My Dear People, 

In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about love. “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments!”  Jesus wants us to understand that to love God, if it is to be authentic, it must be reflected in a life of generous and faithful self-giving. Also, one must be obedient to the will of God. Whoever accepts God’s Commandments and obeys them; it is he who loves Him. 

St. John, in another passage, cautions not to “love in word or speech but in deeds and  truth” (1 John 3:18), and he teaches us: “this is the love of God—that we keep His Commandments” (1 John 5:3). Love is connected to the Holy Spirit. St. Paul adds in Romans 5:5: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” It is the Holy Spirit that enables us to love God and keep His commandments.

Moreover, the Spirit bonds us and unites us to the Father and the Son, enabling us to experience communion with God. “On that day you will realize I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you” (John 14:20).  This inter-dwelling of the persons of the Godhead and our own persons is possible because the Spirit of God flows through us, uniting us to the other persons as well. Our communion with God cannot be realized prior to our experience of the Spirit because it is only made possible by the Spirit. Love, communion, obedience, indwelling—all of this comes about through the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

On numerous occasions the Lord promises the Apostles that He will send them the Holy Spirit. (cf. 14:26, 15:26). He tells them one result of the dedication with the Father will be the coming of the Paraclete.  

The Greek word “Counselor” is sometimes anglicized as “Paraclete.” In 1 John 2:1, Jesus Christ is described as a Paraclete, which means, etymologically, “called to be beside one” to accompany, console, protect and defend. Hence the word is translated as Counselor, Advocate, etc. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as “another Counselor,” because The Holy Spirit will be given to them, replacing Him as Advocate or Defender, to assist them since Jesus will soon ascend to heaven. In promising here that through Him the Father will send them the Holy Spirit, Jesus is revealing the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.  

The Holy Spirit in fact does descend upon the Disciples after our Lord’s Ascension (cf. Acts 2:1-13), sent by the Father and by the Son.   

Now, it is the role of the Holy Spirit to guide, protect and vivify the Church. There are, as we know, two factors which Christ has promised and arranged in different ways to continue His mission: the apostolate and the Holy Spirit. The apostolate is the external and objective factor. It forms the material body, so to speak, of the Church and is the source of her visible and social structure. The Holy Spirit acts internally within each person, as well as on the whole community, animating, vivifying, “sanctifying” (Paul VI, Opening address at the third session of Vatican II, September 14, 1964).

“We, too, have an advocate—Christ, who is also our Advocate and Mediator in heaven where He is with the Father (cf. Heb 7:25). The Holy Spirit is Counselor as we make our way in this world amid difficulties and daily temptations. In spite of our limitations, we can look up to heaven with confidence and joy, because God loves us and frees us from sin.   

 The presence and the actions of the Holy Spirit in the Church are a foretaste of eternal happiness, of the joy and peace for which we are destined by God.” (Christ is passing By, 128)

Yours in Christ, With Prayers and Blessings,

Fr. Vincent Clemente