The Holy Spirit as a Friend

A ‘friend’ who becomes our ‘companion on the journey’ every day. This is the Holy Spirit, according to Pope Francis, who this morning, Monday 6 May, celebrated Mass as usual in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.   To get to know the Spirit, and above all to recognise his action in our lives, “it is important – as the Pope advises – to practise an examination of conscience” every evening before going to sleep.

The Holy Father, referring to the Gospel of John (15:26–16:4), recalled the moment when Jesus took his leave of the disciples, assuring them that he ‘would not leave them alone: ‘I will send you the Holy Spirit’”. With this promise, “the Lord goes on to explain who the Holy Spirit is, and what the Holy Spirit will do within us. And today,” the Pope pointed out, “he says something that will give us pause for thought: ‘he will bear witness to me’”. The Holy Spirit is God, the Divine Person, who bears witness to Jesus Christ within us. He is the one who tells us: ‘This is Jesus the Lord. ‘This is what the Lord does. This is the way of Jesus.’ And he calls him the Paraclete, that is to say, the one who defends us, who is always at our side to support us.”

Moreover, “the Christian life,” he explained, “cannot be understood without the presence of the Holy Spirit: it would not be Christian. It would be a religious, pagan, compassionate life’, like that of someone who ‘believes in God, but without the vitality that Jesus wants for his disciples’. Moreover, he continued, it is the Spirit who bears witness to Jesus “so that we may bear witness to him to others”.

Commenting on the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles (16:11–15), the Pope cited the example of Lydia, the woman who listened to Paul: ‘It is said of her that the Lord opened her heart to accept Paul’s words. This is what the Holy Spirit does: he opens our hearts so that we may come to know Jesus’. He acts within us ‘throughout the day, throughout our lives, as a witness who tells us where Jesus is’.

And the best time to discover this, according to the Pope, is at the end of the day, when, following a practice specific to Christians, we examine our conscience. Before going to bed, the Christian ‘reflects on what has happened to them’, on what ‘the Lord has said, what the Holy Spirit has done within me. ‘Have I listened to the Holy Spirit, or have I looked the other way?’ This exercise of examining our conscience does us good because it means becoming aware of what the Lord has done in our hearts that day, of what the Holy Spirit has done, precisely.” And ‘this helps to make our lives more fruitful, to make the fruitfulness of Easter present at every moment, as we have asked for today in prayer. Let us ask for the grace to grow accustomed to the presence of this travelling companion: the Holy Spirit; this witness to Jesus who tells us where Jesus is, how to find Jesus, and what Jesus is saying to us.”

It was Jesus himself who left him with us as a friend. So – Pope Francis repeated – it is good to maintain the habit ‘of asking ourselves, before the day ends: ‘What has the Holy Spirit done in me today? What witness has he given? How has he spoken to me? What has he suggested to me?’  It is a divine presence that helps us to move forward in our lives as Christians’. Finally, the Bishop of Rome invited everyone to ask for this grace so that “at all times we may be mindful of the fruitfulness of Easter”.

Source: News.va