Francis focuses on two-part mission of “God’s Gift.” Mass intention: those who have lost their jobs in the pandemic.
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During this time, many people have lost their jobs. They haven’t been re-hired, and are working illegally. Let us pray for these brothers and sisters of ours who suffer this lack of work.
This was Pope Francis’ intention for morning Mass of May 11.
At the beginning of Mass, he also invited us to “unite ourselves to the faithful of Termoli. Today is the feast of the finding of the relics of St. Timothy.”
St. Timothy is mentioned various times in the Bible. He was St. Paul’s disciple, and the recipient of two of the letters of the New Testament. Tradition holds that he was the first bishop of Ephesus and died a martyr in the first century of the Church.
He has come to be a symbol of unity, especially in the search for unity between Catholics and Orthodox.
His relics were discovered in 1945, during restoration work. His feast day is January 26.
Pope Francis’ homily focused on the role of the Holy Spirit, particularly the description Jesus gives of his role: “he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
To teach
To teach and to remind. This is the role of the Holy Spirit. He teaches us: He teaches us the mystery of the faith, he teaches us to enter into the mystery, to understand a bit more the mystery, he teaches us the doctrine of Jesus, and he teaches us to develop our faith without error, because doctrine grows, but always in the same direction: It grows in being understood. And the Holy Spirit helps us to grow in understanding the faith, to understand more and go farther, to understand what the faith says.
To remind
The Holy Spirit is like the memory, it awakens us, it keeps us alert to the things of the Lord and also recalls to us our life, when we found the Lord, or when we distanced ourselves from him. … In this remembering, the Holy Spirit guides us. He guides us to discern what I should do now — which is the right path and which is the wrong one, even in little decisions. If we ask for light from the Holy Spirit, he will help us to discern in order to make correct decisions, from the small decisions of each day to the big ones.
So the role of the Holy Spirit, the pope summarized, is to “teach us all things, that is, to make us grow in faith, to introduce us into the mystery, and to remind us: to remind us of the faith, to remind us of our own life. And the Spirit, in this teaching, in this memory, teaches us to discern the decisions that we should make.”
Scripture refers to him as the Holy Spirit, and the Paraclete.
But there is another, even more beautiful name: It is Gift of God. The Spirit is the gift of God. The Spirit is precisely the Gift: ‘I will not leave you alone. I will send a Paraclete who will help you’ and he helps us to go forward, to remember, to discern, and to grow. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit.
Read more:
The Holy Spirit, as depicted in the Bible and in Christian Art
