Wednesday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 25, 2022

John 16:12-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”

“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now.”  He had told them so much already, principally about himself: that he was the Son of God come down from heaven, equal to the Father, and that he was about to return there.  We should note that he does not talk to the Apostles about his imminent arrest, sufferings, and Death, and that he will endure this for the redemption of the human race.  He will teach them about the meaning of his Death only after he rises again.  Instead, he teaches the Apostles about their work on earth with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and their destiny in heaven.  He teaches them according to their capacity to learn at this stage of their growth as believers.

“When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”  This is the Advocate of whom the Lord had just spoken, the Holy Spirit.  He will provide the impetus for their work and inspire them in their teaching.  He will guide them to “all truth”, all that they need to know so that they might teach what is necessary for us to believe to be saved.  “He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”  We see this in St. Paul’s Letters to the Thessalonians when he teaches about “the man of perdition” who will come in the last days (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2, 3) and other details of that time which are not mentioned in the Gospels.  We also see this in the visions St. John records in the Book of Revelation.

“He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”  That is, he will glorify the Lord Jesus by helping us to understand who he is and what he taught.  We will never stop learning about him and the Holy Spirit will never cease teaching us about him.

“Everything that the Father has is mine.”  The Father is the Source of all life, human and divine.  The Son has life because the Father has given it to him.  The Father also gives him power, majesty, all knowledge, immortality, and everything else which he possesses.  “for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.”  The Father tells the Holy Holy Spirit everything about the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in turn, declares this to the Church so that we can learn about the Lord Jesus, the Church he established, and the Sacraments which he has given us.

While we cannot fully comprehend God or the mysteries pertaining to him, we can learn many things about him, especially that he loves us beyond all telling.