Pope Francis: prayer opens the door to freedom through the Holy Spirit

Freedom is found in the Holy Spirit who provides the strength to fulfill God's will, said Pope Francis in his homily for Monday morning Mass.

"Prayer is what opens the door to the Holy Spirit and gives us this freedom, this audacity, this courage of the Holy Spirit," said Pope Francis in his homily on April 20.

"May the Lord help us to be always open to the Holy Spirit because he will carry us forward in our life of service to the Lord," said the Pope.

Speaking from the chapel in his residence in Vatican City, Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis explained that the early Christians were led by the Holy Spirit, who provided them with the strength to pray with courage and boldness.

“Being a Christian does not simply mean fulfilling the Commandments. They have to be done, that's true, but if you stop there, you're not a good Christian. Being a good Christian is letting the Holy Spirit enter you and take you, take you where you want, "said Pope Francis according to a Vatican News transcription.

The pope pointed to the Gospel account of a meeting between Nicodemus, a Pharisee and Jesus in which the Pharisee asked: "How can an aged man be reborn?"

To which Jesus answers in chapter three of John's Gospel: “You must be born from above. The wind blows where it wants and you can hear the sound it makes, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with all those born of the Spirit. "

Pope Francis said: “The definition of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives here is interesting ... unconstrained. A person who is carried on both sides by the Holy Spirit: this is the freedom of the Spirit. And a person who does it is docile, and here we talk about docility to the Holy Spirit ”.

"In our Christian life many times we stop like Nicodemus ... we don't know what step to take, we don't know how to do it or we don't have faith in God to take this step and let the Spirit enter," he said. "To be reborn is to let the Spirit enter us."

"With this freedom of the Holy Ghost you will never know where you will end," said Francis.

At the beginning of his morning mass, Pope Francis prayed for men and women with a political calling who must make decisions during the coronavirus pandemic. He prayed that political parties in different countries could "seek the good of the country together and not the good of their party."

"Politics is a high form of charity," said Pope Francis.