This Sunday of Pentecost, on which the Catholics celebrate the public and definitive coming of the Holy Spirit, Pope Leo XIV requested a church that opens “borders” between the peoples and demolishes “the barriers”, where there is no “neither forgotten nor despised”, while calling the unity and fraternity.
“We are truly the church of the risen and the disciples of Pentecost only if there are neither borders nor divisions among us, if in the Church we know how to dialogue and welcome each other integrating our differences, if as a church we become a cozy and hospitable space for all,” he said in the Mass he celebrated in the Plaza de San Pedro also on the occasion of the jubilee of the movements, the associations and the new communities.
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He added: “The differences, when the divine breath unites our hearts and makes us see in the other the face of a brother, are not an occasion of division and conflict, but a common heritage that we can all benefit, and that puts us all on the way, together, in the fraternity.”
Before the thousands of pilgrims who traveled to Rome to participate in this great event-convenient in the framework of the Holy Year 2025- he assured that “where there is love there is no space for prejudices, for the security distances that move us away from others, for the logic of the exclusion we see unfortunately also arise in political nationalisms.”
“The Church must always become what it is again: it must open the borders between the peoples and knock down the barriers between classes and races. In it there can be neither forgotten nor despised,” he said.
Leo XIV, who today turns a month as Pope, reflected on what happened in the Cenacle, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles and granted them “a new look and a heart intelligence that helps them interpret the events that have already happened to have an intimate experience of the presence of the resurrected.”
Thus, he deepened in the eloquent image of Pentecost, in which the Holy Spirit UGE with strength to the apostles and gives them “the courage to meet everyone to announce the works of God.”
The spirit dissolves “the narcissisms that make us turn only around ourselves”
In his homily, the Pontiff explained how at present the Holy Spirit continues to act because the presence of the Lord “dissolves our hardness, our locks, the selfishness, the fears that paralyze us, the narcissms that make us turn us only around ourselves.”
“The Holy Spirit comes to challenge, within us, the risk of a life that is stunted, absorbed by individualism,” he said.
He added: “It opens to the meeting with ourselves, beyond the masks we are wearing; it leads us to meet the Lord teaching us to experience his joy; he convinces us – according to the same words of Jesus just proclaimed – that only if we remain in love we also receive the strength of observing his word and, therefore, of being transformed by her.”
“Disorient and lonely travelers”
He also looked sadly at how, in a world where the chances to socialize are multiplied, “we run the risk of being paradoxically more alone, always connected and yet unable to establish links, always immersed in the crowd, but subtracting disoriented and lonely travelers.”
In this way, he pointed out that when the love of God dwells in us, “we are able to open ourselves to the brothers, to overcome our rigidities, to overcome the fear of which is different, to educate the passions that rise up within us.”
The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, makes the fruits mature in people that help live authentic and healthy relationships: “Love, joy and peace, magnanimity, affability, goodness and trust,” he said.
The violence of recent cases of feminicide
In addition, it made it clear that the spirit also transforms those “more hidden dangers that contaminate our relationships, such as misunderstandings, prejudices, instrumentalizations.” And he added with a very serious tone: “I also think – with a lot of pain – in cases where a relationship is intoxicated by the will to dominate the other, an attitude that frequently leads to violence, as unfortunately demonstrate the numerous and recent cases of femicide”
Leo XIV continued his speech citing the homily that pronounced his predecessor, Pope Francis, last May 28, 2023, precisely celebrating Pentecost, when he observed that today in the world “there is a lot of discord” and “a lot of division.”
“We are all connected and yet we are disconnected among us, anesthetized by indifference and oppressed by loneliness,” he said.
Therefore, he regretted that all this “are a tragic signal the wars that stir our planet.”
Finally, he invoked the spirit of love and peace, so that “open the borders, overcome the walls, dissolve hatred and help us live as children of the only father who is in heaven.”
“Brothers and sisters: By Pentecost the church and the world are renewed! That the vigorous wind of the spirit comes over us and within us, open the borders of the heart, give us the grace of the encounter with God, expand the horizons of love and hold our efforts for the construction of a world where peace reigns,” he concluded.
Victoria Cardiel
Victoria Cardiel is a journalist specialized in social and religious information issues. Since 2013, he has covered all the news of the Vatican for various media, such as the Spanish news agency Europa Press, or the weekly of the Archdiocese of Madrid, Alfa and Omega.