Following is the text of Patriarch Pizzaballa's meditation marking Pentecost dated June 8, 2025:

In the history of salvation, the Spirit of the Lord has intervened time and again, especially in the most difficult times, to bring salvation, to work deliverance, to show God’s intervention in the complex stories of humanity. He has descended on weak people and made them leaders of his people, he has spoken through prophets, he has brought withered bones back to life, he is a dynamic force that always gives power and strength.

In each of these events, whenever the Spirit became present, he made a new beginning possible.

Where everything was still, where everything seemed weighed down or dead or tired and exhausted, the Spirit came and opened up a new path. And the Spirit did this more and more, little by little, by entering human history. Where the presence of the Spirit is most intimate and deepest, that is where the relationship with God is most alive and the awareness of His presence in the life of the world grows.

In today’s Gospel passage (John 14:15-16,23-26) we see that Jesus announces a new coming of the Spirit. He wants to prepare His disciples for this important passage so that they understand that they can continue to be with Him, but in a different way, namely in the Spirit. It is indeed a gift for which we must prepare ourselves, which can be in vain if it is not expected, if it is not celebrated and invoked. In short, Jesus announces the coming of the Spirit, thereby digging expectation and hope into the hearts of his lost disciples.

For the disciples, something is coming to an end, and they need a new beginning, a beginning that only the Spirit can bring about. Jesus is about to face his own passion, and the Spirit is needed to start anew after this dramatic event and to continue the journey. God’s story with humanity will not end this time either.

The characteristics of the Spirit’s coming are revealed in two terms in today’s Gospel: “always” (“the Advocate to be with you always” - John 14:16) and “everything” (“he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you”. (John 14:26)

The presence of the Spirit in the lives of believers will not be an occasional, extraordinary event, but a daily and constant presence, a life in our lives. The Spirit will not only be with us and among us in dark and difficult times, nor only in important moments, but will always, constantly bring forth the life of Christ in us.

This is why, immediately after announcing that the Spirit will always be with us, Jesus uses the image of the house, the dwelling place (“My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him”. (John 14:23)

The Spirit comes to dwell in us, to take up home in us, and at the same time makes us God’s dwelling place, a place where God constantly comes.

When the Spirit is “always” coming, “everything” is full of life and meaning.

Our lives are so permeated by the Holy Spirit that everything in us is permeated by Him, without anyone being able to separate us from His presence and his work.

For the work of the Advocate is to teach and remind us of all that Jesus said, that is, to enable a paschal reading of life, to make every event in life a place where it is possible to be transformed, to take up the journey again and begin anew.

But to begin again with what?

It is clear from today’s text that the new beginning made possible by the presence of the Spirit is one of those who always begin to love anew (“If you love me... Whoever loves me... my Father will love him... whoever does not love me” - John 14:15,23,24). The Spirit is always connected to love, because the Spirit is love, it is communion. It is therefore a matter of receiving the Spirit, i.e. the love of God that is poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5), in order to begin a new life in love.

And because the Spirit is always with us, it will always be possible to begin again without anything interrupting this possibility, without anything keeping us stuck in the immobility of sin and death. It is an “always” that is sometimes hard to believe, especially in the most complicated moments of life. Only the Holy Spirit can give us faith and hope in the possibility of a new beginning, of a life that can always begin again.

+ Pierbattista