In the previous Sunday, we learned about one of the many facets of our Lord Jesus Christ. Early in his Ministry, St. John the Baptizer already called him “The Lamb of God” who take away the sins of the world. When our Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he told Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Then Jesus said that he was the Bread of Life and last week, he was The Good Shepherd. We’ve written about all these facets in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and learned that God truly loves us and it is his joy to be with us in paradise.
Today’s gospel reading is a continuation of those many facets in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, however he introduces to us the Advocate also known as the Holy Spirit of God, the Counselor or the Defender, the Mediator or the Paraclete, the third figure in the Holy Trinity, who as our Lord promised would be with us always till the end of time. You can read this Bible passage in John 14: 15-21.
“[Jesus said to his disciples] 15 “ If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, 17 the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.
18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. 21 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.”
If you read the first sentence of this gospel clearly, our Lord Jesus says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.” The Advocate or the Paraclete, which in Greek is “Parakletos” literally means “The One who is called upon or to be appealed to.” Or someone who can be of assistance to us in our time of need. This statement of our Lord indicates that he is also our Advocate, but since he has already resurrected (he was in the Upper Room when he made this statement to his disciples) he would ask The Father to send another Advocate in his stead who will remain with us through the end of time.
I dare say that in this time of grave crisis in the Catholic Church, which is under attack by anti-clerics as prophesied by our Blessed Virgin Mother or by Godless ideologues who in coordination with mindless politicians are forcing the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) Bill upon many Catholics who are ignorant of Church doctrines, it is the Holy Spirit or the Paraclete who helps us defend the Holy Mother Church.
In Luke 21: 12-15, our Lord Jesus Christ said, “Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons and they will have you led before Kings and Governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”
I can personally attest to this, because in fighting against the RH Bill, in all honesty, I didn’t have to do much research as somehow, I would get emails from concerned readers giving me information why Catholics should be against the RH Bill. Since I’ve been doing this for many years now, it was easy to question issues such as economic issues where pro-RH advocates blame our overpopulation to our poverty… or the moral issues that the Catholic Church is defending and yes, including the hidden issue where the RH bill is being lobbied by foreign pharmaceutical companies.
The action of the Holy Spirit is one of “Bearing witness” and that’s what exactly what we Catholics should be doing, witnessing to the good news that our Lord Jesus Christ has given to the world and with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate who counsels us, we continue spreading the message of Christ 2,000 years later, fulfilling his promise in Luke 21: 15 “For I myself will give you a mouth of wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”
This happened to St. Stephen the First Christian martyr that you can read in Acts chapter 6 to 8. In Acts 8: 54-55 “When they heard this. They were infuriated and they ground their teeth at him. But he filled with the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” Then the Jews stoned him to death because they could not bear hearing the truth from St. Stephen. Like all of us fighting the RH Bill, we only have one story to tell and that’s the truth and the reality that we are fighting a spiritual battle between good versus evil… God vs. Satan!
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