Among the Pope's teachings during these last weeks, we have chosen three apparently very different, but in reality interconnected, themes: the Holy Spirit, the poor, theology. 

In the Pentecost homily (5-VI-2022), the Pope acknowledged that he was impressed by a word of the Gospel: "He , whom the Father will send in my name Holy Spiritwho will be sent by the Father in my name, will teach you everything and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (Jn 14:26). What does this "everything" mean, he asked himself, and answered: it is not a question of quantity or erudition, but of quality, of perspective and sense of smell, because the Spirit makes us see everything in a new way, according to the gaze of Jesus. "In the great journey of life, he teaches us where to start from, which paths to take and how to walk. And so he explained these three aspects. 

First, where to start from. We are accustomed to think that if we keep the commandments, then we love. But Jesus said it the other way around: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments". Love is the starting point, and this love does not depend above all on our abilities because it is his gift. Hence it is necessary to ask the Holy Spirit, the "motor" of the spiritual life. As on other occasions, Francis has pointed out that the Holy Spirit is the "report" of God, in various senses. 

On the one hand, the Holy Spirit is an "activereport , which kindles and rekindles the affection of God in the heart"; that is, He reminds us of His mercy, His forgiveness, His consolation. On the other hand, even if we forget God, he remembers us continually; and not in general, but "heals" and "heals" our memories, especially our defeats, mistakes and failures, because he always reminds us of the starting point: the love of God. And so the Spirit "puts order in life: he teaches us to welcome one another, he teaches us to forgive, to forgive ourselves". It is not easy to forgive oneself: the Spirit teaches us this path, teaches us to reconcile ourselves with the past. To begin again.

In the second place, it shows us which paths to take . Those who allow themselves to be led by the Spirit of God, says St. Paul, "do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (Rom 8:4). Therefore, in addition to asking for the love of the Holy Spirit, we must "learn to discern in order to understand where the voice of the Spirit is, to recognize it and to follow the way, to follow the things that He tells us" .

This is nothing generic, Francis explains: the Holy Spirit corrects us, urges us to change, to make an effort, without allowing ourselves to be carried away by whims. And when we fail, he does not leave us on the ground (as the evil spirit does), but takes us by the hand, consoles us and encourages us. On the other hand, bitterness, pessimism, sadness, victimhood, complaints, envy... do not come from the Holy Spirit, but from evil. 

Moreover, the Pope adds, the Spirit is not idealistic but concrete: "He wants us to concentrate on the here and now"; not on fantasies or murmurings, nor on nostalgia for the past, nor on fears or false hopes for the future. And it is clear what Francis is referring to: "No, the Holy Spirit leads us to love here and now, concretely: not an ideal world, an ideal Church, an ideal religious congregation, but what is there, in the light of the sun, with transparency, with simplicity". 

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit teaches us how to walk. Like the disciples, he makes us come out of our enclosure to proclaim, to be open to everyone and to God's novelties, to be a welcoming home and to forget ourselves. And in this way he rejuvenates the Church. " The Spirit," observes Peter's successor, "frees us from the obsession with urgencies and invites us to walk along ancient and ever new paths, the paths of witness, the paths of good example, the paths of poverty, the paths of mission statement, to free us from ourselves and send us out into the world."

Even, he concludes, the Spirit is the author of an apparent division, noise and disorder, as happened on the morning of Pentecost. But deep down he works for harmony: "He creates division with charisms and He creates harmony with all that division, and that is the richness of the Church".

In the Regina Caeli of the same Pentecost Sunday, the Pope used two images to explain the role of the Holy Spirit with us: as "teacher" and, again, as "report".

First of all, the Holy Spirit teaches us to overcome the distance that may seem to exist between the Gospel message and everyday life. Since Jesus lived two thousand years ago in very different situations, the Gospel may seem inadequate to our needs and problems. What can the Gospel say - we might ask - in the age of the Internet, in the age of globalization? 

But the Holy Spirit is "a specialist in bridging distances": " he connects the teachings of Jesus with every time and every person". He updates the teaching of Jesus, risen and alive, in the face of the problems of our time. 

It is proper of the Spirit to "re-member" (bring back to the heart) the words of Christ. Before Pentecost, the apostles had heard Jesus many times, but had understood him little. So do we: the Holy Spirit makes us remember and understand: "He makes us go from 'hearing' to knowledge staff of Jesus, which enters the heart" . And so the Spirit changes our life: "He makes the thoughts of Jesus become our thoughts". 

On the other hand, without the Spirit, Francis warns, faith becomes forgetful, we lose the living report of the Lord's love, perhaps because of an effort, a crisis, a doubt. For this reason, the Pope proposes to us, we must frequently invoke the Spirit: "Come, Holy Spirit, remind me of Jesus, enlighten my heart" (cf. John Paul II).

workshop On June 13, Francis published his Message for the VI World Day of the Poor, which will be celebrated on the same day next November. The motto summarizes the teaching and the proposal. "Jesus Christ became poor for your sake (cf. 2 Cor 8:9)". It is a healthy provocation, says Francis, "to help us reflect on our lifestyle and on the many forms of poverty of the present time".

Even in the present context of conflicts, sickness and wars, Francis evokes the example of St. Paul, who organized collections, for example, in Corinth, to care for the poor of Jerusalem. He refers specifically to the Sunday Mass collections. "At Paul's instruction, every first day of the week they collected what they had managed to save, and they were all very generous." We too should be generous for the same reason, as a sign of the love we have received from Jesus Christ. "It is a sign that Christians have always carried out with joy and a sense of responsibility, so that no sister or brother lacks what is necessary," as St. Justin already testifies (cf. First Apology, LXVII, 1-6).

Thus the Pope exhorts us to never tire of living solidarity and hospitality: "As members of civil society, let us keep alive the call to the values of freedom, responsibility, fraternity and solidarity. And as Christians, let us always find in charity, faith and hope the foundation of our being and our action". In the face of the poor, it is necessary to renounce rhetoric, indifference and the misuse of material goods. It is not a matter of mere assistance. Nor activism: "It is not activism that saves, but sincere and generous attention that allows us to approach a poor person as a brother who reaches out his hand so that I may wake up from the lethargy into which I have fallen". 

For this reason, he adds with demanding words from his programmatic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: "No one should say that he or she keeps away from the poor because his or her life choices imply paying more attention to other matters. This is a frequent excuse in academic, business, professional and even ecclesial circles. [No one can feel exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice" (n. 201). 

And the Bishop of Rome concludes by pointing out two very different types of poverty: "There is a poverty - famine and misery - that humiliates and kills, and there is another poverty, his poverty - that of Christ - that liberates us and makes us happy".

The first, he says, is the child of injustice, exploitation, violence and the unjust distribution of resources. "It is a desperate poverty, with no future, because it is imposed by a throwaway culture that offers no prospects and no way out". 

This poverty, which is often extreme, also affects "the spiritual dimension which, although often neglected, does not for this reason not exist or does not count". 

This is, in fact, an unfortunately frequent phenomenon in the current dynamics of profit without the counterbalance - which should come first and which is not opposed to fair profit - of service to people. 

And this dynamic is implacable, as Francis describes: "When the only law is that of calculating profits at the end of the day, then there is no longer any brake on the logic of exploitation of people: the others are only means. There are no more fair wages, no more fair work hours, and new forms of slavery are created, suffered by people who have no other alternative and must accept this poisonous injustice in order to obtain the minimum for their livelihood".

As for the poverty that liberates (the virtue of detachment or voluntary poverty), it is the fruit of the attitude of detachment that every Christian should cultivate: "The poverty that liberates, on the other hand, is that which is presented to us as a choice manager to lighten the ballast and focus on what is essential". 

The Pope observes that today many seek to care for the least, the weak and the poor, because they see it as their own need. Far from criticizing this attitude, he values it while appreciating this role educational of the poor towards us: "The meeting with the poor allows us to put an end to so many anxieties and inconsistent fears, to arrive at what really matters in life and that no one can steal from us: true and gratuitous love. The poor, in reality, before being the object of our alms, are subjects that help us to free ourselves from the bonds of restlessness and superficiality".

A third topic, of particular interest to Christian educators, is that of theology as service. In a speech on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the theological magazine La Scuola Cattolica, of the seminar of Milan (17-VI-2022), the Pope highlighted three important aspects of how theology should be understood today.  

First, theology is a service to the living faith of the whole Church, not only of priests, religious or teachers of religion. We all need this work, which consists in "interpreting the faith, translating and retranslating it, making it comprehensible, expounding it in new words [...], the effort to redefine the content of the faith in every age, in the dynamism of tradition". It is important, Francis points out, that the contents of preaching and of catechesis be "capable of speaking to us about God and of responding to the questions about meaning that accompany the lives of people and that they often do not have the courage to formulate openly".

As a consequence of the first point, the Pope emphasizes: "The renewal and future of vocations is only possible if there are well-formed priests, deacons, consecrated and lay people," in the face of the individualism and indifferentism proper to our times. And this implies a teaching always accompanied by the life of the one who teaches, his generosity and availability towards others, his ability to listen (and also, we should add, linking with the previous topic , his detachment staff of goods).

Thirdly and finally, as a consequence of all the above, theology is at the service of evangelization, based on dialogue and acceptance. In the background is the action of the Holy Spirit in the theologian and in his interlocutors. Francis traces in some brushstrokes a profile of the theologian and the theology of our time.

The theologian must be "a spiritual man, humble of heart, open to the infinite novelties of the Spirit and close to the wounds of poor, discarded and suffering humanity" . This is so, he says, because without humility there is neither compassion nor mercy, nor the capacity to incarnate the message of the Gospel, nor to speak to the heart, nor to reach, therefore, the fullness of the truth to which the Spirit leads.

Theology needs to live from the contexts and respond to the real needs of the people. This, Francis says as on other occasions, is contrary to a "desk" theology, and means the ability to "accompany cultural and social processes, in particular difficult transitions, also taking responsibility for conflicts". 

As we can see, the Bishop of Rome remains attentive to the current status , which is complicated on various fronts. In any case, he adds that "we must beware of a theology that exhausts itself in academic dispute or that looks at humanity from a glass castle" (cfr. Letter to Chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, 3-III-2015).

Theology must serve to give life and flavor to the Christian life, knowledge, to avoid lukewarmness and promote synodal discernment from the local communities, in dialogue with cultural transformations.