AUDIENCE: THE HOLY SPIRIT

02 July 1998 07:40

AUDIENCE: THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE PROTAGONIST IN EVANGELIZATION

VATICAN CITY, JUL 1, 1998 (VIS) – In today’s Wednesday general audience, which took place in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope spoke about the Holy
Spirit being the protagonist in evangelization.

John Paul II recalled that when the Church was born at Pentecost, it
received from the Spirit “the capacity to ‘proclaim the marvelous works of God.’ … This fact implies and reveals a fundamental law in the
history of salvation: we can neither evangelize nor prophesy, nor speak of the Lord or in the name of the Lord, without the grace and power of
the Holy Spirit.”

“In Jesus, the bond between the Spirit and the Word reaches its peak in that He is the same Word incarnate ‘by the work of the Holy Spirit’.
Jesus began to preach ‘with the power of the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Father said that “‘the Holy Spirit is the protagonist in every mission of the Church’. … Jesus’s word drives out demons, calms
storms, heals the sick, forgives sins, and raises the dead’.”

“This strength of the Holy Spirit is more necessary than ever for the
Christian of our times, which requires the person to give witness to
their faith in a world which is often indifferent, if not hostile, and
heavily marked by relativism and hedonism. It is a strength which
preachers above all need, who must announce the Gospel again without
giving in to a sense of obligation and short cuts.”

John Paul II stated that for the new evangelization to be “really ‘new’, ‘the person who proclaims the wonders of God and speaks in his name,
should listen first to God and be docile to the Holy Spirit.”

He concluded by saying that “the Holy Spirit accompanies and stimulates the Church to evangelize in unity and build unity. … Preaching Christ with the power of the one Spirit, on the threshold of the Third
Millennium, involves a concrete and generous effort on the part of all
Christians towards full communion.” AG/HOLY SPIRIT/… VIS 980701 (340)