Sermon of Rev. Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro
Fourth Sunday after Easter
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Today with this passage of the farewell discourse of Christ after the Last Supper the Church is preparing us for the coming of the Holy Ghost as Pentecost and as a consequence the mission to the gentiles. As we sing it in the Introit the presence of the Holy Spirit allows the Church to reveal God’s justice to the gentiles.
In the epistle of St. James we meditate how all the best and most perfect gifts come from down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alterations. Those gifts are above all the commandments that the Lord has given us and the promise to be with the Father forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the collect we pray to love those commandments and to desire with an undivided heart to reach the place where the true joys are to be found. Most certainly the Holy Ghost will move us to love the commandments showing us their goodness and will enkindle in us the desire to be Him forever in Paradise.
The Holy Spirit will come at the price of Christ’s “departure.” While this “departure” caused the Apostles to be sorrowful, and this sadness was to reach its culmination in the Passion and Death on Good Friday, “this sorrow will turn into joy.” For Christ will complete His redemptive “departure” with the glory of his Resurrection and His Ascension to the Father, even if this last episode of His earthly life has a note of bitter sweetness. Even with this nostalgia the sorrow with will be transformed into joy, strengthened by the faith of the Apostles in the coming of the Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised them. The Holy Spirit will come insofar as Christ departed through the Cross: He will come not only afterwards, but because of the Redemption accomplished by Christ, through the will and action of the Father. According to the divine plan, Christ’s “departure” is an indispensable condition for the “sending” and the coming of the Holy Spirit, but these words also say that what begins now is the new salvific self-giving of God, in the Holy Spirit. That is why we are in the time of the Church, which is also the time of the Holy Spirit. The Church will prosper and fulfil her mission in the measure that she is faithful to constant promptings of the Holy Spirit. Obviously the Church will have to discern to know when she is prompted by the Spirit of God and when she is prompted by the evil spirit that sometimes takes the lying disguise of a spirit of light. The Church will have to be always aware of the lies of the Prince of this World that will always encourage her to make comprises and adaptations that will water down of even contradict the saving doctrine that she received from Christ.
In the farewell discourse after the Last Supper, we receive that the highest point of the revelation of the Trinity. At the same time, we are on the threshold of the final instructions of Jesus Christ as we can see in the Synoptic gospels, which are the great missionary mandate addressed to the Apostles and through them to the Church of all times: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”(Mt. 28:18-20) The formula of baptism reflects the intimate mystery of God, of the divine life, which is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the divine unity of the Trinity. The teaching of the saving doctrine of Christ has to be done in integral way being careful not live anything aside falling into compromises with the world. In this task we are strengthened and reassured by the promise of
Christ of being with us always until the end of time or the end of our lives.
The Holy Spirit will convince the world of sin, and of justice and of judgment. It will convince the world of sin because the world refused to believe in Christ. The Holy Ghost will show the tragic nature of the sin of willful unbelief. The person that willfully refuses to believe closes himself to the light and walks in darkness. He isolates himself from the light and in some ways anticipates the loneliness that the damned souls are going to experience in Hell that are curved forever upon themselves. The Mission of the Holy Spirit is described here in juridical terms, showing that while He acts as a defense attorney for the disciples, he is also a prosecutor who indicts the unbelieving world.
“Sin,” in this passage, means the incredulity that Jesus encountered among “his own,” beginning with the people of his own town of Nazareth, who not only despised Him but tried to kill Him. Sin means the rejection of His mission, a rejection that will cause people to put him to death in the Cross. At the same time we have to be fully aware that this same Spirit who brings sin to light is also the Consoler who gives to the human soul, mind and heart all the necessary graces for repentance and conversion. We have to invite the world to conversion using the words of St. Peter, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:37f)
The Holy Spirit will convince the world of justice. Jesus has in mind the definitive justice, which the Father will restore to him when he grants him the glory of the Resurrection and Ascension into heaven: “I go to the Father.” In this context “judgment” means that the Spirit of truth will show the guilt of the “world” in condemning Jesus to death on the Cross. Nevertheless, Christ did not come into the world only to judge it and condemn it: he came to save it. The action of the Holy Spirit to convince the World about sin and justice has as its purpose the salvation of the world, the salvation of all men. Precisely this truth seems to be emphasized by the assertion that “judgment” concerns only the prince of this world, Satan, the one who from the beginning has been exploiting the work of creation against salvation, against the covenant and the union of man with God. As Christ states in the passage we have heard, “the prince of the world is already judged”. The Holy Spirit has to convince the world concerning the judgment of our enemy, to continue in the world the salvific work of Christ.
The Holy Spirit will teach us the truth. His work counteracts the work of Satan. He will disclose the full meaning of the Gospel, our enemy at the same time will constantly spread deception and falsehood throughout the whole world. The Holy Spirit continues the teaching mission of Jesus presenting the fullness of the truth in an integral way. The constant guidance of the Holy Spirit is Christ’s guarantee that the gospel will never be corrupted, distorted or misunderstood by the infallible universal magisterium of the Church during her earthly pilgrimage.
So today through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary that guided and encouraged the Apostles as they were waiting for the arrival of the Holy Ghost let us pray that the Church be always attentive to the authentic motions of the Spirit of Christ and always reject the seductions of the world.
May the Lord Bless you and Keep you.
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