It is in the final greetings that one of the most intense passages of the book is concentrated Regina Caeli (the prayer that replaces the Angelus during Easter time, ed) of Pentecost Sunday: «Let us unite our prayer with that of the Chinese Catholics, as a sign of our affection for them and of their communion with the universal Church and with the Successor of Peter», he said Pope Leo XIV on the day of prayer for the Church in China which is celebrated on May 24th on the occasion of the liturgical memory of Mary Help of Christians particularly venerated in the Sheshan Sanctuary, in Shanghai, «may the intercession of the Queen of Heaven obtain for the believing community in China the grace of unity and give everyone the strength to bear witness to the Gospel in their daily struggles, to be a seed of hope and peace. In particular, I invoke eternal peace for the victims of the accident that occurred in recent days in a mine in northern China.”
Before saying goodbye to the approximately 30 thousand faithful present in a warm and sunny St. Peter’s Square, Leo XIV wanted to entrust to the Virgin Mary the most difficult Christian communities in the world such as those “of the Holy Land, of Lebanon and of the entire Middle East, which suffer from the war”.
In the catechesis before the Marian prayer, the Pontiff invited us to contemplate the Holy Spirit as a living force that accompanies the Church and the life of believers: «Ithe gift of the Holy Spirit, poured out in abundance on the nascent Church and given again to its members, as light and strength that accompanies them in every situation of life”. Hence the exhortation to invoke him «so that he may open all the doors that remain closed. We need to rediscover God as a Father who loves us, to build a Church where everyone feels at home and to grow a fraternal world, in which peace reigns among all peoples.”
Leo XIV focused on the action of the Holy Spirit starting from the Acts of the Apostles, recalling the image of the “impetuous wind” which opened new paths in the life of the nascent Church and pushed the disciples to proclaim the Gospel.
The first “door” indicated by Leo XIV is that of the encounter with God «who gives true faith, makes us understand the meaning of the Scriptures, makes himself known as a neighbor and allows us to participate in his own life.” Not a faith reduced to observance, but a living and personal experience: “The Holy Spirit helps us to have a personal experience of God, to encounter him in Jesus and not only in the observance of a law, to recognize him in us and to discover the signs of his presence in daily life”.
The second door is that of the Church, described as a cenacle and space of communion where the Spirit acts to free from fears and closures, opening up to mission and dialogue with the contemporary world. The Pontiff also recalled the idea of an ecclesial community capable of real hospitality: the Spirit “opens the doors of the Church so that it is welcoming and hospitable towards everyone, even towards those who have closed their doors to God, to others, to hope, to the joy of living”.
