One in Christ / Daniel Conway

The Holy Spirit gives our Church what we need on our pilgrim journey of faith

(En Espanol)

“The day has dawned upon us when …, glorified by his ascension into heaven following his resurrection, the Lord Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit” [St. Augustine, Serm. 271, 1]. Today, too, what took place in the Upper Room takes place anew in our midst. Like a mighty wind that overtakes us, like a crash that startles us, like a fire that illuminates us, the gift of the Holy Spirit descends upon us. (cf. Acts 2:1-11).

On May 8, we celebrated the first anniversary of the election of Cardinal Robert F. Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. At the time of his first blessing, the new pope said, “I am an Augustinian, a son of St. Augustine, who once said, ‘With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.’ In this sense, all of us can journey together toward the homeland that God has prepared for us.”

The Holy Spirit has given us a pope who considers himself a son of St. Augustine. He succeeds a pope who chose St. Francis of Assisi as his namesake and whose immediate predecessor chose St. Benedict as his inspiration.

By the working of the Holy Spirit, our last three popes have called us to follow Christ by paying close attention to the words and example of three great saints: Benedict, Francis and Augustine. And we shouldn’t forget that their immediate predecessors were named for St. John and St. Paul, two of our Lord’s most dynamic missionary disciples.

What does it mean to be a son of SS. John, Paul, Benedict, Francis or Augustine? It means that much of what the pope says and does is influenced by the spirituality of his patron.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC):

“In the communion of saints, many and varied spiritualities have been developed throughout the history of the churches. The personal charism of some witnesses to God’s love for men has been handed on … so that their followers may have a share in this spirit. A distinct spirituality can also arise at the point of convergence of liturgical and theological currents, bearing witness to the integration of the faith into a particular human environment and its history. The different schools of Christian spirituality share in the living tradition of prayer and are essential guides for the faithful. In their rich diversity, they are refractions of the one pure light of the Holy Spirit” (#2684).

We who are called to live as holy people, striving for an impossible degree of perfection, discover that the principles and practices of a particular spirituality can help us to live as holy people in a culture that is often in conflict with Gospel values.

We Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit gives the Church what (or who) she needs in any given moment in our pilgrim journey. We now have a son of St. Augustine to lead us in these troubled times. As Pope Leo admonished us in the homily for his inauguration as pope, “With the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made ‘restless’ by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity.”

St. Augustine taught that if we want the world to be a better place, we have to begin with our own lives, our own hearts. “Our hearts are restless,” Augustine prayed, “until they rest in you, O Lord.” Peace, unity, and love among sisters and brothers in Christ are gifts of the Holy Spirit that calm our anxious souls and join us together as members of God’s family.

Pope Leo XIV has spent his first year as the successor of St. Peter reminding us that God’s will for us is that we be united in him and at peace with ourselves and one another.

John and Paul, Benedict and Francis, Augustine and all the saints, all serve as living witnesses to unity and peace. Their followers in the papal ministry have each in their own ways tried to make the particular charisms and spiritualities of these great saints come alive in response to the challenges and opportunities of their times.

May God bless Pope Leo XIV as he strives to inspire us with the words and example of St. Augustine whose heart was restless until it rested in God.
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †