Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday 14th May 2023

​In John’s Gospel we frequently hear Jesus saying to his disciples. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Today’s Gospel passage, (Jn 14: 15-21), begins that way, but Jesus goes on to say something very important.

“I shall ask the Father,

and he will give you another Advocate

to be with you for ever,

that Spirit of truth

whom the world can never receive

since it neither sees nor knows him;

but you know him,

because he is with you, he is in you.”

Jesus promises his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, who like himself will be an advocate, a paraclete (a helper, an intercessor, a consoler), but also the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot deceive or know. So complete will be the giving of the Spirit, that he will be in us to bring life to all we think, do or say. Because of the Spirit’s presence in our lives, Jesus can say:

“I will not leave you orphans;

I will come back to you.

In a short time the world will no longer see me;

but you will see me,

because I live and you will live.”

With the Spirit in our hearts, the presence of Jesus will be even more powerful than before his death and resurrection. The Spirit will make Jesus present to us, both in the Sacraments, in our prayer and at every moment of our lives. In the Spirit, Jesus will be with us for ever and will unite us with the Father. We will live in the embrace of the Holy Trinity. Jesus goes on to say:

“On that day you will understand that I am in my Father

and you in me and I in you.

Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them

will be one who loves me;

and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I shall love him and show myself to him.”

In Christ we are united to the Father and the Father to us, as we will be united to Christ himself in the Spirit. Jesus returns to where he began: with the keeping of his commandments being the wellspring of God’s love for us as it is of our love for God. We will be loved by God, whom Jesus always calls the Father, and by Christ, who will reveal himself to us in love, the Spirit being the source of love.