The Promise of the Spirit
Sixth Sunday of Easter. Fr Albert Robertson looks forward to the coming of the Paraclete.
As we approach the great Solemnity of Pentecost, our minds turn from the Resurrection to the promise of the Holy Spirit. We consider everything once again, all of Jesus’ teaching, with the light of the Resurrection. There are strong contrasts in St John’s Gospel between light and dark, and curiously, given that we are in the midst of Easter and preparing for the fiery arrival of the Spirit at Pentecost, we read perhaps the darkest part of St John’s Gospel. This teaching from the Lord makes promises in the midst of the darkest of nights (John 13:30), and it is only from the frame of the Resurrection that we can finally see the power of the light, a power which darkness cannot quench (John 1:5).
So, a particular aspect of this season is that we are at a hinge point. A shift in our relationship with the Lord and in our subjectivity. As long as the Lord is corporally present, the Church is the assembly of the called. Yet with the Ascension, when the Lord departs to be closer to us through the Spirit, the Church discovers something of her identity. Not just an assembly of disciples, but a mystical Body. We are not part of some devout humanitarian project, but incorporated into a sacramental, transformative presence. It’s only in this sacramental way that the Church can truly be ‘a lasting and sure seed of unity, hope and salvation for the whole human race’ (Lumen Gentium, 9).
It is the Spirit that we need in order to live this rather tall order out in our daily lives. The explicit promise of a Paraclete is, like the opposition of light and darkness, another theme of John. Jesus promises us another paraclete, one who is a counsellor, advocate, mediator, helper, and comforter. And we should look to the promise of the Spirit as precisely the sealing and consummation of Christ’s action on earth, summed up in his Paschal mystery. John, in his first epistle, speaks of Jesus as a paraclete, the advocate that we need in our relationship with the Father. The Spirit, then, brings Christ’s action closer to us than we could possibly imagine, as the Spirit is poured into our hearts. And just as the Church comes to an awareness of itself at Pentecost, is born, or becomes visibly manifest, so also each of us who is a part of that Church comes, through the working of the Spirit, to a new awareness of Christ, of our relationship to him. The Spirit transforms our way of seeing and acting in the world by making Christ’s teaching alive within our hearts. Our eyes are opened to the realities of God’s work in the world.
But the Spirit doesn’t just give the power to see the world aright; it gives us the power to be God’s agents in the world. Ours is not a passive faith, because even the work of contemplation and of prayer is a labour undertaken for the sake of the world. This is why the Spirit makes us active participants in Christ’s work of salvation. This is most clearly the power of the Spirit to help us to give an account of the hope that is within us. The Spirit helps us to speak out with all boldness about what Christ has done for us, and what he can do for others through the life of the Church. And the Spirit also gives us consolation in times of trial, particularly when we suffer trials for doing what is right, when that experience of the apostolic Church in Jerusalem is ours, when we suffer for the sake of the name.
The Paraclete is ultimately one who is called alongside. One that we can call upon, whose help is a comfort, an encouragement. The power of the Spirit is to make Jesus present to us as one who walks with us through our pilgrimage of faith. Jesus Christ, the one who showed us the way to eternal joy by becoming our brother and guiding us by the hand, continues this work through the power of the Spirit. No matter what our life might hold, no matter what challenges and joys we face, the Lord is with us. As we pray for the coming of the Spirit afresh in these days as we prepare for Pentecost, we can ask the Lord to once again change and purify our sight, our speech, and our whole way of being in the world through the power of his guiding Spirit. With such a guide, we have nothing to fear.
Readings: Acts 8:5-8, 14-17 | 1 Peter 3:15-18 | John 14:15-21
Image: detail from a stained glass by Harry Stammers installed in 1961 in the Blacader chapel of St Mungo’s Cathedral, Glasgow, photographed by Fr Lawrence Lew OP
