Pope Francis The Holy Spirit will help you move forward, remember, discern, and grow 11.05.20

We join the faithful of Termoli on the feast of the discovery of the body of St. Timothy today. In these days many people have lost their jobs; they have not been re-employed, they worked illegally. Let us pray for these brothers and sisters of ours who suffer from this lack of work.

Today's Gospel passage is Jesus' farewell at the Last Supper (John 14: 21-26). The Lord ends with this verse: "I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of all I told you" (14: 25-26). It is the promise of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit who lives in us and who the Father and the Son send. "The Father will send him in my name," Jesus said, to accompany us in life. And they call him the Paraclete or Advocate. This is the role of the Holy Spirit. In Greek, the Paràclete is the one who supports, who accompanies so that you don't fall, who keeps you firm, who is close to you to support you. And the Lord has promised us this support, who is God like him: he is the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do in us? The Lord tells us: "He will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you"( 26). Teaching and remembering. This is the role of the Holy Spirit. He teaches us: he teaches us the mystery of faith, he teaches us to enter into the mystery, to understand the mystery a little more. He teaches us the doctrine of Jesus and teaches us how to develop our faith without making mistakes, because doctrine grows, but always in the same direction: it grows in understanding. And the Holy Spirit helps us grow in understanding faith, understanding it more, understanding what faith says. Faith is not a static thing; doctrine is not a static thing: it grows. It grows as the trees grow, always the same, but larger, with fruit, but always the same, in the same direction. And the Holy Spirit prevents doctrine being wrong, it prevents it from standing still there, without growing in us. He will teach us the things that Jesus has taught us, he will develop in us an understanding of what Jesus has taught us, he will grow the doctrine of the Lord in us, to maturity.

And another thing Jesus says, that the Holy Spirit does, is to remind: "He will remind you of all that I have told you" (26). The Holy Spirit is like memory, he wakes us up: "But remember that, remember the other"; he keeps us awake, always awake in the Lord's things, and also reminds us of our lives: "Think of that moment, think about when you met the Lord, think about when you left the Lord."

I once heard that one person prayed before the Lord like this: "Lord, I am the same one who, as a child, as a boy, had these dreams. Then, I went along the wrong paths. Now you've called me." I am the same: this is the memory of the Holy Spirit in one's life. He brings you to the memory of salvation, to the memory of what Jesus taught, but also to