We can all experience the example of Jesus’ love for the Father in the Holy Spirit.
Introduction.
A five-year-old girl was left without her parents. She was taken by very good godparents, as they promised at her baptism before God and the Church. They decided to raise the girl and prepare her for life. Once they bought her a big and beautiful doll. After some time, the little girl threw this dear doll into the fire. When asked by the godfather why she did it, the little girl answered with tears: “I told her a hundred times that I like her, but she never answered me.” Let’s think about ourselves
. How many times and in different ways has God spoken to us that he loves us? How do we respond to God’s love for us? Shouldn’t we be afraid that God will not allow us to respond to his love with our love once more?
Sermon.
Today we still have an opportunity. Jesus himself speaks to us: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter to remain with you forever – the Spirit of truth” (Jn 14, 15-16).
The Easter season is at its peak. On Thursday we will celebrate the Ascension of the Lord. And this time since the Lord’s resurrection can be called Advent, in which we prepare for the sending of the Holy Spirit. As John the Baptist and the prophets prepared the nation for the coming of the Messiah, so Jesus speaks about what we must do to one day obtain eternal life. Jesus is God, he died for our sins, but we each have our salvation in our own hands. He did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them. The commandments given to the people by God through Moses remain in force. And if we love God with true love, we can prove it by keeping the commandments. Jesus’ stay and mission among people end. Jesus will not stop loving us and for our strengthening in love he says:
“I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter to stay with you forever. Jesus knows that man is weak after the first sin. He will not leave us alone, that is why he says: “I will not leave you as orphans” (Jn 14:18). Jesus gives the promise of the Holy Spirit. It is in the Holy Spirit that one can recognize that although we will not see Jesus with natural eyes, as the apostles saw him, but that he still lives. Jesus gives the promise of the Holy Spirit, whom God the Father will send to us in his name, who will remind us, people, until the end of time with his many gifts, often visible, that if we persevere in the love of God, keeping the commandments that we received from God when Jesus comes as our Judge at the end of time, we will be rewarded.
Jesus reveals the secret of God’s love to man. Who is the Holy Spirit? We tend to answer that it is the third divine person. The answer is correct. The Holy Spirit is truly a Person. It is not some kind of impersonal power of God, but it is his creative breath, as we already know it from the Old Testament. Not also the “matter” from which God arose, as thought by the Stoics, philosophers in Greece. Jesus says that he will send the Holy Spirit who will dwell among people. From the apostle St. Paul, we know that the Holy Spirit works in us, that he gives us many of his gifts. Theology says that the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father for the Son. A love so strong and real that it is not in a state to pass away, as anything created passes away, but simply exists, objectively and subjectively, always in the manner of God’s existence. We cannot say everything about the Holy Spirit, but we can say and know who he is for us. Jesus says it himself while the Holy Spirit is for us. He called him “Paraclete”, that is, “Comforter”. Paraclete – Comforter is a Greek word that cannot be translated into Slovak at all. Like the words Christ and Messiah. We can give a description of the word and it means the designation of the one we call to be with us, with us, with his power and also comfort. So we can understand the Paraclete – Comforter promised by Jesus as our Protector and Helper. This is how we understand the words of Jesus: “I will not leave you as orphans” (Jn 14:18). So we can understand the Paraclete – Comforter promised by Jesus as our Protector and Helper. This is how we understand the words of Jesus: “I will not leave you as orphans” (Jn 14:18). So we can understand the Paraclete – Comforter promised by Jesus as our Protector and Helper. This is how we understand the words of Jesus: “I will not leave you as orphans” (Jn 14:18).
This is how we understand the promise of the Holy Spirit as a gift of love, through which everything necessary for our salvation will come to life in us and strengthen our forces, necessary to obtain our merits, necessary for salvation. The Holy Spirit speaks to us with his gifts and is simply what Jesus Christ himself is. We accept the Holy Spirit as the true God. He is the same God as God the Father and God the Son.
The philosopher Plato said that God is the greatest idea of goodness. Already in the Old Testament, we read in the prophet Jeremiah, when God introduces himself to us, he already says about us: “I have loved you with love from of old, therefore I have kept you in favor” (Jer 31:3). And St. John writes: “Love is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Do we realize that God loves us even when we do not love him and are evil and sinful? God is love and he does everything out of love. It was love that was in the beginning that God created the world. It was love that God created us. Love led God to become man, to die for us. Love has led God to be with us today, in us, as Jesus says: “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father; I, too, will love him and reveal myself to him” (Jn 14:21).
The hands of a loving father who works not only for himself but for his family are a work of love in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. In the same way, a mother’s heart is a work of love of the Holy Spirit, when she lives for her child from conception. Our life as a brother and sister is a work of love when we see God in our neighbor in the Holy Spirit.
When the best mother, father, brother or sister realizes that the end of their life on earth is approaching, they think more and more full of love about their dearest ones. Doesn’t Jesus exceed them in love when he doesn’t want to leave us without help, or protection when he doesn’t want us to be orphans and gives us the promise of the Holy Spirit?
We are aware of Jesus’ love in the gifts he left us and which, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, we can use to increase our love, grace and merit necessary for our salvation.
In the Eucharist under the forms of bread and wine, Jesus is our food. In the love of the Holy Spirit, let us receive the body and blood of Christ to feel the love of God.
God lives in the Holy Scriptures and church tradition. When we listen to him, we do not feel like orphans.
When we love our brothers and sisters, we love God. Because: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst” (Mt 18:20).
From the history of the first Christians, we know that Pliny the Younger, who governed Bythnia under Emperor Trajan, was ordered by the emperor to kill Christians if they did not renounce their faith in Christ. Pliny does not want to disobey the order, but asks for advice on what to do with those people who, in addition to believing in Christ as God, are not only faithful but also useful citizens, because they do not steal, do not commit violence, do not riot, whether they have still punish? This diplomatic question of the governor points to the fact that the Christians were admired by the pagans because they lived as truthfully as Jesus taught and set the best example of their faith with their lives.
A memento for us? Yes, nothing new. To cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the work of love.
It is true that people have probably never felt so orphaned as they do today. Love is missing. The little girl answered the godmother with tears, why she threw her doll into the fire: “I told her a hundred times that I like her, but she never answered me.” Nothing
and no one can let us know, experience true love, only one, true… A God who does not want us to be orphans.
