Nine years ago, on May 13th 2013, Pope Francis defined the Holy Spirit as: “the unknown One of our faith”.
It is a curious circumstance, if we think about the fact that the Holy Spirit has been with each of us from the day we were baptized. Ever since the day we were blessed with the water of Jesus’s life and the priest proclaimed: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”, He has been with us. And, as the Holy Father points out, “the Holy Spirit is not an abstract thing, it is a Person who changes our lives, just like it happened to the apostles.” He fills us with many gifts. However, remember what the apostle Saint Paul said: If I don’t have love, nothing else will matter. The gift of wisdom, among other gifts, would be of little worth without love. It may be for this reason that in his 2019 Pentecost homily, Pope Francis recalled the importance of a deep communion with the Holy Spirit. He said, “He who lives according to the Spirit brings peace where there is discord, harmony where there is conflict. Spiritual men return good for evil, respond to arrogance with meekness, to malice with kindness, to noise with silence, to gossip with prayer, and to defeatism with a smile. To be spiritual, we must put the gaze of the Spirit before our own.” Hopefully, this biblical reflection will serve for a dialogue with the Holy Spirit.
Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh be longs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus 2 does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world.
1 John 4, 1-3.
But when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the holy Spirit,
Titus 3, 4-5.
And you became imitators 3 of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the holy Spirit,
1 Thessalonians 1,6.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the holy Spirit.
Romans 15, 13.
When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, 2 and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, 3 which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, 4 as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Acts 2, 1-4.
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and exclaimed, “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. 38Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.'” He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive. There was, of course, no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
John 7, 37-39
After all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened and the holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Luke 3, 21-22.
