READING OF THE DAY First reading from the Acts of the Apostles Acts 2:1-11
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, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, 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, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked, “Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in his native language? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.”
Second reading from the Letter to the Galatians Gal 5:16-25
Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY From the Gospel according to John Jn 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Come, Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home Shed a ray of light divine! Come, Father of the poor! Come, source of all our store! Come, within our bosoms shine. You, of comforters the best; You, the soul’s most welcome guest; Sweet refreshment here below; In our labour, rest most sweet; Grateful coolness in the heat; Solace in the midst of woe. O most blessed Light divine, Shine within these hearts of yours, And our inmost being fill! Where you are not, we have naught, Nothing good in deed or thought, Nothing free from taint of ill. Heal our wounds, our strength renew; On our dryness pour your dew; Wash the stains of guilt away: Bend the stubborn heart and will; Melt the frozen, warm the chill; Guide the steps that go astray. On the faithful, who adore And confess you, evermore In your sevenfold gift descend; Give them virtue’s sure reward; Give them your salvation, Lord; Give them joys that never end. Amen. Alleluia.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER Let us try asking ourselves: am I open to the action of the Holy Spirit? Do I pray him to give me illumination, to make me more sensitive to God’s things? This is a prayer we must pray every day: “Holy Spirit, make my heart open to the word of God, make my heart open to goodness, make my heart open to the beauty of God every day”. I would like to ask everyone a question: how many of you pray every day to the Holy Spirit? There will not be many but we must fulfil Jesus’ wish and pray every day to the Holy Spirit that he open our heart to Jesus. (General Audience, 15 May 2013)
FAUSTI - The Holy Spirit, as He is sent by the Father (14,26), is also sent by the Son. It is the gift that Jesus will give us in His glorification, when He will pour out on the brothers His mutual Love to the Father. The Father, origin of the Son, is the principle of Love. The Son is the response to this Love. The Spirit of truth will witness to the disciples Who Jesus is and will make known to them the Son and the Father. The Spirit, by giving us the Love of the Son, will enable us to witness Him to the world. He who was the beginning of creation will bring it to fulfillment, saving it from perdition. For the disciples, as for Jesus, the ignorance and hatred of the world become the place where the knowledge of the Father and the love of the brothers are witnessed. The disciples can testify to Him because, being with Him from the beginning, they have seen Him. It is the Testament of Jesus to His disciples, present and future, who will follow His path as Son.When the hour of difficulty comes, they will remember that it was foretold. Jesus has predicted the gratuitous hatred against the righteous, which the disciples will see in a few hours on the cross.When they will see Him crucified, they will disavow Him and desert Him.They will consider Him a failure.It will be a moment of bewilderment that will return thanks to these words.If the disciples had definitely aligned themselves with the others in reading the Cross as a failure, it would not have been born the new humanity. Jesus' Words before leaving want us to overcome the scandal of the suffering of the Righteous. the new humanity would not have been born. Jesus' words before leaving want us to overcome the scandal of the suffering of the righteous. Worldly history, rewritten by the last winner, is always an apology for a crime: it justifies the violent person who has managed to impose himself on others. God, on the other hand, writes history by giving voice and reason to the victims of violence. History is not the triumph of evil, which gratuitously eliminates the righteous, but the victory of the righteous, who overcomes evil by loving gratuitously. Sooner or later there comes to the disciple an hour that associates him with the "hour" of his Master. Christ was killed in the name of God, as a blasphemer, and so too was Stephen. When all men will understand that one cannot harm another in the name of God or of reason, there will be a great novelty: everyone will be ashamed of his own foolishness and will act according to wisdom. Not accepting that we are children, loved by the Father in the Son, makes it impossible to live as brethren. To ignore the common Father is tantamount to not recognizing oneself as a son and the other as a brother. To refuse the Love of the Father is to reject the Source of one's own life. Jesus, by His leaving, has told us everything about God; He cannot tell us or give us more. But Love surpasses all knowledge. There is always more to understand, which remains unsaid. The Spirit will make us understand the "unspoken" of what Jesus told us, will actualize in history His presence, speaking here and now of what He said then. The whole history is the fulfillment of the Revelation of the Son, in the light of Love that increases knowledge and knowledge that grows in Love. The Word, the principle of everything, has a specific weight greater than any reality. Only after the Cross, where we see and receive His Love, do we understand what Jesus said and are able to carry the weight of His Words. If the Gospel tells us about Jesus, the Spirit of Love is like the light that makes us understand and live Him. It is true that the Person of Jesus showed us the glory. But this is never totally understood, it will always be more understandable, infinitely, because it is infinite.
-->It is a dynamic truth, a journey of understanding and unending love. Once Jesus' "saying" ceases, the Spirit's "speaking" in us will continue, making His Words present to us. The Word become flesh has revealed everything to us. The Spirit: the Spirit repeats and announces the Word to us again, giving us the light to interpret and live it in our concrete situation. The Spirit of Truth will make us understand the mystery of the Son in history: it is the Spirit of prophecy, which makes us read what is happening in the light of "He who comes". Christian prophecy consists in seeing the present in the light of Jesus' past. What happened to Him happens and will happen to every disciple, in every place and time. Our prophecy is the actualizing memory of Jesus: it makes us see what He is doing, now as then. Indeed, it enables us to see reality with His Son's eyes, which are the same as those of the Father. Jesus revealed the Glory that the Son always had, before the foundation of the world. Here we speak of the future glorification of the Son in His brothers, through the Spirit that will make them live like Him. In fact Jesus says: "I have given them the glory that You have given me", so that "the Love with which You loved me may be in them and I in them". The Consoler will glorify the Son in us by taking what is His, His communion with the Father, and communicating it to us. The Son is One with the Father (10:30): He has the same life and the same glory, the same Love and the same Will to save the world. The Spirit transmits all this to us, introducing us into the mystery of the Trinity, Love between Father and Son, which is poured out on every creature. This is essentially His work, which glorifies the Son in the brethren, until God is all in everyone. Thus we enter more and more into His ineffable relationship of Son with Father, becoming sons ourselves. Then our flesh, like His, will be an exegesis of the invisible God. This is the glorification of the Son that the Spirit of Truth will bring ahead in history, thanks to the fact that "Jesus goes" to the Father.
THOUGHTS S. J.PAUL II - Crossing the Threshold of Hope. "Redemptoris Missio" speaks of modern areopaguses, that is, of new pulpits. These areopaguses are today the world of science, culture, the media of communication... "The Church looks to the future; She goes out, without ever stopping, towards the new generations... And it is clear that these generations welcome with enthusiasm what their fathers seemed to reject...". What does this mean? It means that Christ is always young. It means that the Holy Spirit works ceaselessly. How eloquent are the Words of Christ: "My Father always works, and I also work" (Jn 5:17). The Father and the Son work in the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Truth, and Truth never ceases to be fascinating to mankind, especially to young hearts: Therefore, one cannot stop at statistics alone . For Christ, works of charity are important. The Church, in spite of all the losses She suffers, does not cease to look to the future with hope. Such hope is a sign of the power of the Spirit.
DE LUBAC - "The earth, which without God could cease to be a chaos only to become a prison, is in reality the magnificent and painful field where our eternal existence is prepared.
ELISABETH OF THE TRINITY - My God the Trinity Whom I adore - The Love of the Father and the Son continually creates in the heart of the Christian the spiritual reality of a new existence. In faith, through which the Father brings to completion the eternal plan of making us sons in the image of Christ, the divine dimension of human existence is revealed. Man is a "sanctuary of Love" before which every effort of definition is inadequate. The light of faith silences all discourse and leads to adoration, because it makes us see things as they really are, as God sees them. The mysterious indwelling of the Trinity confers to man an infinite dignity.
READING OF THE DAY
RispondiEliminaFirst reading from the Acts of the Apostles
Acts 2:1-11
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,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
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,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,
as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues
of the mighty acts of God.”
Second reading from the Letter to the Galatians
Gal 5:16-25
Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit
and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.
For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh;
these are opposed to each other,
so that you may not do what you want.
But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious:
immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry,
sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy,
outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness,
dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,
drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Against such there is no law.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh
with its passions and desires.
If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
From the Gospel according to John
Jn 20:19-23
On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Come, Holy Spirit
RispondiEliminaCome, Holy Spirit, come!
And from your celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine!
Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine.
You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul’s most welcome guest;
Sweet refreshment here below;
In our labour, rest most sweet;
Grateful coolness in the heat;
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed Light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill!
Where you are not, we have naught,
Nothing good in deed or thought,
Nothing free from taint of ill.
Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
On our dryness pour your dew;
Wash the stains of guilt away:
Bend the stubborn heart and will;
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you, evermore
In your sevenfold gift descend;
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation, Lord;
Give them joys that never end. Amen.
Alleluia.
WORDS OF THE HOLY FATHER
Let us try asking ourselves: am I open to the action of the Holy Spirit? Do I pray him to give me illumination, to make me more sensitive to God’s things? This is a prayer we must pray every day: “Holy Spirit, make my heart open to the word of God, make my heart open to goodness, make my heart open to the beauty of God every day”. I would like to ask everyone a question: how many of you pray every day to the Holy Spirit? There will not be many but we must fulfil Jesus’ wish and pray every day to the Holy Spirit that he open our heart to Jesus. (General Audience, 15 May 2013)
FAUSTI - The Holy Spirit, as He is sent by the Father (14,26), is also sent by the Son.
RispondiEliminaIt is the gift that Jesus will give us in His glorification, when He will pour out on the brothers His mutual Love to the Father.
The Father, origin of the Son, is the principle of Love.
The Son is the response to this Love.
The Spirit of truth will witness to the disciples Who Jesus is and will make known to them the Son and the Father. The Spirit, by giving us the Love of the Son, will enable us to witness Him to the world.
He who was the beginning of creation will bring it to fulfillment, saving it from perdition.
For the disciples, as for Jesus, the ignorance and hatred of the world become the place where the knowledge of the Father and the love of the brothers are witnessed.
The disciples can testify to Him because, being with Him from the beginning, they have seen Him.
It is the Testament of Jesus to His disciples, present and future, who will follow His path as Son.When the hour of difficulty comes, they will remember that it was foretold.
Jesus has predicted the gratuitous hatred against the righteous, which the disciples will see in a few hours on the cross.When they will see Him crucified, they will disavow Him and desert Him.They will consider Him a failure.It will be a moment of bewilderment that will return thanks to these words.If the disciples had definitely aligned themselves with the others in reading the Cross as a failure, it would not have been
born the new humanity.
Jesus' Words before leaving want us to overcome the scandal of the suffering of the Righteous. the new humanity would not have been born.
Jesus' words before leaving want us to overcome the scandal of the suffering of the righteous. Worldly history, rewritten by the last winner, is always an apology for a crime: it justifies the violent person who has managed to impose himself on others.
God, on the other hand, writes history by giving voice and reason to the victims of violence.
History is not the triumph of evil, which gratuitously eliminates the righteous, but the victory of the righteous, who overcomes evil by loving gratuitously.
Sooner or later there comes to the disciple an hour that associates him with the "hour" of his Master.
Christ was killed in the name of God, as a blasphemer, and so too was Stephen.
When all men will understand that one cannot harm another in the name of God or of reason, there will be a great novelty: everyone will be ashamed of his own foolishness and will act according to wisdom. Not accepting that we are children, loved by the Father in the Son, makes it impossible to live as brethren.
To ignore the common Father is tantamount to not recognizing oneself as a son and the other as a brother.
To refuse the Love of the Father is to reject the Source of one's own life.
Jesus, by His leaving, has told us everything about God; He cannot tell us or give us more.
But Love surpasses all knowledge. There is always more to understand, which remains unsaid.
The Spirit will make us understand the "unspoken" of what Jesus told us, will actualize in history His presence, speaking here and now of what He said then. The whole history is the fulfillment of the Revelation of the Son, in the light of Love that increases knowledge and knowledge that grows in Love.
The Word, the principle of everything, has a specific weight greater than any reality.
Only after the Cross, where we see and receive His Love, do we understand what Jesus said and are able to carry the weight of His Words.
If the Gospel tells us about Jesus, the Spirit of Love is like the light that makes us understand and live Him.
It is true that the Person of Jesus showed us the glory.
But this is never totally understood, it will always be more understandable, infinitely, because it is infinite.
-->It is a dynamic truth, a journey of understanding and unending love.
RispondiEliminaOnce Jesus' "saying" ceases, the Spirit's "speaking" in us will continue, making His Words present to us.
The Word become flesh has revealed everything to us. The Spirit: the Spirit repeats and announces the Word to us again, giving us the light to interpret and live it in our concrete situation.
The Spirit of Truth will make us understand the mystery of the Son in history: it is the Spirit of prophecy, which makes us read what is happening in the light of "He who comes".
Christian prophecy consists in seeing the present in the light of Jesus' past.
What happened to Him happens and will happen to every disciple, in every place and time.
Our prophecy is the actualizing memory of Jesus: it makes us see what He is doing, now as then.
Indeed, it enables us to see reality with His Son's eyes, which are the same as those of the Father.
Jesus revealed the Glory that the Son always had, before the foundation of the world. Here we speak of the future glorification of the Son in His brothers, through the Spirit that will make them live like Him.
In fact Jesus says: "I have given them the glory that You have given me", so that "the Love with which You loved me may be in them and I in them".
The Consoler will glorify the Son in us by taking what is His, His communion with the Father, and communicating it to us.
The Son is One with the Father (10:30): He has the same life and the same glory, the same Love and the same Will to save the world.
The Spirit transmits all this to us, introducing us into the mystery of the Trinity, Love between Father and Son, which is poured out on every creature.
This is essentially His work, which glorifies the Son in the brethren, until God is all in everyone.
Thus we enter more and more into His ineffable relationship of Son with Father, becoming sons ourselves. Then our flesh, like His, will be an exegesis of the invisible God.
This is the glorification of the Son that the Spirit of Truth will bring ahead in history,
thanks to the fact that "Jesus goes" to the Father.
THOUGHTS
RispondiEliminaS. J.PAUL II - Crossing the Threshold of Hope.
"Redemptoris Missio" speaks of modern areopaguses, that is, of new pulpits. These areopaguses are today the world of science, culture, the media of communication...
"The Church looks to the future; She goes out, without ever stopping, towards the new generations... And it is clear that these generations welcome with enthusiasm what their fathers seemed to reject...".
What does this mean? It means that Christ is always young. It means that the Holy Spirit works ceaselessly. How eloquent are the Words of Christ: "My Father always works, and I also work" (Jn 5:17). The Father and the Son work in the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Truth, and Truth never ceases to be fascinating to mankind, especially to young hearts:
Therefore, one cannot stop at statistics alone . For Christ, works of charity are important.
The Church, in spite of all the losses She suffers, does not cease to look to the future with hope. Such hope is a sign of the power of the Spirit.
DE LUBAC - "The earth, which without God could cease to be a chaos only to become a prison,
is in reality the magnificent and painful field where our eternal existence is prepared.
ELISABETH OF THE TRINITY - My God the Trinity Whom I adore - The Love of the Father and the Son continually creates in the heart of the Christian the spiritual reality of a new existence.
In faith, through which the Father brings to completion the eternal plan of making us sons in the image of Christ, the divine dimension of human existence is revealed.
Man is a "sanctuary of Love" before which every effort of definition is inadequate.
The light of faith silences all discourse and leads to adoration, because it makes us see things as they really are, as God sees them.
The mysterious indwelling of the Trinity confers to man an infinite dignity.