(Acts 16.11-15; Ps 149; Jn 15.26-16.4)<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps you have noticed this sentence has consistently opened the gospel for over a week now during this Easter season, and will continue to do so for the rest of this week. It indicates that what the gospel proclaims is a kind of last will and testament of Jesus, and should be given great attention, as we would to the last words of any dying person.<\/p>\n
The important message today\u2019s gospel imparts to us is we should be ready to bear witness to the truth of our faith in Jesus risen from the dead at any cost.<\/p>\n
The truth of our faith, in a nutshell, is God is love and God the Father has raised Jesus, the Son of God, from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit, and now we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us.<\/p>\n
According to the New Interpreter\u2019s Bible, the Paraclete is given as an encouragement and a reminder that the disciples will not be alone in their trials. The witness of the Paraclete and of the community are not two distinct acts – rather, the community\u2019s witness is the visible sign of the Paraclete\u2019s work as witness within the community. This highlights a further role of the Paraclete, to speak with and for the community when it is brought before its adversaries (16:1-4a). Here John depicts the world\u2019s hatred and the community\u2019s persecution in more vivid and concrete terms. The refrain, \u201cI have said these things to you<\/em>,\u201d is to bolster the disciples and their faith in the face of that persecution. They will be able to recognize, with the aid of the Paraclete, that their persecution is in continuity with Jesus\u2019 own ministry and teachings and not an annulment of all that they heard from him.<\/p>\n The expression \u201cput out of the synagogue\u201d<\/em> occurs here for the first and only time in the mouth of Jesus. While predictions about persecution in all the Gospels are common, John casts them in language mirroring the persecution experienced by his community. \u201cThe hour is coming\u201d<\/em> sets the context for the prediction of martyrdom that follows and conveys a sense of purpose. That hour is the completion of God\u2019s work by Jesus through his passion, death and resurrection. That is the decisive eschatological moment, the time when God\u2019s plan for the world\u2019s salvation is fulfilled. The disciples, by their testimony to this truth, will share his hour with him, with all its eschatological implications.<\/p>\n Bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ as Risen Lord will take many forms. For Lydia, who was eager to hear the good news from Paul, it meant providing hospitality. For the psalmist, it means to sing a new song to the Lord, to praise God with dancing and tambourines, to exult in God with joy. This makes one wonder why some are still hesitant to worship God with anything but an organ or piano \u2013 certainly not with guitar and drum and dance, as is done in Kenya!<\/p>\n A more somber response, all too common in today\u2019s world, is persecution of Christians. Some of that, as the gospel states, takes the shape of violence in the name of religion: \u201cThose who kill you will think they are offering worship to God.\u201d<\/em> That certainly is the case of jihadist and fundamentalist Islamic groups like ISIS who, in the name of Allah, behead those different from them whom they consider infidels.<\/p>\n The Eucharist is our daily manna – God feeding God\u2019s people through word and sacrament. May our celebration today strengthen our faith to testify to the truth of Jesus as Risen Lord, through hospitality like Lydia, exultant praise with the psalmist, and by our lives like St. Augustine and his fellow monks.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HOMILY EASTER SEASON WEEK 06 01 \u2013 Year I Bearing Witness to the Truth (Acts 16.11-15; Ps 149; Jn 15.26-16.4) ************************************************* \u201cWhen Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father.\u201d Perhaps you have noticed this sentence has consistently opened the gospel for over a week now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easter","category-homilies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4828,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4825\/revisions\/4828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Last-Supper-Traditional-300x197.png\")
Today\u2019s gospel develops the truth of a relational, Trinitarian God. Jesus tells us he will send us an Advocate, the Paraclete or Spirit of truth, from the Father. Both Jesus and the Father share in the Paraclete\u2019s mission. Ultimately, God is portrayed as the source of the Paraclete\u2019s presence with, and mission to, the believing community. This promise introduces a new function of the Paraclete, \u201cto testify\u201d or \u201cadvocate\u201d (\u201cmartyreo\u201d<\/em>).<\/em> Jesus places the Paraclete in a long line of witnesses that include John the Baptist, the Samaritan woman, Jesus\u2019 words and works, the Scriptures and even God.<\/p>\n