Spirit of Truth

Listening to the Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful.
And kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.
And you will renew the face of the earth.

Lord,
by the light of the Holy Spirit
you have taught the hearts of your faithful.
In the same Spirit
help us to relish what is right
and always rejoice in your consolation.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Listening to the Word

John 14:15-21

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Reflection

Jesus said,
“If you love me you will keep my commandments”
‘The Father will give you an Advocate – the Spirit of Truth”
“I will not leave you orphans….”
“I will come back to you”
“Those who kept my commandments and kept them, will be the one who loves me”

These are the promises of Christ to us to make ourselves rest secure in Him.

Commandments and Love. For Jesus we have to observe and follow the commandments, in this way, we manifest our love. We do have Ten Commandments. To follow them all would be extraordinarily tough. However, the point of Jesus is – the commandments are written inside our hearts. To observe them would not just be a mere external action, but an action motivated by love. It is inside our being. It is inside our person.

Jesus invokes the Advocate – the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Truth. There is one ethnic group in Sierra Leone called Yalunka. They have their language different from the others. I asked the Catechist how would they call the Holy Spirit in their language? He couldn’t provide an exact terminology or translation. He explained that in their own concept, the Holy Spirit can be referred to as ‘clean’, ‘pure’, cannot sin, cannot be stained. I believed he got it right. The description of the idea, thought that the Spirit of Truth is pure and clean. It is God. Only that in the scriptures, the Spirit animates. He gives life. He makes the people holy.

In the First Reading (Acts 8:14-17). The Apostles came to the town of Samaria and prayed for the people there to receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet He had not come down on any of them. They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

The laying-on of hands is the symbol of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Our hands become instrumental and powerful in the name of the Lord. Through hand imposition, sicknesses and diseases are healed. Devils are driven out. It strengthens the persons. It makes people secured and happy in the hands of God. We are nothing without the help of the Spirit.

St. Peter said, (1 Peter 3:15-18), and if it is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing right than following wrong.