After spending the past several weeks considering Christian hope and the influence of modern thinkers on this important concept, we move to the next section of Spe salvi which has the section title: “The True Shape of Christian Hope.”  The Holy Father picks up on the theme of human freedom in these next few paragraphs, having begun his reflection on this important topic in the previous section.

In many ways, the timing of this topic is perfect as we come to the conclusion of the Religious Freedom Week in the Church in the United States.  This week began last Sunday, June 22 (normally the Memorial of Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More) and concludes on June 29 with the Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul.  This has replaced the Fortnight for Freedom which extended another week, ending on July 4, our nation’s Independence Day.  Though the Holy Father’s treatment of human freedom in these paragraphs of Spe salvi are not specifically about religious freedom per se, they are helpful for any discussion about the freedom that we as human beings have been gifted by God.

The pope makes the point that for man, “freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew.” (SS 24) This is not to say that we are free to choose what we want to be true, and in the name of freedom, can justify any decision that we want.  Rather, we can draw upon the “moral treasury” of humanity that has gone before us to help us in knowing what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, but each generation is called upon to use their freedom in choosing that good, not just having those decisions made for us.  To do so would not be freedom.

On this point some might object to what the Holy Father is saying, claiming that the Church, in all of her teachings and rules, has defined what is acceptable and what is not, and that we are placed in a position that we must follow those guidelines.  True, the Church gives us clear guidance on a whole host of things, but our freedom remains, and we have the ability to accept or reject those teachings.  But there are consequences when we use our freedom to reject the good, which we call sin.  The Church does not define actions as sinful in the hopes of limiting our freedom, rather, she does so as a loving Mother to protect us, so that, in freedom, we can choose what is right and good, and so experience the fullness of life that the Gospel promises, and not fall into the slavery that sin inevitably leads to.  

Pope Benedict writes about the important role that structures play in promoting true freedom, such as various government structures.  He says the following:

The right state of human affairs, the moral well-being of the world can never be guaranteed simply through structures alone, however good they are. Such structures are not only important, but necessary; yet they cannot and must not marginalize human freedom. Even the best structures function only when the community is animated by convictions capable of motivating people to assent freely to the social order. Freedom requires conviction; conviction does not exist on its own, but must always be gained anew by the community. (ibid.)

We have seen this play out in a variety of ways throughout the history of our country, on topics such as political freedom and independence at the beginning of our country, abolition of slavery and civil rights, women’s rights, labor rights, freedom of speech, immigration and refugee rights, and religious freedom, just to name a few.  Our history as a nation demonstrates how freedom is always something that is in need of reflection and renewal.  Though the Church is not directly involved in the creation and enforcement of civil laws, she provides a needed voice in these conversations to ensure that true freedom, according to the author of all good, namely God, is never ignored or rejected.

Consolator optime, Greatest comforter,
dulcis hospes animae, sweet guest of the soul,
dulce refrigerium. sweet consolation.

This stanza is simply three descriptions of the Holy Spirit: comforter, guest, and consolation. There is no verb, so we can read it either as a continuation of the last stanza’s “Come,” or we can read it as praise of the Holy Spirit – a holy statement about the Truth of who He is. We might ask, ‘Why is His light a comfort, a consolation, and a sweet guest?’

Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit have a special way of receiving the challenges in life with grace. They seem to be filled with a sweetness and a supernatural contentment. In his book, “The Holy Spirit, Fire of Divine Love,” Fr. Wilfred Stinissen explains, “[The Holy Spirit] comforts by giving a certain taste for poverty. He teaches you to love your littleness.” The Holy Spirit doesn’t necessarily come and take away the things that cause pain, humiliation, or a sense of weakness. He can, certainly, free us from these pains, but he also has the power to help us bear them for Christ and for his body, with peace. 

It is only the presence of the Holy Spirit that could make the Martyrs happy and joyful in the face of death. It is only the presence of the Holy Spirit that could lead saints to speak about the beauty of the grace that comes through suffering. He conforms our lives to the cross of Jesus Christ, through which comes resurrection!

The Spirit is a guest, not an intruder. Guests come at an invitation – He will never barge in. He desires to enter but waits in reverence like the Lord in the book of Revelation: “I stand at the door and knock.” Plus, as God himself, when he comes into our interior life, he is really also inviting us into his interior life.  The Latin word translated here as “Guest,” hospes,can also mean “a friendly host.” When we invite Him, He enters our soul as a guest and hosts us in the divine life and light. The life of the Trinity is a life of outpouring love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – it looks a lot like Jesus, crucified for the life of the world.

St. Paul is one of those saints who truly invited the Holy Trinity into his very self and therefore became very much like Jesus. He reveals this in his letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ;and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We see that St. Paul was filled with the consolation of God to the extent that he could rejoice in his imprisonment, his sufferings, his beatings, and his ultimate martyrdom, because in all these ways he gained a deep communion with Jesus. Communion with Jesus is the most consoling thing in the universe, and the Holy Spirit happily brings that communion to life in us. 

Come, Holy Spirit, sweet guest of my soul! Come set me on fire with your love and console me by uniting me with Jesus in his life, his death, and his resurrection.

In the final paragraph of this section in which Pope Benedict explores the effects of modern philosophies on our Christian understanding of faith and hope, he draws a simple yet blunt conclusion: “man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope.” (Spe salvi, 23) The Holy Father agrees with modern thinkers in acknowledging the importance of reason, how it is indeed “God’s great gift to man” and that “the victory of reason over unreason is also a goal of the Christian life.” (ibid.) But the danger is when reason pushes God aside and deems Him irrelevant or even dangerous to the program of progress.  It is from that perspective that the pope concludes that we need God, and that:

There is no doubt, therefore, that a “Kingdom of God” accomplished without God—a kingdom therefore of man alone—inevitably ends up as the “perverse end” of all things as described by Kant: we have seen it, and we see it over and over again. (ibid.)

As Catholics, we know this to be true, how much we need God in our lives.  And thankfully, the Lord has made His presence in our lives something very real and personal.  Jesus has left us the great gift of His presence in the sacraments by which He not only remains with us, but that He actually dwells in us, guiding our lives with His grace through the challenges of this life toward our final destination in Heaven, the final goal of our hope.  As we celebrate Corpus Christi this Sunday, we are especially grateful for the gift of the Eucharist by which Jesus nourishes us, giving us the strength we need to persevere along this path of life.

We are also grateful for the gift of His presence with us in the Church, whose birth we celebrated two weeks ago on Pentecost.  In particular, we are grateful that He, the Good Shepherd, has arranged that His flock be continually cared for by the shepherds He has appointed, namely the Apostles and their successors, the bishops.  In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) from the Second Vatican Council, the bishop is described as follows:

Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant. (Lumen Gentium, 27)

Today, we celebrate with great joy our local shepherd, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, who, as of today, June 22, has been with us as our bishop for the 15 years.  The entire diocese has been blessed by his leadership, and we at the Cathedral have had the benefit of his regular presence among us, especially in so many of our liturgical celebrations.  

I am most grateful to God for the gift that Bishop Paprocki has been to our diocese, to our parish, and to me personally.  As he mentioned at this year’s priesthood ordination, he has now ordained 40 men to the priesthood for our diocese over his 15 years here.  I am humbled to have been the first of that group back in 2011.  Having lived and worked with him for most of my priesthood, I can confidently say that much of who I am as a priest is thanks to his example, his fatherly leadership, and his friendship.

Please join me in thanking God this day for Bishop Paprocki on his anniversary of his installation as our bishop, and that the Lord will bless him abundantly in the years ahead.

Veni, pater pauperum, Come, father of the poor,
veni, dator munerum come, giver of gifts,
veni, lumen cordium. come, light of the heart.

The early Church Fathers loved to wonder at the greatness of God and his Transcendence – a not-so-often used word that refers to God’s unspeakable and indescribable perfection. He is majestic. He is truly “other.” He is God and we are not. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving, and everywhere – and yet outside of space and time! He is perfect, one, good, true, beautiful, etc. But even these high words used to describe him fall short because we human beings cannot imagine the intensity of perfection, oneness, goodness, truth, and beauty that is “God.” With the revelation of the Trinity of persons, we may have a sense that we “understand” more about Him, but in all reality, it only deepens the mystery. He is Love… and again, the. word. falls. short.

A theological phrase used in the Middle Ages reads, bonum diffusivum sui, “Goodness pours itself out.” God has, in a way, built his “way of existing” into reality – he is a God who pours himself out, and this action we call goodness. In a way, He can’t help Himself, because it is who He is, and He does so in pure freedom, without coercion or force.

He made us.

We exist in the position of one who has received a great gift and can in no way repay it. We exist. We didn’t have to, but we do. He wanted us to exist, and we therefore read, “you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made, for you would not fashion what you hate… O Ruler and Lover of souls” (Wisdom 11:24-26). And with the Psalmist, we cry out, “What return can I make to the Lord for all the goodness he has shown to me?” (Psalm 116:12)

Thankfully, he does not expect a “repayment” for that gift. Instead, he only expects us to follow him so that he can give us even more. The sheer goodness of this God is unimaginable. 

And in this beautiful stanza of the Pentecost sequence, the Holy Spirit in particular is praised for his goodness. We ask him to come to us, he who is THE GIFT from the Father and the Son. The greatest gift given by God to us is God himself, the Holy Spirit, who comes only to lavish more and more gifts of grace on us. 

In Psalm 145, God is described as a very happy giver of gifts. We read, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” The Holy Spirit is truly the fulfillment of every desire of every living thing. We want life – He is life itself. We want happiness – He is the cause of all joy, and the source of Jesus’ own joy. We want peace – He is the peace of God’s inner life. We want rest – He is where the Father and Son go to rest. We want light – He is light, understanding, wisdom, and knowledge. 

May the Holy Spirit fill our hearts with His generosity. Come Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your Love!

Having spent the past few weeks reflecting on some of the modern thinkers who prove to be a threat to our Christian understanding of faith and hope, Pope Benedict pauses the conversation to ask an important question: [W]hat may we hope? (Spe salvi, 22) With this question, he turns our attention away from those thinkers and invites a turn in, inviting us to see what, in light of all of these developments, hope means to us, that Christians “must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and what they cannot offer.” (ibid.)

To begin to address that question, the Holy Father asks specifically about what we as Christians mean about the word “progress” which has been at the center of modern thinkers; critiques of faith, as we have shown.  I find the following words provocative:

In the twentieth century, Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in progress quite drastically: he said that progress, seen accurately, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb. Now this is certainly an aspect of progress that must not be concealed. To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. (ibid.)

The Church is not opposed to progress in the areas of science, technology, and medicine, but the pope offers an important caveat:

If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world. (ibid.)

Just because progress has made something possible does not mean that it should be done.  This is where the role of the Church continues to offer a valuable voice in evaluating developments in these areas so as to avoid the threat that comes from those forms of progress.  There is no shortage of examples of when the Church in modern decades has spoken strongly against what the world proposes to be acceptable because of what progress makes possible, including: artificial contraception, abortion, physician assisted suicide, human cloning, various gender manipulation treatments, just to name a few.

One area of progress that is emerging with rapid development is artificial intelligence.  No doubt, there are many good possibilities that AI make available, but there are dangers as well.  This is something our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has identified as a key place where the Church’s voice is urgently needed.  He said the following to the Cardinals just a few days after his election, explaining the choice of his name and how it speaks to the present challenge:

Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour. (Pope Leo XIV, Address to the College of Cardinals, 10 May 2025)

Let us pray that the Church will continue to offer that voice of truth, helping us to discern what is good and worthy of adoption, and what is contrary to human dignity and progress, and should be avoided so that the common good of all can be secured and maintained.

On the Feast of Pentecost, you may have heard a special hymn sung before the Alleluia and after the second reading. This does not happen often – really only twice a year, on Easter and Pentecost. This hymn is called a “Sequence,” and it is a unique prayer which serves to open our hearts to the particular gifts of grace God has to offer through the celebration of the feast day. The Easter sequence begins with the words, “Christians to the Paschal Victim, offer your thankful praises!” It recounts the victory of Christ and gives us hope in the new life God now brings to us. 

The Pentecost sequence is a poetic prayer to the Holy Spirit, begging Him to come and bring his healing presence to our hearts. For the next 10 weeks, I will be offering a brief reflection on each of the ten stanzas of the Pentecost Sequence. Even though we’re now in Ordinary Time, there is never a bad time to reflect on the Holy Spirit and his work in our life! Plus, we can see how the power of Pentecost is meant to spring forth into the entirety of our lives – the ordinary and the extraordinary.

The prayer begins:

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit,
et emitte caelitus send forth the heavenly
lucis tuae radium.    radiance of your light.

Darkness, thirst, need, want, desire, lack – these words describe well the state of a heart that awaits the Holy Spirit. In that heart, there is something missing. There is something – someone, rather – who must come to fill this void. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else can fill the heart in a truly satisfying way except the one who made it. As St. Augustine famously wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The first word of the Pentecost Sequence is therefore, “Come!” This plea pours forth from the hearts of all Christians. In this first stanza, He is described as heavenly light. Throughout this Sequence, the Holy Spirit is additionally sketched as a comforter, our consolation, heavenly dew, refreshment, fire, a healer, and a generous giver. In other words, He is everything we need and want from God. 

As we ask Him to fill us with His light, we might meditate on the soft light of a candle, the ultimate power of the light of the sun, the lively light of a fire, or the raging light of an uncontrollable inferno. The Holy Spirit is Love itself, and in that regard, his light will look like all and each of these at different times in our life. I’m reminded of the Song of Songs, “for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” May the light of that love fill our hearts. Come, Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!