In this Gospel, Jesus tells us how to love him and how to perceive the presence of the Spirit that the Father sends us thanks to the Son's prayer. First of all, this Gospel tells us that Jesus, speaking during the Last Supper, desires not to leave his disciples as orphans. He knows he has to leave them, but he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, who will remain with them.

In the Gospel of John, the gift of the Spirit occurs at the moment of Jesus' death, when he breathes his last. The Greek text, paredoken to pneuma (John 19:30), does not only mean "to breathe one's last" in the sense of dying, but it also means "to hand over the Spirit." In the supreme act of his death, Jesus gives us his communion with the Father. The Spirit, which is the bond of unity between Father and Son in the Trinity, is now offered to the disciples. Therefore, whoever accepts it is no longer an "orphan," but has a Father—the Father of Jesus. We can say that, in some way, the Holy Spirit makes us discover the Father and makes our unity with Him possible. That intimate relationship that Jesus has with his Father is now available to me and to all of us, thanks to the Holy Spirit that Jesus obtains for us through the sacrifice of the cross.

Jesus says that not everyone sees and knows the Spirit. The world does not receive it because it does not know it. The Spirit is indeed the Spirit of truth, peace, harmony, and joy... all things that the world rejects. We only need to look around us to understand this.

What, then, is the condition for managing to "see and know" the Spirit and thus receive it? Today's Gospel seems to tell us that the condition is living by Jesus' commandments, being his disciples. And in particular, if we look at the context of the Last Supper in —from which today’s Gospel passage is taken—, Jesus seems to invite us to live in a particular way "his" commandment, which he also calls "new": "This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12).

So, how do we love Jesus and receive the gift of his communion with the Father? Jesus does not give instructions on particular ascetic practices, fasts, or prayers. He does not require adherence to a particular doctrine. He does not push for special sacrifices and rituals. Jesus asks that the disciples live by the law of mutual love, willing to love one another with the intensity of the love he has shown toward us.

Ultimately, Jesus commands us to live the experience of communion that He and the Father have always lived in the Trinity, the place where mutual love is lived in perfection. It is a request to experience on earth, with all our limitations, a spark of the experience of divine communion. God commands us to live as The Three live in Heaven! This is the condition to love Jesus and to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit here and now.

We are not alone, and we are not orphans. The Spirit in our hearts prompts us to turn to God with Paul's words: "Abba, Father!" (Rom 8:15). If we love one another, thanks to the Spirit, it will be easier to perceive our identity as children of God.