#NFCSnational
#theHolyGhostRevival
“Speak Lord, for I hear”. The Pope
suggested addressing God with these simple words of Samuel “when we have doubt,
when we don’t know or when we simply want to pray”. The words are also an
antidote to surrendering to the temptation to resist the Holy Spirit. During
Mass at Santa Marta on Thursday, 14 April, Francis recommended that we not be
afraid when the Holy Spirit is at work and upsets our plans. Because it is joy,
certainly not adhering to the letter of the law, that characterizes the life of
a Christian docile to the work of the Spirit.
Francis
began by referring to the day’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles
(8:26-40), in which “the Holy Spirit” is “the main character”. It isn’t Philip
or the Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the queen. After all, the Pope
added, “in the readings the Church has offered us in these days, it is clearly
seen that it is the Spirit, the One who does things. It is the Spirit who
creates the Church and makes her grow; this is the work of the Spirit”.
“In
recent days”, the Pope stated, “the Church has offered us the drama of
resisting the Spirit: closed, hardened, foolish hearts that resist the Spirit”.
There were people who, even on seeing things such as “the healing of the lame
man by Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; the words and the
great things done by Stephen — they were closed to these signs of the Spirit,
and they resisted the Spirit”. Moreover, they even “tried to justify this
resistance with a so-called faithfulness to the law, that is, to the letter of
the law”.
Francis
said, on the contrary, that “today, and tomorrow too, the Church proposes the
opposite: it is not resistance to the Spirit but docility to the Spirit that is
the proper attitude of a Christian”. It is a matter of “being docile to the
Spirit, and this docility enables the Spirit to operate and go forth to build
the Church”.
Returning
to the day’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles, Francis highlighted that we
are dealing with “a bishop, Philip, one of the Apostles, busy as all bishops
are, and certainly he had plans to work that day”. But “the Spirit said: ‘Rise
and do this instead, leave the episcopate and go there’”. Philip “obeyed: he
was docile to the voice of the Spirit” and thus, “he left all that he had to do
that day and went there”. So it was that the Spirit called him to go “to the
road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza”, giving him no explanation: “You
go!”.
Along
the road that he had been directed to, Philip met “this gentleman, who was an
Ethiopian proselyte: he was the minister of the economy, a great man of the
queen of Ethiopia”. That man, the Pope explained, “had come to worship God: he
was worshiping God and reading Scripture”. It was once again the Spirit who told
Philip to go up to that chariot. And again, “he obeyed, docile to the word of
the Lord”.
The
Acts of the Apostles tell us that “Philip ran to him, and heard him reading
Isaiah the prophet, and asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’. But
his interlocutor answered him: ‘No, how can I, unless someone guides me?’”. And
thus, “he invited Philip to climb aboard the chariot and Philip explained what
the prophet Isaiah had prophesied: namely, Jesus Christ”. In a word, Philip
“explained the salvation of the Gospel”.
“Perhaps
this explanation was a bit long”, the Pope stated, “but they were on a journey,
surely talking. The Ethiopian asked questions, Philip answered, and the Spirit
also worked in the heart of the Ethiopian man”. Indeed, the Spirit “offered the
gift of faith: this man felt something new in his heart”. Again, the Pope said,
“continuing along the road, in that discussion, they came to some water and,
being a practical man, he had a very practical, concrete profession, he said:
“See, here is water! What is to prevent my being baptized?’”. Thus, “he
accepted the faith and requested Baptism: he was docile! Docility to the
Spirit!”.
This
is the story of “two men: one who preached the Gospel and one who knew nothing
of Jesus, but the Spirit had sown the seed of healthy curiosity, not the
curiosity of gossip”. And “the Spirit gave him the give of faith”. Francis then
explained that “after the ceremony of this Baptism, we think that perhaps they
both continued to talk, to speak. No, when they came up out of the water”,
Scripture says, “the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip: right away! And the
Eunuch saw him no more”. The Acts tell us that “Philip, docile, was found at
Azotus, preaching the Gospel”. Of course, this “was not in his plans, but he was
docile to the Spirit”. So, “whatever happened to the Eunuch? He saw him no
more! Did he weep? No!”. In fact, Scripture tells us that he “went on his way
rejoicing. This is “the joy of the Spirit, of docility to the Spirit”.
In
recent days, Francis recalled, “we heard what resistance to the Spirit does”.
Today, instead, “we have an example of two men who were docile to the voice of
the Spirit”. The distinguishing sign “is joy”, because “docility to the Spirit
is a source of joy”. This is why it is important to tell ourselves, “I would
like to do something, this thing, but I feel that the Lord is asking something
else of me: I will find joy there, where there is the call of the Spirit!”.
The
Pope also proposed “a beautiful prayer to ask for this docility”. We find it,
he explained, “in the First Book of Samuel: young Samuel was asleep and he
heard the call and thought it was the priest, Eli”. So, “he arose right away
and went to him: ‘Here I am!’”. But Eli told him that he hadn’t called. Samuel,
Francis recalled, then “returned to bed” but he heard the call again for a
second and then a third time. Eli, said the Pope, “was not a good priest, but
he understood the things of God: he perceived that it was the Lord who
called!”. Therefore he said to Samuel: “Go lie down; and if he calls you, you
shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears’”. This, the Pope said, “is a
beautiful prayer that we can always say: ‘Speak Lord, for I hear’”.
It
is the prayer, he concluded, “to ask for docility to the Holy Spirit, and with
this docility to bring the Church forward, to be instruments of the Spirit so
that the Church can go forward”. Yes, “Speak, Lord, for they servant hears”,
Francis repeated, inviting us again to pray “this way, many times a day: when
we have doubt, when we don’t know or when we simply want to pray”. And “with
this prayer we ask for the grace of docility to Holy Spirit”.
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