It’s kind of nice, but also kind of strange, that Michael the Baby recognizes the Pope when he sees him…

Anyway…today’s General Audience continued the catechesis on Paul: (scroll down)

Today, as in the last two catecheses, we turn to St. Paul and his thinking. We are looking at a giant figure not only on the level of concrete apostolate but even for his theological doctrine which is extraordinarily profound and stimulating.

After having meditated last week on what Paul wrote about the centrality of Jesus Christ in our faith, today let us look at what he says about the Holy Spirit and His presence in us, because the Apostle has much of great importance to teach us.

We know what St. Luke tells of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles, where he describes what happened at Pentecost. The Pentecostal Spirit brought a vigorous impulse to the commitment to bear witness to the Gospel throughout the world.

The Acts describes a whole series of missions carried out by the Apostles, starting in Samaria, then along the coastline of Palestine, then towards Syria. Above all, it recounts the three great missionary voyages undertaken by Paul, as I recounted in an earlier catechesis.

However, in his Letters, St. Paul talks to us about the Holy Spirit from a different angle. He does not simply illustrate the dynamic and operational dimension of the Third person of the Most Holy Trinity, but he analyzes His Presence in the life of every Christian, whose very identity is branded by the Spirit.

In other words, Paul reflects on the Spirit by showing His influence not only on how the Christian acts but on his very being. It is him who says that the Spirit of God lives in us (cfr Rm 8,8; 1 Cor 3,16) and that "God has sent the Spirit of His Son to our hearts" (Gal 4,6).

Thus, for Paul, the Spirit marks us in our most profound personal intimacy. Here are some of his words that have relevant significance: "The law of the Spirit which gives us life i Jesus Christ has liberated you from the law of sin and death…For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’" (Rm 8, 2.15), because as sons, we can call God our Father.

Thus we see that the Christian, even before he acts, already possesses a rich and fecund interior given to him in the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, an interior that establishes the objective and original relationship of being a child of God.

Therein lies our dignity: we are not only in the image of God, we are His children. We are invited to live the fact of being a child of God, to be ever more conscious that we are adopted children in the great family of God.

We are invited to transform this objective gift into a subjective reality that determines our thinking, our behavior, our very being. God considers us His children, elevating us to a similar but not equal dignity as Jesus Himself, His only true Son in the full sense. In Jesus, we are given – or rather given back – our filial condition and trustful freedom in relation to God.