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Illustration: Creation of Adam (cropped) – by Michelangelo
Pope Francis’ General Audience –
St. Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Cycle of Catechesis. The Spirit and the Bride. (The Bride is the Church)
The Holy Spirit guides God’s people to meet Jesus, our hope. 1.
The following is a summary of the Holy Father’s catechesis at the beginning of the audience:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, today we begin a new series of catechesis on ‘the spirit and the bride’
which focuses on how the Holy Spirit guides God’s people throughout the history of salvation.
From the very beginning the Spirit of God has been at work bringing order and out of chaos.
This ongoing transformation is fully realized in Jesus Christ.
St. Paul tells us that creation has been groaning in travail – a reality that remains true and underlines our need to address both our internal and our external chaos.
In light of this, St. Francis of Assisi offers contemplation and praise as a remedy and demonstrates how to embrace creation freely. Let us then invite the Spirit of God into our lives to transform our hearts and heal our world. Come Holy Spirit, creator come, enlighten our minds and fill with heavenly grace the hearts you have created.
Spiritual Reading – Genesis (1:1-2)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today, with this catechesis, we begin a cycle of reflections on the theme “The Spirit and the Bride – the Bride is the Church. The Holy Spirit guides the people of God to encounter Jesus, our hope.”
We will make this journey through the three great stages of salvation history: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the time of the Church. At all times we will keep our gaze fixed on Jesus, who is our hope.
In these first catecheses on the Spirit in the Old Testament we will not engage in “biblical archaeology”. Instead, we will discover that what is given as a promise in the Old Testament has been fully realized in Christ. It will be like following the path of the sun from dawn to noon.
Let’s start with the first two verses of the entire Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and desolate, and darkness covered the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters” (Gen 1:1-2).
The Spirit of God appears to us as the mysterious force that transforms the world from its initial state of formlessness, desolation and darkness into a state of order and harmony.
For the Spirit creates harmony, harmony in life, harmony in the world.
In other words, He is the One who makes us pass from chaos to the cosmos, that is, from confusion to something beautiful and ordered.
In fact, this is the meaning of the Greek word kosmos, as well as of the Latin word mundus, which means something beautiful, orderly, clean, harmonious, because the Spirit is harmony.
This still vague reference to the action of the Spirit in creation is made clear in the rest of revelation.
In one psalm we read: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts” (Ps 33:6); and again: “You send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30).
This line of development becomes very clear in the New Testament, which describes the intervention of the Holy Spirit in the new creation, using precisely the images that we read about the origin of the world:
the dove that hovers over the waters of the Jordan at the baptism of Jesus (cf. Mt 3:16 – when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened[a] and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him;);
Jesus who, in the Upper Room, breathes on the disciples and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22 –when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.),
just as God had breathed his breath on Adam at the beginning (Gen 2:7 – the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being).
The Apostle Paul introduces a new element into this relationship between the Holy Spirit and creation.
He speaks of a universe that “groans and suffers as in the pangs of childbirth” (Rom 8:22).
He suffers because of the man who subjected him to the “slavery of corruption” (Rom. 20-21).
It is a reality that affects us closely and dramatically.
The Apostle sees the cause of creation’s suffering in the corruption and sin of humanity which has drawn it into its estrangement from God.
This remains as true today as it was then.
We see the havoc that humanity has wreaked and continues to wreak on creation, especially on that part of it which has the greatest capacity to exploit its resources.
St. Francis of Assisi shows us a beautiful way out to return to the harmony of the Spirit: the way of contemplation and praise.
He wanted a song of praise to the Creator to be raised up by the creatures.
Let us remember: “Praise be to you, my Lord…”, the canticle of Francis of Assisi.
A Psalm (18:2) says: “The heavens declare the glory of God“, but they need men and women to give voice to their silent cry.
And in the “holy” of the Mass we repeat each time: “The heavens and the earth are filled with your glory”.
They are, as it were, “pregnant” with it, but they need the hands of a good midwife to give birth to this praise of theirs.
Paul reminds us, “Our vocation in the world, is to be “the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:12).
It is a question of putting the joy of contemplation before the joy of possession.
And no one rejoiced in creatures more than Francis of Assisi, who did not want to possess any of them.
Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit, who first transformed chaos into the cosmos, is at work to bring about this transformation in every person.
Through the prophet Ezekiel, God promised: “I will give you a new heart; I will put a new spirit within you… I will put my Spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
For our hearts resemble that the desolate and dark abyss of the first verses of Genesis.
In it there are conflicting feelings and desires: those of the flesh and those of the Spirit.
We are all, in a certain sense, that “kingdom divided within itself” of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel (cf. Mk 3:24 – If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.).
Around us we can say that there is external chaos, social chaos, political chaos: let us think of wars, let us think of so many boys and girls who have nothing to eat, of so many social injustices, this is external chaos.
But there is also an inner chaos: the inner chaos of each one of us.
You can’t heal the first if you don’t begin to heal the second!
Brothers and sisters, let us do well to transform our inner confusion into the clarity of the Holy Spirit:
it is the power of God that does this, and we open our hearts so that He can do it.
May this reflection awaken in us the desire to experience the Creator Spirit.
For more than a millennium the Church has put on our lips the cry to ask for it: “Veni Creator Spiritus!” Come,
O Creator Spirit! Visit our minds. Fill the hearts you have created with heavenly grace.”
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to come to us and make us new people, with the newness of the Spirit.
Thank you.
