Saturday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 16:23-28
We are coming now to the end of John chapter 16 and Jesus’ discourse at the Last Supper. Today Jesus makes a solemn promise that whatever his disciples ask the Father in Jesus’ name will be given to them. Up to this, of course, they have not been praying to God through Jesus. That will only happen after the resurrection and ascension. But then it will become the normal way for the Church to pray to the Father, as we do in all the prayers in the liturgy of the sacraments.
Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
As we have pointed out before, this is not a carte blanche for us to make any request that comes into our heads. It is understood that we will be praying, first of all, for what we genuinely need and not just for what we want.
And what we need most of all is to be close to our God, and to be equipped with all those things and do all those things which will bring us closer to his will—things which will enable us to work with him for the building of the Kingdom. Those prayers will be answered, although not always exactly in the way we might envisage. It may not be until much later that we will realise just how our prayers have been answered—often in very unexpected ways.
Jesus says a strange thing at this point, when his disciples ask for something in his name:
I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf…
And the reason he gives is:
…for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
Our Father already knows all our needs and he wants to satisfy them for us in his love. He will not need the intercession of his Son.
And, when we are already closely related in love and faith with the Father and Jesus, mediation is hardly necessary: our relationship is the mediating factor. Our prayer through Jesus is not to tell God something he does not know already. Rather it is to help make us aware of what our real needs are and to go to where those needs will be answered.
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Friday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 16:20-23
Today’s Gospel repeats much of yesterday’s about the sorrow the disciples will experience when Jesus goes away (in his suffering and death) and the joy they will experience when he soon returns (in his resurrection). Jesus compares their experience to a woman about to give birth to a child:
When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.
The joy of seeing her newborn child face to face is worth any pain. The disciples will have to go through a similar experience as the new Jesus, the Risen Christ, enters his new life and the new People of God, his post-resurrection Body, comes to birth.
Today’s passage adds the promise that, when Jesus sees them again:
…your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
And they will no longer have need to ask the questions they are asking now. It does not mean that there will not be more sufferings in the future. There will be, and some of the disciples will give their lives for their commitment to Jesus and the Kingdom. But for those who are close to Jesus, pain and joy are not incompatible.
Let us pray that we, too, who have the enduring presence of the Risen Jesus with us at all times, wherever we happen to be, experience—in spite of inevitable trials and disappointments—the same kind of joy. In fact, we have reason to be concerned if there is not an underlying joy in our lives. It should make us wonder just how close we really are to Jesus.
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Thursday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Note: This Mass, also known as ‘Thursday Before Ascension Sunday’, is celebrated in those countries where the feast of our Lord’s Ascension is moved to the Sunday of Week 7 of Easter. For the Ascension Day reflection, see this coming Sunday’s Scripture commentary.
Commentary on John 16:16-20
As Jesus continues to speak to his disciples at the Last Supper and briefs them on what is coming, they are puzzled when he says:
A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.
They start mumbling among themselves asking what on earth Jesus is talking about. Seeing and not seeing and seeing again and “a little while”. To us it is clear enough that Jesus is referring to his coming suffering and death and his resurrection.
Jesus still does not spell it out clearly, but he does warn them that they:
…will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.
Jesus’ passion, which will cause them to flee in fear of their lives, will be a traumatic experience. All their beliefs in Jesus as Messiah and Saviour turn to ashes. But there will be others (“the world”) who will be overjoyed over Jesus’ arrest and execution.
The disciples, though, are not to worry because their “pain will turn into joy” with the dawn of the Resurrection and all that implies. In their own way, the disciples will share the passion of Jesus, as all their hopes and expectations are emptied and turned to dust—only to be revived with the realisation that their Master still lives as Lord and King.
All our sufferings can similarly be turned to joy when we totally unite ourselves with Jesus our Lord and suffer with him and for him, for his Kingdom and for the sake of all our brothers and sisters.
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Wednesday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 16:12-15
Jesus continues to speak about the giving of the Spirit to his followers:
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
They are still too raw in their understanding. It will take time for them fully to absorb the meaning of Jesus’ life and teaching. By then he will be long gone, so they will need the guidance of the Spirit to lead them to that fuller understanding. Jesus tells them the Spirit:
…will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
The Spirit will guide them in their response:
…to the things that are to come.
Following on what Jesus has taught them, from their understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and from their Pentecost experience, a whole new order—a new way of looking at the world—will result, of which they will be the inaugurators.
And that guidance still is much needed for we have not reached, and we never will reach on this earth, the fullness of the truth about God and Jesus. The establishment of the Kingdom has still a long way to go.
Once again Jesus reminds his disciples that everything they are learning comes originally from the Father through the Son, and from the Son through the Spirit. These are not three separate revelations, but one message that emanates from each one successively.
We too, as Church, as churches, as communities and as individuals, need the constant guidance of the Spirit that we may remain faithful to the truth that is given us and be always open to understanding it more deeply so that we can pass it on to others with full integrity.
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Tuesday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 16:5-11
The disciples are sad because Jesus is going to leave them. He now reassures them that, contrary to what they must be thinking at this moment, it is better for him to go. If Jesus does not go away, then the Spirit, the Paraclete, will not come.
As long as Jesus is with his disciples in his present form, he is actually very limited in his presence. It is fine as long as they are all together, but what would happen if they were to be scattered in various places to do his work? And what of the many more disciples in distant places who would never have an opportunity to be in direct contact with Jesus?
It is through the Spirit of Jesus, the risen and ascended Jesus, that he can continue to be with his people at all times and in any place on earth. Yes, it is better that Jesus should go and come back through the Spirit.
And the Spirit:
…will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment…
That is, the Spirit will reveal the wrongness of the world—that world of the purely secular—in not putting its trust in the Way of Jesus.
The world’s sin is primarily one of unbelief, an ‘unreadiness’ to open its mind to the vision of life that Jesus gives. The Spirit will clearly show the rightness of Jesus in his claims to come from God and to being the Word of God to the world. The Spirit will reveal the meaning of Christ’s death as the condemnation of all that is evil in the world, above all in its denial of love as the centre of living.
The New American Bible expresses it thus:
“These verses illustrate the forensic character of the Paraclete’s role: in the forum of the disciples’ conscience he prosecutes the world. He leads believers to see (a) that the basic sin was and is refusal to believe in Jesus; (b) that, although Jesus was found guilty and apparently died in disgrace, in reality righteousness has triumphed, for Jesus has returned to his Father; (c) finally, that it is “the ruler of this world”, Satan, who has been condemned through Jesus’ death”.
On which side am I—on that of the Spirit or that of the world?
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Monday of Week 6 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:26—16:4
We continue reading the discourse of Jesus to his disciples at the Last Supper. Today he promises that the Paraclete, “the Spirit of truth” will come, sent both by the Father and by Jesus the Son.
As we saw earlier, Paraclete (Greek, parakletos) means a person who stands by one and gives support. It can be applied to a defence lawyer in a court of law. So the word is sometimes translated as an ‘advocate’ or someone who ‘consoles’. It can be anyone who gives comfort, good advice or moral support. Various forms of the word are used about eight times in a short and beautiful passage at the opening of St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians (1:3-7).
Here, the Spirit that God bestows through Jesus on his disciples will be one who will comfort and strengthen them in the sometimes difficult days ahead, and will guide them in their fuller understanding of what Jesus has taught them. The Spirit will confirm all that Jesus has said and done. As well, the disciples are, with the help of the same Spirit, to give witness to all that Jesus has said and done. And again he warns them that they will need all the help they can get from the support of the Spirit because:
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.
This was a prophecy which was very soon to be fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled down to our own day. People will do this because they do not really know the Father or Jesus. If they did, they too would believe and would recognise the presence of Jesus in the Christian community and its message.
As has been mentioned several times already, we are not to be surprised if we find ourselves (as Christians) the object of attack, slander, abuse, misunderstandings, or even contempt. St Ignatius of Loyola is said to have prayed that the members of the order he founded would always be persecuted—it was a sign that they were doing their job. It is a strange paradox, but the message of Christian love and forgiveness, a message of peace and justice, is found by many to be very threatening and one that must be attacked.
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Saturday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:18-21
Jesus has been urging his disciples to love all those around them as a sign of their love of him. Today he warns them that there is no guarantee that they will be loved in return. If people hated such a loving person as Jesus so bitterly, his disciples cannot expect to be treated differently.
And the reason they will be hated is because they will refuse to identify themselves with the values and priorities of the secular world. They will reject materialistic greed and competitiveness, the scramble for status and power, the hatred, anger, violence and revenge which mark so many people’s lives.
The most terrible thing to happen to Christians is for them to be loved by that world; it is a sign they have become part of it. Says Jesus,
I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Once again he reminds them that the servant is not greater than his master.
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
In other words, hardly at all.
Some of us may find it difficult to understand this. We feel that the Church should be honoured and respected. We can get upset when we hear ourselves or our leaders rubbished in the media, or hear of Christians languishing in jail or suffering torture simply for living their faith. But we are rightly proud of our martyrs and our courageous witnesses.
But there is a fate we often undergo in modern society which is far worse—when we are simply ignored and go unnoticed altogether. Our local church may be filled every week, but what goes on there may have become completely irrelevant to the surrounding society. It is as if we did not exist.
It is also tragic when we find hate and division within our own community, which can be a major source of scandal to outsiders. And, of course, all through the history of the Church there has been sinful behaviour at all levels. We should not be surprised at that, but it is particularly reprehensible when it goes on behind a veneer of moral superiority—the whited sepulchres that Jesus speaks about (Matt 23:27). All of this compromises our witness to the love of God for his people everywhere. When any of these things happen, then we know we have really failed the gospel.
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Friday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:12-17
Jesus, speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper, continues to talk about the centrality of love. He expresses it in a central commandment—and perhaps surprisingly to some—this commandment is not to love God, or to love Jesus, but to love one another. God does not need to be mentioned because that love is only possible when God is acting in and through us.
That is the touchstone of the genuineness of our love for God. And the measure of that love is that of Jesus for us. If that is not clear enough, he spells it out:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
That may mean dying for others, but it can also mean living for others; in either case, our primary concern is for the needs of the brother or sister. And this is the only path to demonstrate that we love God and that God’s love is in us.
Jesus shows that love by his own death for his friends. And who are his friends?
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
And what he commands is that we love each other to the same degree that he loves us.
Earlier, after washing their feet, Jesus told his disciples that he was their Lord and Master, but now he also calls them his friends and not servants. Jesus is our Lord, but he is also our Brother and our Friend. Because of that he has shared with us all he has received from his Father. Obviously, it is for us to share all we know about Jesus with others too.
Finally, he reminds them that they are his followers, because he has chosen them—they have not chosen him. We do not confer any favour on Jesus by following him. We are only answering a call that has already come from him. And the response to that call is to “bear fruit”, lasting fruit. Our lives must be productive in love, in caring, in justice, in compassion and in building up the world of the Kingdom. And we need have no fear. God is with us and everything we need will be given to us to become fruitful. Finally, once again, he repeats the core commandment:
I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
We need to ask ourselves, how much of all this is descriptive of our own lives?
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Thursday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:9-11
Jesus continues speaking to his disciples at the Last Supper. After giving them the parable of the vine, he now goes on to give its real meaning: the Father, the Son and his followers are all to be united in love. As the Father pours out his love on the Son, so the Son pours out his love on his disciples. They, in turn, are to pour out the same love on their brothers and sisters everywhere. That is how we keep the ‘commandments’ of Jesus; all his commandments can be summarised in that one word ‘love’ (Greek, agape).
As someone once described it, the love of Jesus is like an electric current. If the current does not pass through you, it cannot enter into you. Similarly, if the love of Jesus does not pour through us to others, it is a sign that his love is not really in us. The love of God has to be recognised, responded to and passed on. It is not just a ‘given’.
And the fruit of that love is joy, the same joy that Jesus himself experiences. The normal situation of the Christian disciple should be joy and consolation. After all, as St Teresa of Avila said, “A sad saint is a sorry saint”. It is a contradiction in terms. Some Christians are incredibly ‘serious’ about their faith. One might wonder if they have yet experienced the love of Jesus. If they did, wouldn’t that love be joyfully flowing out to others?
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Wednesday of Week 5 of Easter – Gospel
Commentary on John 15:1-8
Perhaps there are some of us who have never seen a grapevine (although we may be well versed in our wines!). But what Jesus says about the vine (a plant very common in Palestine) can be said about any fruit-bearing tree that we are familiar with, and the message is clear.
The vine is an image we find elsewhere in the Old Testament. Jesus uses it as a symbol of the Kingdom of God; all who belong to the Kingdom are part of the vine. The fruit of the vine can be understood in the context of the Eucharistic celebration. It also represents a life lived according to the vision of Jesus, a life filled with unconditional love.
Jesus is explaining to us what our relationship with him can be like, and indeed should be like. He compares himself to a tree, basically to the trunk of the tree. The cultivator of the tree, the one who gives it life, is the Father God. Jesus’ disciples are the branches. It is the branches which bear the fruit.
If a branch does not bear fruit, it is simply cut off. It is no good; it is just draining life from the trunk without giving anything in return. It is very easy for us to be that kind of Christian. We come to church in search of ‘handouts’, but give very little back to the community.
But even the branches which do bear fruit are pruned and have parts cut off, so that they will bear even more. Those who cultivate fruit trees or roses are familiar with this process and know how important it is.
What does this pruning consist of? Jesus explains:
You have already been cleansed [or pruned, the same Greek root for both words] by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.
We are pruned, then, by our total identification with everything that Jesus stands for and by constantly cutting out of our lives everything that is contrary to the spirit of Jesus.
This involves a certain kind of asceticism, a denying of some of our natural appetites. This becomes easy as we are more and more overtaken by the vision of life that Jesus offers to us. We give up those non-Christlike things gladly and willingly. It becomes our deepest happiness and even pleasure to be always in Christ.
It is clear from what Jesus says that only those branches which are connected to the trunk can bear fruit:
Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
Without fruit we are dead branches, but on the other hand, the fruit is not just of our own making. It is the sign that Christ is working in us and through us.
The most outstanding fruit of all is, of course, the love we reveal in our relationships with God and with people:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Separated from Christ—always the result of our own choice—we are like a branch that has fallen from the tree. We wither:
Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Such separation is not physical. It is a separation of identity. It comes from rejecting or refusing to accept the Way of Jesus as our way of life. It is a rejection of life, and the choice of alternatives which can only lead to decay and death.
Finally, there is the great promise:
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you shall get it.
This is not to be interpreted as some kind of blank cheque, such as asking to win the first prize in a lottery or to have one’s enemy wiped out, or to be cured of a terminal sickness.
The promise is prefaced by an important and essential condition: we need to be in Christ and to have our lives totally guided by his words, that is, his teaching, his vision of life. And if we are with him, our prayer inevitably will be to be more deeply rooted in him—because he is the Source of all life and all Meaning in life.
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