In his catechesis at the General Audience this Wednesday, June 5, Pope Francis reflected on the freedom that the Holy Spirit grants, that which does not allow one to do what one wants, but rather “to do freely what God wants” and that expressed in service, where true freedom is.
Before the faithful who listened to him from St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican this morning, the Holy Father recalled the name by which the Holy Spirit was known from the beginning: “Ruach”, which means breath, wind, breath.
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According to the Pontiff, this name “contains the first fundamental revelation about the person and function of the Holy Spirit,” since the image of the wind “serves above all to express the power of the divine Spirit.”
Furthermore, he stressed that “the wind is an overwhelming and indomitable force,” capable even “of moving oceans.” He also stressed that Jesus expressed another characteristic of the wind: its freedom.
In this sense, Pope Francis explained that the wind “cannot be restrained, bottled or boxed” and warned that trying to do so would be “to lose it, nullify it or reduce it to the pure and simple human spirit”, the same thing that happens if it is “enclose it in canons, institutions and definitions.”
The Holy Father pointed out that the freedom granted by the Holy Spirit is “very special, very different from what is commonly understood.”
“It is not freedom to do what one wants, but freedom to freely do what God wants. Not freedom to do good or evil, but freedom to do good and do it freely, that is, by attraction, not by compulsion. In other words, freedom for children, not for slaves,” he expressed.
Furthermore, he added that it is a freedom “that is expressed in what seems to be its opposite, it is expressed in service, and in service is true freedom.”
He also recalled that Saint Paul explained that many times freedom becomes a “pretext for the flesh,” and he made an “always current” list of its consequences: “Fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, discord, jealousy.” , dissensions, divisions, factions, envies, drunkenness, orgies and similar things.
Next, the Holy Father asked: “Where do we get this freedom of the Spirit, so contrary to the freedom of selfishness?”
“The answer is in the words that Jesus addressed one day to his listeners: ‘If the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.’. The freedom that Jesus gives us,” he highlighted.
Finally, he asked Jesus “to make us, through his Holy Spirit, truly free men and women. Free to serve, in love and joy,” concluded Pope Francis.
Almudena Martínez-Bordiú
I am a graduate in Journalism and Advertising from the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. Specialized in religious information in Spain since 2015. I have been a senior correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in the Vatican for two years and I am currently a European correspondent based in Spain.