Capuchin Franciscan Father Raniero Cantalamessa actually has preached and led retreats for three popes, one of whom is now a saint: John Paul II, who appointed him to the office of Preacher to the Papal Household in 1980. He retained the position under Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and now Pope Francis.

Speaking to an audience of lay people at SEPI (the SouthEast Pastoral Institute for Hispanic Ministry), Father Cantalamessa chose to heed what he called the prompting of the Spirit and talk about Pentecost.

“The Church needs a perennial Pentecost,” he said in Spanish. 

Preaching without notes and in plain language, the smiling friar went on to parse the section from the Acts of the Apostles that describes the feast of Pentecost: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and Peter’s subsequent preaching to the multitude.

“What happened that day happens anew,” Father Cantalamessa said. “We have to believe that it continues to happen.”

He then went on to define some terms, such as Holy Spirit: “the personal love that exists between Father and Son in the Trinity,” and baptism: “immersion in the love of God.”

So what it means to be “baptized in the Spirit,” and what the apostles experienced that first Pentecost, was “an immersion in the love of God,” Father Cantalamessa said. “They felt themselves submerged in the infinite love of God.”

“This collective ecstasy prompted by the Spirit is what gave rise to the Church,” he added. Moved by that experience, St. Peter proclaims the “kerygma,” literally the “shout” of the Christian faith: that the Son of God died and rose from the dead to save human beings from their sins. 

St. Peter does not mince words, Father Cantalamessa said. He tells his listeners: If you sinned, you killed Christ. But, as St. Paul later states, if you “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

“Evangelization begins with an acknowledgement of our relationship with the risen Christ,” Father Cantalamessa said. And “we have to accept Jesus as Lord in everything” � not just when we go to church, but in business, at work and at home.

That often-seen image of Jesus knocking at someone’s door is not the Lord “knocking to get in but to get out,” he added. Jesus wants to get out of the little closets where we confine him.

“We have to start by opening the unkempt rooms of our lives,” Father Cantalamessa said. “He is not an adversary. He is not the enemy. He knows better than we do what makes us happy.”

But although God loves us unconditionally, that love “has consequences,” as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles. When the crowd replies to Peter, “What must we do?” Peter’s response is: Repent and receive the Holy Spirit.

“There is a moment in everyone’s life that determines a ‘before’ and ‘after’,” Father Cantalamessa said. For married couples, that moment is their wedding day; for priests, it is their ordination day. But for everyone � as it was for the Apostles on Pentecost � there should be another before/after moment: “the moment we personally encountered Jesus” and felt ourselves “submerged” in the love of God. 

Today, in the U.S. and especially Europe, “we are very near to the times of the apostles,” Father Cantalamessa noted.
As they lived in a pre-Christian world, today’s world is post-Christian. To evangelize that world, modern Christians cannot begin by preaching doctrine � as Pope Francis has said � but by “seducing” their listeners with the love of God.

“We have to help people establish a personal relationship with Jesus,” Father Cantalamessa said. Faith cannot simply be “abstract knowledge but the feeling that we are children of God.”

Later that day, Father Cantalamessa spoke to more than 500 lay people at St. Timothy Church, a venue chosen because SEPI could not accommodate the large numbers who wanted to listen to him speak. 

The morning was reserved for archdiocesan priests, who also heard him preach during a Mass he celebrated with Auxiliary Bishop Peter Baldacchino.

“It was the best mini-retreat I’ve had,” said Piarist Father Rafael Capó, executive director of SEPI.