10/05/2026
HOMILY FOR THE 6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A.
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14: 15-21
Today is the sixth Sunday of Easter and four days away from the Feast of the Ascension when Jesus returns into heaven from whence He came and never to appear again until the end of time when He will come again in His glory to judge the living and the dead. As we approach the feast of the Ascension of the Lord enroute to Pentecost, the Church invites us to celebrate the coming of the Advocate.
In the forty days between His Resurrection and His Ascension to Heaven, Jesus is, so to speak, weaning His disciples. He’s helping them realize that He’s not going to be with them in the same way anymore. He will be with them always, “unto the end of the age, but not physically as He was during the three years of His public ministry. He will not be at their sides to point the way or for them to talk with face-to-face.
The readings proposed for our meditation during the mass today are very apt for this occasion. Taken from the final days of Jesus’ earthly sojourn as well as the first steps of the infant Church after His death, resurrection and ascension prepares his closest disciples to continue his mission, to preach the Good News of salvation to the ends of the earth and to cast out demons in his name. Jesus was completing his work on earth but not abandoning the flock entrusted to him. The going forth of Jesus was to bring salvation to all people by a bitter death leading to Resurrection from the dead. The words and deeds of Jesus encouraged his followers never to give up hope, but always walk with their Lord in confidence.
As his going forth drew near, Jesus was promising the disciples that if they walked with him, he would always accompany them, be present to and with them, even if in a way different than they were used to. “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you,” Jesus assured his followers. The way in which Jesus promised to be with his disciples would take two forms. First, Jesus would be with each follower in a particular and intimate way, as individuals. Secondly, Jesus would be with the disciples as a group, in their midst as he had promised in another place, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20).
Today, we are therefore, a kind of moving from the contemplation of Christ's appearances after the resurrection over the last few Sundays to a meditation on His continued presence in the Church through the Holy Spirit. The gospel reading continues the final instructions and prayers of Jesus over His Apostles. He is going to first leave them after this discourse by giving His life on the cross. He then will leave them after His resurrection through His being taken up out of their sight in the Ascension. The words we hear today are a comforting reminder that though He will be leaving them, He will not leave them orphans. He won't let them down, He won't go away never to return. No, He will be with them. He will send a kind of a “holy Lawyer” to be their Advocate, Consulter, Inspirationer, and Encourager.
The tendency to feel abandoned and rejected as a result of the harrowing experience of life is in every human being. You can imagine how it feels to lose a dear one or your source of happiness and encouragement. This is how the disciples felt when Jesus was about to leave them. They are now sad and afraid to lose the man (Jesus) who has been their support and encouragement. But He still assures them of his presence even when he is gone to the Father. In other words, he might be out of sight but not out of mind. He promises to send a helper (the Holy Spirit) who is now the same as Him in essence and substance. Don't give up because as long as Jesus is alive, you too will live (See Jn. 14:19). When you feel down, know that Jesus is there to help you up. When you are heartbroken, know that Jesus is there to console you. When life doesn't make sense, know that Jesus is there to make sense for you. When your failing health is pulling you into despair and disbelief, know that Jesus is there to help you. When others connive and conspire against you, know that Jesus is there to defend and vindicate you.
It is all very well for us to believe in the death and resurrection of Christ, to believe that through his resurrection he brought about our salvation but that after the Ascension he left us to it and it is up to us to see if we can make the best of it. No, we have not been left orphans we have the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, in our midst, leading, guiding and inspiring us. The Paraclete is our coach, always by our side, to instruct and correct us when we make mistakes, to encourage and motivate us when we feel down, to challenge and inspire us to be the best we could, to defend us and fight for our rights when the judges are unfair to us. In short, the Paraclete means for us all that Jesus meant for the disciples. A parakletos could be a lawyer who defends us. He it is who will bring us to the level of understanding, to the truth, the gentleness, the reverence and clear conscience to reform and transform our relationship, inspire, direct, motivate, push, sanctify, prompt and give us good counsel in our relationship with each other.
As a fulfilment of his promise, Christ did not leave his followers “orphans” as seen in the first reading. He continues to be present in their midst through the Holy Spirit. When the early Church was first struck with persecution (Acts. 😎 leading to the dispersal of her members from Jerusalem, they were not left as “orphans”. It can be understood that the persecution (triggered after Stephen’s death) did not affect all members of the community in the same way (because the Apostles were still in Jerusalem), but it was especially directed against the Hellenist-Christians from Stephen’s circle. Nevertheless, the Hebrew-Christians, who maintained faithfulness to the Law and Judaism, were – until further notice – protected from persecution. Therefore, the persecuted Hellenist-Christians did not settle for a useless death; they left Jerusalem and spread to other regions of Palestine. It was a providential fact inspired by the Holy Spirit, allowing the spread of the Gospel to other Palestinian regions.
It was also in the light of the foregoing that Philip – one of the seven deacons, from the same group of Stephen (cf. Act 6:1-7) – who, leaving Jerusalem, went to announce the Gospel to the inhabitants of central Palestine,Samaria. Interestingly, Samaria was, for the Jews, a practically pagan land despised for being a mixture of Israeli blood with foreigners and considered as heretics in relation to their law of purity. The proclamation of the Gospel to the Samaritans shows therefore, that the Church has now no borders and announces the next step: the evangelization of the pagan world.
Apparently, Philip worked wonders through the Holy Spirit in that town leading to great rejoicing. We are told that they came to accept Philip’s preaching of the Good News about the kingdom of God and were baptized. As a result, the Apostles had to send their delegates Peter and John, to pray and lay hands on the newly baptized in that town that they might receive the Holy Spirit. In the words of Scott Hahn, “This is the origin of our Sacrament of Confirmation (see Acts 19:5–6), by which the grace of Baptism is completed and believers are sealed with the Spirit promised by the Lord.” The reception of the Holy Spirit by the Samaritans reflects the promise of Christ: “I will not leave you orphans,” but will remain with us forever.
Dear friends in Christ, persecutions, difficulties, sufferings, pains, challenges, etc., continue to happen every day in our world, in the lives of each of us. We feel powerless in the face of war, terrorism and pandemics; we are unable to predict and prevent natural disasters; we suffer because of injustice and oppression; we see the world being built according to the criteria of selfishness and materialism; we cannot avoid sickness and death. We believe in the “Kingdom of God”, but it never seems to come, and we feel discouraged and frustrated towards a future that we do not know where humanity will lead.
We believers should never be tired of bearing witness for Christ in a troubled world, just as Peter encourages us in the second reading to have confidence in the risen Christ, to give a serene witness to their faith, defending the faith and hope they received, show their love to all men (even to persecutors), and never depart from the “Way of Christ”. Apparently, the “Way” that Jesus proposes to his disciples (the “Way” of love, service, truth, etc.) seems, in the light of the criteria with which most of the people of our time evaluate these things, a way of failure, which leads neither to wealth, nor to power, nor to social success, nor to material well-being. However, Jesus assured us that in keeping his commandment of love we would find a new, definitive and fulfilled life guided by the presence of the Holy Spirit, our second Advocate.
Today’s message makes it clear that God can write straight through crooked lines: from a bad situation (persecution of believers), the possibility of taking the Good News of liberation to other communities is born. Sometimes God has to use drastic methods to force us out of our comfortable corner and into commitment. Often, the apparent dramas of our lives are part of God’s projects. It is necessary to learn to look at the events of life with the eyes of faith and to learn to trust our God who has not left us and will never leave us as orphans. On this ground, today’s Psalmist invites us to cry out with joy to God, singing to the glory of his name, rendering him glorious praise. A God who works tremendous deeds among men, and turns the sea into dry land. Let our joy then be in him; he rules forever by his might.
As Eastertide draws to its close, perhaps it is a good time to ask ourselves: Do I really have hope? Am I a person of hope? And we can remind ourselves that this hope does not depend on us, on our strength and determination, but wholly on God's love for us in Christ, shown in his Resurrection. And this is the Good News of today.
It is quite in order to note here a condition for receiving this Advocate: “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” When we do this, he adds: “I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever, that spirit of truth…I will not leave you orphans.” In order to receive the Spirit of truth, we must: “Go into the whole world and preach the good news to all creation (Mk 16: 15). We must love our God with our whole heart as well as love our neighbor as we do ourselves (Luke 10, 25-27). When we do these, we are certainly preaching the good news of truth.
Those who keep Christ's commandments will, he promises, receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, our Advocate will gently indicate the way to us that we should go, the paths that need to be repaired, the relationships in need of further inspection or care. For this Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, is a gift from God. And being from God, it can never do harm, never do wrong, never lead us into danger. We may, of course, be led in ways that we did not expect or anticipate, but if we are truly open to God and all his gifts then we must also be open to go where he would will for us to go.
So let us ask ourselves once again: Do we earnestly and genuinely wish for the Spirit of truth to enter into our hearts and stay with us always? If we are at all uncertain about any of our answers to these questions, then we should pray - pray that we might truly be open to the scriptures, open to God, open to Jesus and what he asks of us in love. Let us pray that as Pentecost approaches we too might become filled with “The Divine presence of the Holy Spirit” and completely open to the love and freedom in Christ that is promised to us as a result. The promise and the coming of the advocate strengthen us in the way of truth. He comes to make us as firm as the apostles after their “Pentecostal” experience in Acts 2. Christ knows what we need most. That is why he is ready to equip us with the spirit of truth who will help us bear good witness. Therefore, because of this promise, let us all “cry out with joy to God…and say, how tremendous your deed” Lord God of Host.
As disciples of Jesus we, too, are called and empowered by God’s Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of Jesus, to be witnesses to the truth – the truth that sets us free (cf. Jn8:32), the truth that enables us to live as God’s children. This is surely a calling particularly relevant in our world that has scant regard for truth. With the advent of digital technology, and its impact in the field of communication, the lines between fact and fiction, truth and fantasy, are becoming increasingly blurred in every sphere of life. In the field of politics, political leaders subject us to what one commentator has termed ‘a bunch of self-serving lies’. More and more, we inhabit ‘virtual worlds’ constructed by our imaginations, worlds in which we become the sole arbiters of what is true, just, wise and loving and where, as Pope Francis reminds us “everything can be created, disguised and altered’ – surely a frightening scenario! Being witnesses to the truth of Christ in such a world is certainly challenging.
The vocation to be truth tellers has nothing in common with arrogant claims to be in possession of the full truth about God and his plans for us. Indeed, we are no more possessors of the truth, than we are possessors of God’s Spirit. It is the Spirit of truth who possesses us, and must be truth-seekers if we are ever to be truth-tellers. In the words of Bishop Claverie of Oban, Algeria, murdered by Muslim extremists in 1996: ‘No one possesses the truth, everyone is searching for it….One does not possess the truth, and I need the truth of other seekers. This is my experience with the thousands of Algerians, who existence I share and whose questions are my questions.’
We received the Holy Spirit when we were baptised and confirmed, but we may not have had a profound experience of the power of the Spirit in our lives. In this Easter season, as we continue to celebate the Resurrection of Jesus, we pray that the Spirit may be more fully present within us, so that we become truth-seeking witnesses of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit at work in us, may we become more effective instruments in the transformation of our world into ‘a new earth and a new heaven’,where all people feel at home and no one is an orphan.
The Spirit will teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus has said to us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are given the wisdom and strength to understand and live out the Gospel message. We are empowered to be witnesses to Christ in the world. The first Christians were recognized and admired by others because of their love for one another. Our proclaiming the Gospel may entail great works, but in most cases it is simply living our lives well and being unashamed of our allegiance to Christ. I want to leave you with the story of an event from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, which should direct our paths:
It seems that on one occasion the holy poor man and founder, Brother, later, Saint Francis of Assisi, encouraged his brothers to preach in the city. They did so, by simply going through the streets with their hoods up, their heads humbly lowered and speaking no words. When the brothers returned to their friary, one of them told Brother Francis that in fact they probably had not really preached, for they had spoken no words. The saint replied, “Do you think you have preached less by using no words but only example? In fact your example is a powerful form of preaching!” We too, by good example and faithful lives, proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What we say and do, where we go, whom we go with, how we work, pray, play, use our time and all the rest, are forms of saying what we believe in. Each of these can be bold and powerful expressions of our convictions and aspirations for the Gospel and person of Jesus Christ. This is our apostolate and it is a tremendous one indeed.
