord, we are truly sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.
Guided by the Spirit, we truly pray as we should, both personally and in the Church’s celebration of the Liturgy.
As the “Paraclete”, our Advocate and Comforter, the Holy Spirit not only intercedes for us, but also enables us, in the unity of Christ’s Mystical Body, to do the same for the needs of our brothers and sisters.
As we look forward to the coming Holy Year, let us ask the Spirit to bestow upon us, and upon the whole human family, his gifts of holiness, unity, justice and peace.
