PHOTO: Manuel Castells

D. Ramiro Pellitero, priest, chaplain and professor at the University of Navarra, spoke to 98.3 Radio about what Benedict XVI proposed to the youth at the previous workshop World Youth Day (Sydney, August 2008) about the mission statement of young people in the Church and in the world, and the role of the Holy Spirit in all this.

Can you briefly summarize the main idea of the Pope's message in Sydney?

The Pope told the young people that in order to follow Christ, it is not necessary to be extraordinary or perfect people, it is only necessary to be people who know how to love others and God, who is Love. And in the Christian perspective, this means becoming docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, seeking him, knowing him, acting with him. To use the words of terminology from the movie Star Wars, with the Holy Spirit "the power of the force" becomes present, that is, love.

2.What did Benedict XVI say in Sydney during the four days he was there ?

He expressed the paradoxes of today's status (along with amazement at the beauty of the created world, he expressed his sorrow for the wounds of the earth, which appears destroyed in large areas as a result of insatiable consumerism. sample their pain even more for the wounds in the lives of people and in society: violence and sexual exploitation, relativism and lies, confusion and despair).

He pointed out that today false gods are proposed that deviate from the truth and destroy love: the god of goods Materials (greed, which separates us from the hungry and the poor), possessive love (which is not love but manipulation) and unjust power (which leads to the domination of others and the exploitation of the natural environment). The Pope proposes to young people a project of life that opens to a great adventure of love and service with generosity: we are before the new era of the Holy Spirit, who can help us to overcome all this, on the condition of a love given and authentic.

3. What is the problem of today's society?

Benedict XVI always addresses everyone and promotes a true humanity that does not end up destroying itself.

- To non-Christians, and in general to non-believers, he encourages them to go out of themselves and open themselves to the world of the spirit, to God, who gives us the true dimension of reality. Without God, human happiness is not possible, nor is a true development or a just social order.

- It challenges us believers, especially Christians, to be authentic: to truly believe in the light and love of the world, which come from God, and to act accordingly, every day. That is, that we respect nature and not destroy it; and that we respect every person, even more that we love them, because they have been willed by God.

4.How can we overcome superficiality, insatiable consumerism...?

This can be achieved, as many before us have done, by opening ourselves to God and to others. That is, by ceasing to look at ourselves, as the only center of our vital horizon, and realizing that the people around us need us, materially and spiritually. Keeping in mind that we do not have the right to be indifferent and live with our backs turned to the problems of those who cross our path.

I believe it was Terence who said what many have repeated since, including Antonio Machado: "I am man and nothing human" is alien to me. A Christian affirms this with the conviction that comes from looking at everything with the eyes of Christ.

St. Josemaría wrote: "Do not be indifferent to the pain of others. That person, a relative, a friend, a colleague..., the one you don't know is your brother" (Furrow, 251).

5.What do we have to do to green the spiritual desert of our society?

If we are Christians, we must begin again by getting to know God to the point of sharing our existence with Him; and to do this, we must read the Gospel, adore Christ hidden in the Tabernacle, be competent workers or students, and plan our own life effectively as an adventure of service. Not only in the long run deadline, but today, tomorrow: what do I really do for those around me? for whom do I live, what moves me? How do I want to use my life today?

6.Who is the Holy Spirit for me? How can we recognize him ?

The Holy Spirit is the divine Person who condenses, so to speak, the love of God, and who communicates it to us. With the Father and the Son, he created the world, inspired the Scriptures, made Christ's life possible and always accompanied him in his submission for his Father and for all men: he led him to give himself for us in the Eucharist, as a foretaste of his Passion. And he accompanied him with his divine power to rise from the dead. Now the Holy Spirit continues to act among us to establish, through the Church, a civilization of love. And he counts on every person, beginning with every Christian, because he gives us so much and it is logical that we should not be left behind.

7. How can we allow ourselves to be renewed by the Holy Spirit and grow in our spiritual life?

The Holy Spirit always leads us to Christ, but we must become capable of living with Christ, and for this, as I said before, we need prayer and also the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and the Confession of sins. Thus we have already walked more than half of the way. Then, little by little, we have to let ourselves be advised by those who can do it, in spiritual direction. And to feel really responsible for the mission statement of the Church in the whole world; because the spiritual life cannot be understood as a "spiritualism", that is to say, a closing oneself in oneself seeking to be "perfect". God does not need perfect people, but people who are humble and capable of giving themselves so that He can do great things with our grain of sand. This is how the "new era" of which the Pope spoke in Sydney will be possible.

8.What happens if we forget the Holy Spirit ?

Because we do not fully understand who God is and how He wanted to save us, that is, to make us happy already on this earth and definitively in Heaven. Nor do we fully understand who Christ is and what He asks of each one of us.

9. Is there a certain analogy in the need that the apostles had, once Christ died, for the Holy Spirit to appear, with the need for him to renew today's society, which lacks values, is superficial and tends toward secularism?

Indeed, this is how it can be seen. The Holy Spirit was already with the apostles when Christ was with them. From Pentecost onwards, the Holy Spirit began to act in a new way, through the Church (for example, assisting the Pope and the Bishops, and each Christian in the tasks that correspond to us), and at the same time from within the heart of each Christian, in what we call the life of grace.

10. Just as the Holy Spirit renewed the Apostles interiorly, is it necessary for him to renew today's society?

This is what we always ask for in the liturgy of the Church: that she not cease to act, that she renew us, that she change our heart of stone for a heart of flesh, that she make us like a graft or a true transplant of our heart for one more capable of loving, which is that of Jesus Christ. Yes: today we need a special renewal, in order to give our world the "soul" it needs.

11. What is our mission statement as the Christians that we are ?

As St. Josemaría preached, the most important thing is that we be saints, so as to sanctify our surroundings and help others to be saints. The Second Vatican Council solemnly proclaimed the universal call to holiness. Now the Pope comes to tell us that the true reformers of the world are the saints, because they are those who open themselves to the love of God and of others; not in theory, but concretely, in everyday life: being good parents, good children, good friends; living the works of mercy with those most in need; feeling responsibility for everyone in the small things we do.

12. How can we contribute so that the fruits of the Spirit may flood this wounded and fragile world?

Benedict XVI likes to talk a lot about giving a big "yes" to God with our life, even if we think we are little (and we are, like a small grain of mustard seed or yeast). But with the financial aid of the Holy Spirit we can make our little grain become a bread that feeds many people. We can nourish them in the body (through our work and our solidarity: the Pope has reminded us that we must be sensitive to the poverty and hunger of many people) and also nourish them in the spirit (by proving that we are joyful and coherent). For this they need to see that our faith is not a theory, but a light and a force that impels us to change the things that need to be changed, starting with each one of us.

Professor Ramiro Pellitero's Blog: Church and New Evangelization