VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV marked Pentecost Sunday with a plea for peace, praying that the Holy Spirit would save the world “from the evil of war” and renew the Church in its mission to transform confusion into communion.
Celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on May 24, the pope centered his homily on the risen Christ’s appearance to the disciples in the Upper Room, where Jesus showed them “his hands and his side” and breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.
“The Lord reveals his glorious body, specifically his wounds, the marks of the crucifixion,” Pope Leo said. “These signs of the Passion, more eloquent than words, are now transfigured; he who was dead lives forever.”
The pope said the same Upper Room that had been marked by fear and betrayal became, through Christ’s gift of the Spirit, “for the entire Church, the womb of the Resurrection.”
“Pentecost is therefore a Paschal feast and a feast of the body of Christ, which by grace is all of us,” he said.
Leo framed his homily around three aspects of the Holy Spirit: peace, mission, and truth.
“First of all, the Spirit of the risen One is the Spirit of peace,” he said. “Indeed, through his Paschal Mystery, Christ restores peace between God and humanity, and the Holy Spirit pours this peace into our hearts and spreads it throughout the world.”
That peace, the pope said, “stems from forgiveness and leads us to forgiveness,” beginning with Christ’s forgiveness of humanity.
The pope then described the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of mission,” citing Christ’s words: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
“We are truly co-workers of the Gospel: the whole Church is its protagonist, not merely its guardian,” Leo said. “Through the power of the Spirit, our proclamation is filled with joy and hope, for we — yes, we ourselves — are the newness of the world, the light and the salt of the earth.”
The pope warned that some changes “do not bring new life to the world, but make it grow old through error and violence.” By contrast, he said, “the Holy Spirit enlightens minds and instils new vitality in our hearts.”
“This is how he transfigures history, opening it to salvation, which is the gift that the Lord offers to everyone,” he said. “The Church’s mission bears witness to this offer, thereby transforming the world’s confusion into communion with God and among ourselves.”
Finally, Leo said the Spirit is “the Spirit of truth,” who “always promotes unity in truth” and protects the Church from “partisanship, hypocrisy and fads that obscure the light of the Gospel.”
“The truth that God gives us thus stands as a liberating word for all peoples, a message that transforms every culture from within,” he said.
Concluding his homily, the pope offered a prayer for a world wounded by war, poverty, and sin.
“Dear friends, with fervent hearts, let us pray today that the Spirit of the risen One may save us from the evil of war, which is overcome not by a superpower, but by the omnipotence of love,” he said. “Let us pray that he free humanity from misery, which is redeemed not by immeasurable wealth, but by an inexhaustible gift. Let us pray that he heal us from the scourge of sin through the salvation proclaimed to all peoples in the name of Jesus.”
After the Mass, Pope Leo appeared from his study in the Apostolic Palace to pray the Regina Caeli, returning again to the theme of the Holy Spirit as the one who opens what fear and sin have closed.
The pope said the Spirit was poured out abundantly on the newborn Church and is given anew to the faithful today as “light and strength” in every circumstance of life.
“The Spirit opens doors,” he said, pointing to the image of Christ opening the doors of the Upper Room and to the Acts of the Apostles, where the Spirit comes “like a violent wind.”
Leo asked: “What doors does the Holy Spirit open?”
The first, he said, is “the door of God himself,” opening access to the mystery of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, he said, helps believers encounter God personally in Jesus, recognize him within themselves, and discover the signs of his presence in daily life.
The second door is that of the Upper Room, “that is, of the Church.” Without the fire of the Spirit, the pope said, the Church “remains a prisoner of fear,” timid before the challenges of the world, closed in on itself, and unable to enter into dialogue with changing times.
The third door, Leo said, is “the door of our hearts.” The Spirit helps believers overcome resistance, selfishness, mistrust, and prejudice, making them capable of living as children of God and brothers and sisters to one another.
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, fraternity is born among persons, groups, and peoples of the earth,” he said, adding that all are called to speak “the one language of love, which unites and harmonizes differences.”
The pope also recalled the day of prayer for the Church in China, observed on the liturgical memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, who is venerated at the Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan in Shanghai.
Leo invited the faithful to join in prayer with 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 prayed that Mary’s intercession would obtain for the Church in China the grace of unity and the strength to witness to the Gospel in daily hardship, becoming a seed of hope and peace.
The pope also remembered victims of a recent mining accident in northern China and entrusted to Mary the Christian communities of the Holy Land, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East suffering because of war.
This story was first published in two parts by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.