Tuesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 12, 2026

John 16, 5-11

Jesus said to his disciples: “Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts. 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. And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation: sin, because they do not believe in me; righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; condemnation, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”

The Lord, teaching at the Last Supper, had spoken more than once of his departure, even telling the Apostles that though he was going away, he would not leave them as “orphans”.  Previously, they had heard him speak of his departure while preaching to the crowd.  The response of those in the crowd was one of confusion: “Jesus said to them: ‘I go: and you shall seek me. And you shall die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.’  The Jews therefore said: ‘Will he kill himself?’ ” (John 8, 21-22).  But the Apostles seem not to have followed up to ask about his leaving.  Where was he going? Would they be following him there?  Much of his teaching they did not understand; perhaps they thought that he would explain this in his good time.  Here, at the Last Supper, his exclamation, “Not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ”, sounds like a rebuke.  St. Thomas comes nearest to asking where he is going, yet he gets only as far as, “Lord, we know not where you are going. And how can we know the way?” (John 14, 5).  The Lord reads their hearts and tells them, “Because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.”  It was grief, then, that prevented them from asking where he was going.  They knew the answer to the question all along, but did not dare have it confirmed.  This “grief” of which Jesus speaks tells us much of the love borne him by his Apostles.  They followed him not as a soldier follows his superior, or as an apprentice follows his master, but simply out of their love for him and his teachings.  This love came even though the Lord frequently upbraided them for their lack of knowledge, for their lack of faith, for their hardness of heart.  It came despite the hardness of his teachings and of the demands made upon them personally.  We see the intensity of this love again when Peter, in his weakness, denies the Lord.  St. Luke says, on that occasion, “And the Lord, turning, looked on Peter . . . and Peter, going out, wept bitterly.”  The Lord’s “look” was not of anger, but of love for his friend.  Peter’s bitter tears were shed because he had hurt the love of his life, and the One he loved, loved him still.

Jesus hastens to assure them, who were bearing a sorrow so deep they could not speak, that, “It is better for you that I should go.”  The Lord connects his departure with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.  It was better for them that Jesus went, because by his Death he set them free from sin and opened for them the Kingdom of heaven.  This could not occur without his sacrificial Death.  His going away also provided great motivation for living according to his word so that they might be with him forever in heaven.  And with his Death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven, the era of the New Covenant begins: the Holy Spirit fills them and transforms them so that they might spread the Lord’s Gospel and accomplish his work on earth.

“When he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.”  The Greek word ἐλέγχω (elégkho), translated here as “convict” also means “to expose” and “to reprove”.  It has also been translated, in this context, as “to convince”.  I think that here the word is better translated as “to expose”: he will expose the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.  It is not the work of the Holy Spirit to render judgment, to “convict” — that is for the Son at his Second Coming.  But it is the work of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the understanding and to inspire.  In that sense, when the Holy Spirit comes he will expose the world in all its depravity to all the followers of Jesus: they will know the truth of the false and fleeting pleasures the world offers so that they may reject them.  He will also expose righteousness, in that they will understand the purpose of the Son of God in coming among us, and for his Death and Rising.  And he will expose the defeat and punishment of the enemy of mankind, the devil.  Only with the Holy Spirit can these things be known, and only when the Lord dies and rises and leaves this world until the time when he comes again as its judge, can the Holy Spirit come.  Knowing these things will also enable them, indeed, spur them on, to preach to all the nations.  

The Father and the Son have bestowed the Holy Spirit upon us in Baptism and Confirmation to strengthen us in trial, to enlighten us as to the divine will, and the strength to bring the Gospel before all nations.  We have been given everything we need to imitate the love of the Apostles.

Monday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 11, 2026

John 15, 26-16:4

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. 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.”

The Gospel readings, this late in the season of Easter, prepare us for the celebration of Pentecost, giving us the Lord’s teaching on the Holy Spirit, which we find principally in St. John’s Gospel.  The Lord has already spoken of the Holy Spirit as the Unity of the Father and the Son.  Here, he speaks of him as “the Spirit of truth”.  He is the Spirit of truth because he proceeds from the Father and testifies to the Son.  He testifies to the Son through the holiness of the Church and the saints, through the holy teachings of the Church, which are the teachings of Christ, through the Holy Scriptures which are given to the Church to announce and interpret, and through the Sacraments, by which the Church’s members are sanctified.  The Lord tells his Apostles, “You also testify”, as eyewitnesses to his words and mighty works.  They do this through their Gospels, letters, and preaching, and through their holy lives, leading ultimately to their martyrdom.

It is of persecution and martyrdom that he next speaks.  He says, “I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”  The main verb here is in the perfect tense and refers back to a prior time: I have told you this (previously), “They will expel you from the synagogues, etc.”  Indeed, from the beginning of his ministry, as witnessed by St. Matthew, Jesus has spoken of the persecution and murder of believers.  Testimony to Jesus will inevitably lead to this since the world will feel threatened by it.  The fact that John quotes Jesus specifically saying that the faithful will be expelled from the synagogues is a clue that he wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians at a time when this was taking place, most likely before 70 A.D.  So horrible will this persecution be that “everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”  This was a particular trial for the early Jewish Christians in Galilee and Judea, that their own co-religionists, their own neighbors, were persecuting them. 

The Lord does not tell us this in order to frighten them, but to encourage us: “I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”  That is, the fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy will cement the conviction of the faithful in his divinity.  To this point the Lord attracted large crowds and even some among the Jewish leaders believed in him.  Just a few days before, he had entered Jerusalem to great acclaim.  No sign pointed to the cataclysm of which Jesus spoke.  Perhaps the Apostles were startled and confused by these words and they put them aside at the time.  Later, in the weeks after Pentecost when they preached Jesus openly, the Jewish leadership would arrest them and beat them, but they would rejoice because they had suffered for Jesus, and because they saw his prophecy fulfilled in them.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2026

John 14, 15–21

Jesus said to his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”

Jesus says here, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate.”  The Greek word translated here as “advocate” is παράκλητον (parakleiton), with the accent on the second syllable.  Among this word’s meanings are: “one who speaks for another”, “a legal aide”, “a mediator”, “an intercessor”, and “a comforter”.  It would fascinate us to know what Hebrew or Aramaic word Jesus actually used, but we only have the Greek word it was translated as.  We more commonly refer to this Advocate by another term Jesus uses for him, the Holy Spirit.  

St. Thomas Aquinas says that the Holy Spirit is the nexus of the Father and the Son.  This Latin word has the meaning of “connection” or “embrace”.  The Holy Spirit is the love which is the embrace of the Father and the Son, from both of whom he proceeds.  He is, then, the Unity of the Father and the Son.  Jesus tells the Apostles that the Father (and he) will send this Unity to them to be with them always.  The Holy Spirit will bind them to Christ as members of his Body, and thus to each other.  Jesus tells his Apostles this so that they may know that wherever they are, he is present with them.  On this occasion, at the Last Supper, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit “the Advocate” in order to assure them that even when he, the Lord, is not physically present with them, they are under divine protection.  Jesus will not leave them as “orphans”, lost, helpless, hungry, and entirely vulnerable to whomever comes near them.  The Holy Spirit continues as our Advocate in our own lives and in the life of the Church, ever speaking to us in daily inspirations to perform good works, ever protecting us from evil, at every moment helping us to persevere in faith.

Nor does Lord leave the Apostles to define “unity” for themselves.  The unity that he speaks of is very different from any unity of which they had heard or which anyone had imagined.  This is not a loose grouping of people with common interests — that is a “community” or association.  This is not even the harmony of hearts and minds devoted to a single purpose, a “brotherhood” or society, perhaps.  This unity affects the very being of the person and exists on the deepest level of intimacy possible.  Because it is unity with Jesus, he can say, “I live and you will live.”  We live because he lives.  Obedience to his commandments, then, conforms us to him and is, at the same time, a sign of this union with him.  It is a sign to us: when we obey his commandments, we know that we must be in union with him.  It is a sign to others as well, a mark of distinction that we belong to Christ in this intimate way, and not to the world.  

Saturday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 9, 2026

John 15, 18-21

Jesus said to his disciples:  “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

The “world” is understood as the realm of the devil (cf. John 14, 30), which can be defined as a society which despises God and promotes immorality as its highest good; or as fallen human nature, against which we must fight (Romans 7, 15-17). We can overcome the devil and our human nature only with the help of God’s grace.  

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.”  The “world”, understood as the realm of the devil, has hated God from the beginning; as our fallen human nature, it can be said to hate the Lord first because he has come to enable us all to overcome it.  The Lord’s point in saying this is to teach his Apostles that as he, despite all the good he has done, has been persecuted, so will they.  “If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own.”  That is, You would be the world’s own.  “Belonging” to the world means to put pursuing ambition, lust, greed, and other passions above the service of God.  The world’s “love” is the pleasure or other passing things that may be gained through these pursuits.  “Because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”  The Apostles and devout Christians do not belong to the world because they seek God alone, and to do his holy will.  Their goal is not a house built on the sands of time that will soon be swept away, but a house founded on the Rock of Jesus Christ, a home in heaven with him (cf. Matthew 7, 24-27).  “I have chosen you out of the world.”  The Lord calls all people “out of the world”, but they are few who come to him: “Many are called but few are chosen”, that is, choose to follow the call (Matthew 22, 14).  St. John emphasizes this choice of answering God’s call by referring to Christians as “the elect” (2 John 1, 1).  “The world hates you.”  The devil fights against the baptized through temptations and the persecutions he rouses up.  Fallen human nature rebels against our attempts to discipline it, to master it so that we may fully accomplish the will of God.

“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  That is, people who have given themselves up to amoral or anti-moral living and see any reminder of God as a direct attack upon them and their lifestyles.  They are very sensitive to the slightest hint of religion and burst into hysterics when they catch sight of it, or suspect it.  This can result in personal attacks on believers and even outright persecution.  The Apostles have seen people — even in his own home town — trying to kill the Lord on various occasions before, but will only understand what he means here with his crucifixion.

“If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”  God provides each human person, throughout his life, all that is necessary to be saved.  God sends inspirations, messengers, and miracles into the lives of all, so that they might repent of their evil and embrace the truth.  Anyone who comes to believe in the Lord Jesus will keep the word of the Apostles through the commandments which they have passed on.

“And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”  The wicked of the world will hate and persecute believers on account of the fact that “God saves” — the meaning of “Jesus” — those who love him and follow his commandments.  The hatred and persecution, then, is directed at God through those who adhere to him.  God’s grace supports those who suffer on his account, and he rewards them with the highest places in heaven: “And I saw thrones and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God and who had not adored the beast nor his image nor received his character on their foreheads or in their hands” (Revelation 20, 4).  “Because they do not know the one who sent me.”  That is, they rejected the One who sent the Son.

In our own struggles against temptations and the urging of our fallen human nature we have an Advocate interceding for us with the Father (cf. 1 John 2, 1), who has said, “Have confidence. I have overcome the world” (John 16, 33).

Friday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 8, 2026

John 15:12-17

Jesus said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

The Lord Jesus continues to speak to his Apostles during the Last Supper.  He speaks very calmly even with his arrest, Passion, and Death nearly upon him.  Ever the servant, he teaches his Apostles to till last possible moment.

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.”  His previous commandments, such as against lust and regarding the Sabbath, fulfilled the laws of the Old Covenant and so were in that sense were not new or  peculiarly his own.  This commandment, however, is.  The Lord does not merely say, Love one another.  He says, “Love one another as I love you.”  They have known his love in many ways over the course of the three years of his Public Life.  They will see the great outpouring of his love as he hangs upon the Cross, and they will know it after Pentecost when the Holy Spirit enlightens them.  They will understand that they are to love each other fully and unconditionally as the Lord has: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  Friends do not normally lay down commandments for their friends, but the Lord’s commandment is to love.  We might wonder why he thought it necessary to issue a commandment to love.  Love is so desirable that everyone wants to give and receive it.  The key here is that he commands us to love as he did.  In a way, it is a permission or an exhortation, but love to the degree that the Lord intends us to have requires a commandment because it is completely self-emptying.

“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.”  The Lord does not refer to his Apostles as “slaves” during his Public Life and the revelation that he considered them slaves might have unsettled them.  They had been slaves as compared to him, their Creator, infinite in power and majesty.  He now raises them to the level of friends — an almost impossible leap in the society of the time.  He calls them “friends” because he is revealing to them his inmost thoughts, not simply teaching them about the Kingdom of God: “I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you.”  It May seem to us that when the Lord called Peter and Andrew from their fishing boat that they chose to follow him, but in reality they were choosing to obey his call.  It was as if they had been waiting for his call and went immediately when it came.  They had been chosen from all eternity to be the Apostles of the Lord and they had been created with this vocation embedded in them.  They could have chosen not to obey, but they would have gone against their nature and they would have regretted their decision the rest of their lives.  The same is true for us.  Our vocation is embedded within us, whether as husbands, wives, parents, single people, priests, or religious.  Because it is embedded we can see signs of it in our preferences, our choices, and our predispositions, and others who watch us closely over the years can see these signs too.  It is up to us to discern our vocations and to follow them.

“And appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.”  In whatever vocation for which we are made, our work is to go and “bear fruit that will remain.”  That is, to hand on the Faith.  We can do this within our calling in a multitude of ways.  The fruit will “remain” when we care for it.  It would be a mistake to help a person convert and then not continue to help that person grow in the Faith, or to have a child baptized and then not raise the child in the Church.  It may happen that at some time the fruit we have cared for rebels against God and his Church despite our best efforts.  Then we should persevere in prayer for that person and to maintain a good example.

“So that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.”  The Lord encourages us to pray for the graces, the virtues, and the favorable circumstances that will allow us to work for the lasting fruit he desires.  His intention is for the salvation of all people and so he will hardly refuse what we need in order to do our part in accomplishing this.

“This I command you: love one another.”  So important is this commandment that the Lord repeats it.  It is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant commandment to love one another, for now we have the revelation of the Son of God and so, with his grace, we can do more than to love one another as we love ourselves.  We can love as the Lord Jesus loves.

Personal Note: I’m feeling better today than yesterday. Thanks for your prayers! The convocation is almost over. I’ am returning to the parish today.

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 6, 2026

John 15, 1-8

Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.”  The Lord Jesus revealed unity to us: first, his unity with the Father, and then our unity with each other in him.  Previously, people existed in communities, societies, and alliances.  These might be governed by contracts or covenants.  These might insist on some sort of conformity.  But before the time of grace unity was not possible.  The tribes of Israel had existed as a confederation, having the Mosaic Law and their ancestry in common, but this does not equate with unity, which exists, when it does exist, in the spiritual realm.  The Lord’s revelation of unity makes it possible to understand what he means by his Body, the Church.  The Apostles  taught unity to the early Christians, especially the Gentile converts, who had no understanding at all of this concept.  St. Paul devoted his entire Letter to the Ephesians to this topic in order for those Christians to understand themselves as part of the universal Church.  This unity provided a completely new identity for people, one that went far beyond family, tribe, and nation.  Helping new converts understand and honor their new identity in Christ proved one of the most difficult labors in the early Church.  

Here, the Lord speaks of himself as the “true vine” — that is, earthly grapevines resemble him in some slight degree; he does not resemble them.  The Father is the vine grower.  He planted the vine in the earth and bid it grow, providing the graces necessary for it to do so.  “He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”  The Father does not walk away from the vine was it is planted, but cares for it by cutting off useless branches that absorb nutrients while producing nothing, and he prunes the branches that are producing in order to increase the yield of fruit.  We can understand this as removing from a believer any attachment to this world that hampers his growth.  This can be painful for the branch as it can mean the loss of things that are highly valued.  

“You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.”  The word that was spoken to them was this: “He that loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that takes not up his cross, and follows me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10, 37-38).  The Apostles have left everything to follow the Lord, and they know they can never go back to it.  Jesus is everything.  “Remain in me, as I remain in you.”  He remains in us through grace and we in him through prayer and obedience to his will.

“Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  It is the Lord alone who is the vine, who nourishes us and causes us to grow and to bear fruit.  If the vine disappears or withholds life from us, his branches, we die.  We cannot breathe and our hearts cannot beat without his willing it and causing it.  We cannot exist at all without him.  We ought often to meditate on this.  We can forget our spouses, parents, and children while we are engaged in work and they do not disappear.  We may think we are the center of their lives, but our lack of attention does not result in their falling into non-existence.  But we are utterly and permanently dependent upon God for everything.

“Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.”  Anyone who disobeys the Source of our life and acts contrary to his will, which is for our good, will be cast away from the Vine and his sharing in the divine life  will die.  He will be good for nothing but to be burned, and his burning shall be forever.  “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.”  Through our obedience and conformity to God’s will we shall love and remain in Christ, and that which we ask in order to obey him and remain in conformity to his will shall be granted to us.

“By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”  All that the Son does in heaven and on earth is for the glory of the Father.  As members of him, this is our purpose as well, to glorify the Father.  We do not do this on our own or independently of the Son but in the Son, as his disciples, made members of his Body.  This is a great calling that has been given to us: to share in the work of the Son, and it is in the glorifying of the Father with him that we shall find our greatest joy.

Personal Note: I’m sorry not to have posted the reflection meant for Tuesday, May 5. I’m having some trouble with the tumor which has distracted me. Please keep me in your prayers.

Monday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 4, 2026

John 14, 21-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me. I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

It happens more than once in the Gospel of St. John that someone asks a question and the answer Jesus gives does not seem to address it at all.  This is the case here.  St. Jude asks a perfectly good and straightforward question: “Master, then what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”  To this, Jesus responds, “Whoever loves me will keep my word.”  How does this answer the question?

Jesus answers Jude’s question while continuing the theme upon which he has embarked, speaking of his relation to the Father.  The answer is an indirect one and Jude will only understand the answer when the Holy Spirit comes upon him at Pentecost.  Jesus is telling him that “my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  That is, Jesus will reveal himself to the world, and he will do so through his Apostles and their successors.  Jesus does not intend to fly about through the wide world making stops in the various cultural centers in order to preach, and he will not be born again elsewhere as he was in Bethlehem.  The Apostles themselves are to carry him.  That they will be able to do this effectively Jesus makes clear in speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”

We see here how someone can ask Jesus for one thing and then be given something quite unexpected instead.  As St. Paul tells us, “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Romans 8, 26), but God answers the need we do not know how to express and does not overwhelm us with what we expect but which will not help.  Jude phrases his question almost as a reproach: Master, what happened that you . . . will not reveal yourself to the world?  He seems to have his own ideas for how the Lord is to do this.   The Lord’s reply must have bothered him like a pebble in a shoe until he finally understood.

You and I are also called to this work of revealing Jesus to the world.  By obeying his commandments, the Father and the Son will make us their dwelling as surely as when the Son was made flesh and swelled among us on earth.  And with the impetus and power of the Holy Spirit we will bear witness to the Son in all that we say and do.  This is the work and the privilege of the believer.