His Holiness Pope Francis celebrated the Holy Mass on Tuesday morning at Casa Santa Marta. The Pontiff in the homily at the Mass invited the faithful to make room for the Holy Spirit in their lives. On reflecting upon the Gospel of the day, in which Jesus tells Nicodemus, “you must be born again.” The Pontiff said we can be reborn from ‘our sinful existence’ only with “the help of the same power that raised the Lord: the power of God,” because alone, we cannot do it. The Pontiff recalls the fact in the first apparition of Jesus to the apostles, on the Sunday of the Resurrection, the Lord breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
His Holiness said, “It is by the Holy Spirit that allows us to rise from our limitations, from our deaths because there is so many necrosis in our life and in our soul.” The Pontiff explained that “a life that may call itself Christian, but that leaves no room for the Holy Spirit and does not allow itself to be carried forward by the Holy Spirit, is a pagan life, disguised as a Christian.” As a Christian we should write our lives in ‘flourishing penmanship’ but only through the Holy Spirit; we are reborn. It is the Holy Spirit, who accompanies us, transforms us, and overcomes sin with us. The Pontiff said, “The Spirit is the protagonist of the Christian life.” Hence, “Holy Spirit is our daily companion,” the pontiff continued, “a gift from the Father, a gift from Jesus”.
His Holiness Pope Francis concluded by reminding “to be faithful Christians, let us ask the Lord to help us to understand the place of the Holy Spirit in our lives”.
