Gospel: John 14:15-21
“Preamble to Paraclete”
Ascension Thursday is near and Pentecost is coming.
The Gospel passage set the “Preamble to Paraclete”.
Joh 14:16 I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you for ever,
There are four versions of the Holy Spirit, Counselor, Comforter, Helpr, Advocate but I prefer Paraclete.
On this text we heard a fine Commentary of the Night Office, by Chrysostom.
Year A
From the homilies on Saint John's Gospel
by Saint John Chrysostom (Horn. 75, 1 :PG 59, 403-405)
These homilies were preached about the year 391. The theme of this extract is Christ's promise to send the Spirit. The Spirit will encourage Christ's disciples after his own departure and will remain with them until his return.
If you love me, said Christ, keep my commandments. I have commanded you to love one another and to treat one another as I have treated you. To love me is to obey these commands, to submit to me your beloved. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor. This promise shows once again Christ's consideration. Because his disciples did not yet know who he was, it was likely that they would greatly miss his companionship, his teaching, his actual physical presence, and be completely disconsolate when he had gone. Therefore he said: I will ask the Father, and he will give another Counselor, meaning another like himself.
They received the Spirit after Christ had purified them by his sacrifice. The Spirit did not come down on them while Christ was still with them because this sacrifice had not yet been offered. But when sin had been blotted out and the disciples, sent out to face danger, were prepare themselves for the battle, they needed the Holy Spirit's coming to enc age them. If you ask why the Spirit did not come immediately after the resurrection, this was in order to increase their gratitude for receiving hill increasing their desire. They were troubled by nothing as long as Christ with them, but when his departure had left them desolate and very m afraid, they would be most eager to receive the Spirit.
He will remain with you, Christ said, meaning his presence with you' not be ended by death. But since there was a danger that hearing of Counselor might lead them to expect another incarnation and to think they would be able to see the Holy Spirit, he corrected this idea by saying: world cannot receive him because it does not see him. For he will not be with you in the same way as I am, but will dwell in your very souls, He will be in you.
Christ called him the Spirit of truth because the Spirit would help them understand the types of the old law. By He will be with you he meant, He will be with you as I am with you, but he also hinted at the difference between them, namely, that the Spirit would not suffer as he had done, nor would ever depart.
The world cannot receive him because it does not see him. Does this imply t] the Spirit is visible? By no means; Christ is speaking here of knowledge, j he adds: or know him. Sight being the sense by which we perceive thin most distinctly, he habitually used this sense to signify knowledge. By the world he means here the wicked, thus giving his disciples the consolation receiving a special gift. He said that the Spirit was another like himself, the would not leave them, that he would come to them just as he himself hi come, and that he would remain in them. Yet even this did not drive aw, their sadness, for they still wanted Christ himself and his companionship.
So to satisfy them he said: I will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. Do not be afraid, for when I promised to send you another Counselor I did not mean that I was going to abandon you for ever, nor by saying that he would remain with you did I mean that I would not see you again. Of course I also will come to you; I will not leave you orphans.
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