MAY 19^th 2013. PENTECOST SUNDAY

Gospel: John 14:15-16, 23-26

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

GOSPEL                   John 14:15-16, 23-26

Jesus said to his disciples

If you love me you will keep my commandments. 
I shall ask the Father, 
and he will give you another Advocate 
to be with you for ever,

'If anyone loves me he will keep my word, 
and my Father will love him, 
and we shall come to him and make our home with him. 
Those who do not love me do not keep my words. 
And my word is not my own: 
it is the word of the one who sent me. 
I have said these things to you 
while still with you; 
but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, 
whom the Father will send in my name, 
will teach you everything 
and remind you of all I have said to you.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . The term “Paraclete” signifies the one who stands close to us and gives us counsel. In order to have the Holy Spirit close to us, we must adhere to the words of Jesus. This is the kind of relationship that the Lord wants to have with us! If we love someone, we cherish and contemplate their words. How can we say we love Jesus if we do not treasure and esteem his words, bringing them to fruition in our lives? Once we adhere to the words of Jesus, then God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, comes to dwell with us. In the Old Testament God was present in the Temple. Now, through the Holy Spirit, he wishes to take up residence in our hearts, in the profoundest core of our being. But how can God dwell in our hearts if we are not adhering to his words and cherishing them? The Holy Spirit also has a very important role in helping us to have a correct relationship with our past lives. Don Fabio encourages us to reconsider our entire past regularly in the light of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will remind us of all the things that God has said to us in the past. Often we tend to look at the past negatively, focusing on the moments we were hurt or misunderstood. We will not understand the events of the past correctly until we perceive the way that God was speaking to us and working on us through the events that were unfolding. Life is a journey in which we learn how to love. Even the hurts and disappointments of the past have played a role in that school of love, preparing us for becoming permanent dwelling-places of God!

The term “Paraclete” signifies the one who stands close to us.  Who does the Holy Spirit stand close to? To those who welcome Him by their adherence to the words of Jesus

The Greek term for the Holy Spirit that is used twice in the original text of this Sunday’s Gospel is Paraclete. This gift which proceeds from the Father and the Son is called “Advocate” in Latin. The meaning of the Latin and Greek terms is the same, namely, “one who is called to stand by our side”. The role of the Paraclete or Advocate in ancient legal proceedings was quite different to that of the defence lawyer of today. The lawyer was not permitted to speak aloud in favour of the defendant. Instead the lawyer would stand close to the defendant and advise him on how to defend himself, often by whispering suggestions into his ear. In the same way, the Holy Spirit does not try to do things for us, but he counsels us on what we should do. Our freedom and identity is of the utmost importance to the Lord, and he never wishes to bypass them or cancel them out. The Holy Spirit is not an imposition from God, but something that must be welcomed by us. This is made clear by Jesus when he says, “If anyone loves me he will keep my commandments. I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever”. The incredible gift of the Holy Spirit comes as a result of voluntary adhesion to the words of Christ.

God wants a relationship of love with us. If we love someone we hang on to their every word. Loving God involves interiorizing, contemplating and acting on the words of Jesus

Our relationship with God must be one of love, not of obligation or imposition. Obligation and compulsion characterize our relationship with evil, as is evident when an evil vice controls us and becomes our master. The Lord always gives us the choice to accept or refuse him. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word”. If we do not love someone, then we hardly hear what they are saying most of the time, and we certainly do not cherish or interiorize their words. But when we love someone, we cherish their words inside of ourselves, we contemplate them and we act on them. This is the kind of relationship that God wants to establish with us. It is of urgent importance for each one of us that we remember and contemplate the moments of intimacy that we have had with the Lord. Some of these moments may have occurred in our infancy, or at difficult times of our lives, but whenever we feel that the word of the Lord has entered into our hearts, we must retain the memory of this moment and cherish it continually. These were the moments when the Holy Spirit made his “landing” within us.

What role does God want to have in my life? Does he want to be an occasional visitor? A guest on Sundays only? No! God wants to come and reside at the core of my being forever!

The Gospel uses the remarkable expression, “We will make our home with them”. In the Old Testament, the home of God was the Temple. The new temple of God is my heart, the most profound part of my being. My spirit is something different to my sensibility, my psyche, or the state of my soul. It is something much deeper than these, and it is here that the Lord wishes to take up residence. God does not want an occasional or transitory relationship with us. He does not want a relationship in which we are constantly distracted, in which we are sometimes with him and sometimes not. He wants to come and live with us forever. When we live in the same house as someone, then routines of intimacy develop naturally. In a similar way we are invited to enter into a relationship of intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

How do we allow God to come and live with us forever? By adherence to his word.

How do we achieve this intimacy? By adherence to the word of God. The word of the Lord is capable of achieving this intimacy in all of us. In the Gospel Jesus says, “The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you”. Here Jesus is speaking of a new relationship with all that has happened before in our lives, illuminated by the words of Christ. It is a very consoling exercise to start discerning the work of God in our past lives, instead of looking at our past as if it were a disordered series of events without meaning, and tending to focus on the moments in which we were hurt. Christ was present in our past lives, and the past must be revisited in the light of the word of Christ. This is true even for those of us who did not know or care about Jesus in our infancy or adolescence. John Paul II spoke of the need to purify our memories. It is very important to look back and discern the moments when Christ started to speak to us through the things that were happening in our lives. This can be an experience of purification and transformation. When our relationship with the past is transformed then we too are radically transformed. Our memories condition us in an incredibly powerful way, but the Holy Spirit is capable of renewing and cleansing our memories. Our goal is to arrive at the point where the work of God in our lives stands at the centre of our memory, where our entire past is understood in terms of the things that God was trying to achieve in us all the while. Most people carry deep wounds from the past, existential ulcers that still have a crippling influence. These wounds will not go away with superficial therapeutic treatments. Only the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit is capable of closing these wounds. For if we look at our past existence only from the point of view of human wellbeing, then our past will never be satisfactory. There will always be deficiencies, leading us to anger or sadness.

The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we learn how to love and become permanent dwelling-places of God

If instead of viewing our past from a human perspective, we see life as a journey in which we learn how to love, then our past becomes something positive and useful. Even the hurts and evil that we have experienced become a school in which we learn how to love. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not something that merely inspires us in such a way that we are able to further our careers or job prospects! The gift of the Holy Spirit is not merely something that helps us feel ecstatic or consoled! We receive the Holy Spirit in order to learn how to love! We receive the Holy Spirit so that the presence of God will be felt in the things that happen to us every day! We receive the Spirit so that we will perceive the Lord, hear him, touch him, in the things that fill our lives. The Holy Spirit is not a gift that is directed towards occasional or transitory wellbeing, the kind of “consumerist” Sunday-only religion that modern society encourages us to embrace. The gift of the Holy Spirit is given so that we will become permanent dwelling-places of God.