RE: 05.21.15~Readings & Commentary

Second Reading – Galatians 5.16-25

Brothers and sisters, live by the Spirit

and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.

For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,

and the Spirit against the flesh;

these are opposed to each other,

so that you may not do what you want.

But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious:

immorality, impurity, lust, idolatry,

sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy,

outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness,

dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,

drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.

I warn you, as I warned you before,

that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, generosity,

faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law.

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh

with its passions and desires.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.

Gospel – John 15.26-27; 16.12-15

Jesus said to his disciples:

“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,

the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father,

he will testify to me.

And you also testify,

because you have been with me from the beginning.



“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,

he will guide you to all truth.

He will not speak on his own,

but he will speak what he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are coming.

He will glorify me,

because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

Everything that the Father has is mine;

for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine

and declare it to you.”

Commentary

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH

Five times during this final discourse with his disciples Jesus promises the gift of the Spirit as their helper; and on several occasions he refers to it as the Advocate, (translate: the one called to accompany them and never leave them): “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate* to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you” (Jn 14.16-17)… “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you"(Jn 14.26)… “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (from today's text - Jn 15.26-27)… “But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you”(Jn 16.7)… “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming” (Jn 16.13).

If Jesus repeatedly insists on the gift of the Spirit it is to comfort his disciples at this time of his departure; from now on they will be the ones on the firing line, and Jesus alerts them to this: “I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you” (Jn 16.1-4). Jesus knows that his followers will not be treated differently from him: those who wanted his death sincerely believed that by removing a blasphemer they were acting in the name of God. In his Passion Narrative, Saint John reports that “The Jews answered (Pilate), “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (Jn 19.7).

This terrible misunderstanding always surprises us: that those who defended God crucified God’s own Son. In turn, the Son’s disciples will also be persecuted and eliminated one after the other in the name of true religion. They will need the support of the Spirit of truth, whom John calls the Advocate, the Defender; but let us be clear: it is not a matter of defending Jesus’ followers against God’s judgment, but rather of assisting them when they are brought before human tribunals so that they can authentically witness to Christ. Jesus defined his own vocation as witnessing to the truth; before Pilate he says, “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (Jn 18.37). Likewise the disciples have no other purpose than to bear witness to Christ so that the world will know the truth of the Father.

THE GIFT TO THE BELIEVERS IS TO MAKE THEM TRUE WITNESSES

The definitive Covenant between God and humanity will be established only when humanity finally knows God as God truly is. The terrible misunderstanding of which I spoke earlier, caused by humanity’s ignorance of God is a problem that runs throughout the Bible: from Adam’s suspicion in the Garden of Eden when he imagines that God envies him, to the people’s suspicion in the desert of Sinai when in their thirst they blame God for having brought them out of Egypt, and all the way to the crucifixion of the Son of God because he does not meet the expectations of his contemporaries, it is always the same ignorance. The prophets tried in vain to alert the people: “Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth, for the LORD speaks: Sons have I raised and reared, but they have rebelled against me! An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger; But Israel does not know, my people has not understood” (Is 1.2-3).

But God did not give up; God knows that humanity cannot discover the Wholly Other on its own; so God will intervene, as Jeremiah says: “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (Jer 24.7).

That should enlighten all our efforts at knowing God: because God is the Wholly Other, it is impossible to reach God through our efforts alone, and so it is God who comes to us and reveals Godself. That is why we are given God’s Spirit, the first gift given to believers so that by their testimony the world can come to know the truth of God.

----------------

Addendum

It is interesting to compare Peter’s words during the election of Matthias in the Acts of the Apostles (“it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection” Acts 1.20) with those of Jesus during his final discourse: “And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (Jn 15.27).

Translated with permission by Simone Baryliuk, from: Commentaires de Marie Noëlle Thabut, 24 mai, 2015

http://www.eglise.catholique.fr/foi-et-vie-chretienne/commentaires-de-marie-noelle-thabut.html