Catechesis of Pope Francis on the Holy Spirit and marriage

Below is the complete catechesis of Pope Francis in the General Audience on October 23 with the title “The Spirit, the gift of God”:

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Last time, we explained what we proclaimed about the Holy Spirit in the creed. However, the Church’s reflection has not stopped at that brief profession of faith. It has continued, both in the East and in the West, through the work of great Fathers and Doctors. Today, we want to collect some “crumbs” of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit developed in the Latin tradition, to see how it illuminates the entire Christian life and, especially, the sacrament of marriage.

The main architect of this doctrine is Saint Augustine. He starts from the revelation that “God is love” (1 Jn 4,8). Now, love presupposes someone who loves, someone who is loved, and the love itself that unites them. The Father is, in the Trinity, the one who loves, the source and the beginning of everything; the Son is the one who is loved, and the Holy Spirit is the love that unites them. The God of Christians is, therefore, a “unique” God, but not solitary; theirs is a unity of communion and love. Along these lines, some have proposed calling the Holy Spirit not the “third person” singular of the Trinity, but rather “the first person plural.” He is, in other words, the divine We of the Father and the Son, the bond of unity between different people, the very principle of the unity of the Church, which is exactly a “single body” resulting from a multitude of people.

As I said, today I would like to reflect with you on what the Holy Spirit has to say to the family. What does the Holy Spirit have to do with marriage, for example? A lot, perhaps the essential thing; I try to explain why. Christian marriage is the sacrament of becoming a gift, one for another, of man and woman. This is what the Creator thought when “he created the human being in his image and likeness (…): male and female he created them” (Gn 1.27). The human couple is, therefore, the first and most basic realization of the communion of love that is the Trinity.

Spouses must also form a first person plural, a “we.” Stand before each other as an “I” and a “you,” and stand before the rest of the world, including your children, as a “we.” How beautiful it is to hear a mother say to her children: “Your father and I…”, as Mary said to Jesus, when they found him in the temple (cf. Lc 2.48); and hearing a parent say, “Your mother and I,” almost as if they were one person. How much children need this unity, dad and mom together, parental unity, and how much they suffer when it is missing! How much the children of parents who separate suffer, how much they suffer.

To respond to this vocation, marriage needs the support of the One who is the Gift, or, rather, the one who gives himself par excellence. Where the Holy Spirit enters, the ability to surrender is reborn. Some Fathers of the Latin Church affirmed that, being a reciprocal gift of the Father and the Son in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is also the reason for the joy that reigns between them; and they were not afraid to use, when talking about Him, the image of gestures typical of married life, such as kisses and hugs.

Nobody says that this unity is an easy goal, especially in today’s world; but this is the truth of things as the Creator conceived them and, therefore, it is in their nature. Of course, it may seem easier and faster to build on sand than on rock; but Jesus’ parable tells us what the result is (cf. Mt 7:24-27). In this case, we don’t even need the parable, because the consequences of marriages built on sand are, unfortunately, for everyone to see, and it is above all the children who pay the price. Children suffer separation or lack of love from parents.

Of many spouses, we must repeat what Mary said to Jesus in Cana of Galilee: “They have no wine” (Jn 23). The Holy Spirit, however, is the one who continues to perform, on the spiritual level, the miracle that Jesus performed on that occasion, namely, changing the water of habit into a new joy of being together. It is not a pious illusion: it is what the Holy Spirit has done in so many marriages, when the spouses decided to invoke him.

It would not be bad, therefore, if, together with the legal, psychological and moral information that is given in the preparation of the couple for marriage, this “spiritual” preparation were delved into. The Holy Spirit who makes unity. An Italian proverb says: “Don’t put a finger between wife and husband.” Instead, there is a “finger” that must be placed between husband and wife, and it is precisely the “finger of God”: the Holy Spirit!