My Dear People, 

As we celebrate Pentecost this Sunday, I want to thank all the candidates who were confirmed here at St. James on May 23, 2025. May the Holy Spirit continue to guide you the rest of your lives.  

The Last Supper Gospel discourse (John 13-17) contains the largest section of Jesus’ teachings on the Holy Spirit, so the church refers to this unit quite heavily during Easter, especially as the weeks draw near to Pentecost.

Several observations we can make about this passage are: First, the Spirit Christ sends to us is the “Spirit of Truth.”  Jesus taught what is true and taught us to seek the truth. 

It is not the Church but the culture that believes in things that aren’t true. Years from now, in hindsight, everyone will recognize how many falsehoods with dogmatic certainty our culture believes!   

• There is no evidence for a god;  
• The baby in the womb isn’t a person; 
• All living things could come to be by random chance and natural laws; 
• There’s no such thing as sin; 
• Sex outside of marriage has no negative consequences; etc.

We live in a surreal world of brainwashing and falsehoods in which the truth of Christ seems odd and unrealistic. But the Gospel message is meant to lead us into the real world and out of the fantasies of contemporary culture. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, not fiction. 

Jesus says, “When He comes, the Spirit of Truth will guide you into all truth.” We have here an important teaching that leads ultimately to the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church. Jesus is speaking here not to individual Christians, but to the Apostles gathered as a body. They are the nucleus of the Church’s leadership, represented later by an ecumenical council, who are the successors of the Apostles around the world when they gather together to reconstitute the Apostolic College. 

Christ promises the Spirit will lead the gathered Apostles “into the truth.” For this reason, we have confidence that when the Apostolic college is gathered, it will not err.  If it did, then the Spirit would not have led them “into the truth.” Confidence in the Church is ultimately confidence in the Holy Spirit. If the leaders of the whole church, who are gathered together in obedience to Christ, err in doctrine, then we likely would have very little confidence in the truth of our faith. So, we speak of the infallibility of an ecumenical council, taking a risky step of faith to believe that Jesus’ promise is true in an objective and tangible way. 

Secondly, “He will not speak on His own. . . He will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” This makes evident the continuity between the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit does not enable us to “surpass” the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and “evolve” into some higher plane of spirituality. Throughout Church history, there have been various movements that have arisen—some of a conservative nature and some of a progressive nature—claiming the Spirit has led them to insights that overturns the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Gospels, or the Apostles. Such movements have abandoned some or all of the sacraments, the successors of the Apostles, and various moral teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. There’s more than a hint of it in the contemporary movement to change the Church’s teachings on marriage from what Jesus defined and St. Paul clarified. Some even feel the spirit is causing us to evolve into a higher state of truth. 

But the Spirit does not overturn the Gospel and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and Son of David. This Jesus is God. The Spirit leads us deeper into understanding this teaching. He does not lead us to surpass or overturn it. There is a “Hermeneutic of continuity” between Christ and the Spirit. 

Thirdly, Jesus says, “you also testify.”  While that command has its immediate application to the Apostles themselves, nonetheless it also applies to the whole church. We must testify to the truth of faith in the middle of a culture that is founded on multiple falsehoods. The Spirit gives us the power to do that, the power to understand more deeply the teaching of Christ, and also to proclaim it boldly.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Vincent Clemente