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After looking at the role of the Holy Spirit in creation, Pope Francis on June 12, 2024, considered the Spirit’s role in Revelation, specifically in Scripture.
Based on Scripture itself, we believe that all Scripture is inspired by God, and “we proclaim [this] as an article of faith in the Creed, when we say that the Holy Spirit ‘has spoken through the prophets,'” the Pope noted.
But the Spirit not only inspired the Scriptures, he also “explains and makes them perennially living and active.”
“From inspired, He makes them inspiring,” said the Pope.
It speaks to us
Pope Francis noted an experience common in prayer, when “a certain passage of the Scripture, that we have read many times without particular emotion, one day we read it in an atmosphere of faith and prayer, and then that text is unexpectedly illuminated, it speaks to us, it sheds light on a problem we are living, it makes God’s will for us clear in a certain situation.”
To what is this change due, if not to an enlightenment of the Holy Spirit? The words of the Scripture, under the action of the Spirit, become luminous; and in those cases, we touch with our own hands how true is the statement in the Letter to the Hebrews: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (4:12).
The task of the Church is to help the faithful and those who seek the truth to interpret the biblical texts correctly
The Church interprets
Pope Francis pointed out that the Church is the “authorized interpreter of the inspired text of the Scripture.”
“The Church is the mediator of its authentic proclamation,” he said. “Since the Church is gifted with the Holy Spirit – this is why she is the interpreter – she is the ‘pillar and bulwark of the truth’ (1 Tm 3:15). Why? Because she is inspired, held steady by the Holy Spirit.”
And the task of the Church is to help the faithful and those who seek the truth to interpret the biblical texts correctly.
Encountering Scripture
The Holy Father then noted different ways we encounter Scripture, including lectio divina, a spiritual reading of the Word of God. He urged taking time every day to “listen to and to contemplate” the Word.
Then, repeating an exhortation he often has made, he encouraged carrying a pocket-sized Gospel, so as always to have God’s word at hand.
However the “quintessential spiritual reading of the Scripture is the community reading in the Liturgy in the Mass,” the Pope said.
He urged priests to keep homilies under eight minutes: “Because the homily must help transfer the Word of God from the book to life.”
Don’t have deaf ears!
Pope Francis assured that “among the many words of God that we listen to every day in Mass or in the Liturgy of the Hours, there is always one that is meant specially for us. Something that touches the heart. Welcomed into the heart, it can illuminate our day and inspire our prayer. It is a question of not letting it fall on deaf ears!”
He concluded with a comparison drawn from music:
… a thought that can help us to fall in love with the Word of God. Like certain pieces of music, the Sacred Scripture too has a base note that accompanies it from the beginning to the end, and this note is the love of God.
“The whole Bible,” observes St. Augustine, “does nothing but tell of God’s love.” And St. Gregory the Great defines the Scripture as “a letter from God Almighty to His creature,” like a letter from a bridegroom to his bride, and exhorts us to “learn and know the heart of God in the words of God.”
“Through this revelation,” says Vatican II again, “the invisible God, out of the abundance of His love, speaks to men as friends and lives among them, so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself.”
And today we celebrate...