1st Reading: Acts: 8:5-8, 14-17
2nd Reading: 1Pt 3:15-18
Gospel: Jn 14:15-21)
“He will give you another
advocate”
By
the term advocate we mean the person who acts on behalf of the other
particularly before the court. In other words, he may be the counsellor,
comforter, advisor, helper, the one who offers you help, courage and support.
The
first reading we see that Jesus continues to manifest that He is with apostles
through their ministry in Samaria. The apostles were able to perform miracles
of healing, exorcism and finally baptism. There was great joy after receiving
the Holy spirit and Baptism. Thus, the second reading exhorts the newly
baptized who have received the gift of the Holy spirit not just to end with
receiving the Holy spirit but to be able to give this Hope which is in them to
those who would ask them at any moment. But we know that the Christians left
alone they can do nothing,
That
is why in the Gospel Jesus commends them to love him and obey his commandments
that they may receive the advocate from his father According to Paul the gift of the
Spirit is the beginning of Christian experience (Gal 3:2ff), another way of
describing the new relation of justification. One cannot belong to Christ
unless one had the Spirit (1Cor 6:17); one cannot share Christ’s sonship
without sharing his Spirit. In John, the Spirit from above is the power
effecting new birth, for the Spirit is the giver of life; bringing life to
those who believes in him. But for John there is a theological unity of the
‘death, resurrection, and ascension with the mission of the gift of the Holy
Spirit (20:21-23).
Today
Jesus is challenging us that we who have become one with him in baptism have to
put on the new armor of love, it is only in love to our neighbors and in our
daily life style that God can fill us with the advocate to overcome the
allurements of the passing world. We need to abandon the old self and open
ourselves to the spirit of the lord otherwise we shall remain in that stagnant
faith where there is no growth at all. The condition for obtaining all that
Jesus has promised is our love expressed in our faith in Jesus and our love for
one another and by doing this, we shall experience the love of Jesus and God which
will intense because we shall be in intimate dwelling with the divinity.
There is a saying which says “you cannot go on being a crude egg you either hatch or go bad” Brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus let the faith we have received just like the Samaritans, move us to accept God, and profess his name publicly in all our dimensions of life. We are the living witness of the spirit of the lord at work in us. He (Holy spirit) will counsel us, comfort us, help us, and support us if we really live good moral and spiritual life.
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