Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter: another Advocate and Love

What’s love got to do with it?  So sings Tina Turner!  She goes on to sing that love is just a second hand emotion.  Not so, not so.  What’s love got to do with it?  I say everything!

Love, to love another, is certainly a great gift from God.  Of course we know that Scripture tells us that God is love.  While love is important to all of us, we acknowledge that love can be confusing.  For us who speak English, we have one word for love.  So we love God, we love our spouse, our children, our family and friends.  But we also “love” pizza, and 3 day weekends, and our favorite sports team.

As people of faith, we are called to love, the love that empowers us to keep His commandments.

Today we return to the evening of the last Super and Jesus, preparing his friends and followers for what is to come, speaks of love and another Advocate.  First we must understand the term “another Advocate”.  Jesus is the first advocate, the one who intercedes for us with the Father.  Yet Jesus, fulfilling God’s will perfectly, knows that He must die, rise and ascend to the Father and sit at the Father’s right hand in Heaven.  He must go away, and knowing human beings, Jesus knows that they, and ultimately all of us, will need another advocate.

Let’s talk about the word advocate for a minute.  Advocate is described as one that pleads the cause of another, one that defends or one that supports or promotes.  A good example of advocate, for those of us in a certain age group, might be Perry Mason.  Remember that old TV show; Perry Mason, an advocate for his clients who not only defends, supports and promotes but Perry Mason also convicted; he would find the guilty party!  That “another advocate” Jesus speaks of is the Holy Spirit!!  Who is the Holy Spirit?  He truly pleads for us, defends us, supports us and He sheds light on those who are guilty; those who do not love God!  We, as parishioners of Most Holy Trinity, certainly know that the Holy Spirit is the 3^rd person of the Holy Trinity.  We pray in the Creed that He is worshipped and glorified!  We also pray that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver and life!

Church fathers and theologians through the centuries have taught us that the Holy Spirit is the communion of love the Father has for the Son and the love the Son has for the Father.  Yet the Holy Spirit was not “created” from this love for that would imply he was created, a creature.  Indeed this is not the case.  The Holy Spirit is, was and always will be.

This week, as he prepared for his trip to the Holy Land, Pope Francis has been preaching about the Holy Spirit and he did so again in Jordan this weekend.  He reminded us that it is from the Holy Spirit that we are to embrace the act of loving.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to love.  To love means to love God with all our heart and all our soul, to love His one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church and all His teachings and commands through Holy Mother Church.  By the Holy Spirit we are compelled to love one another, not just those who are close to us but those who seem even the most unlovable; even love our enemies.  To love, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is the promise of Jesus Christ, who sends us that “another advocate” so that none of us, none of us, will ever be left alone, will never be left orphans.  And then Jesus reminds us, if we love as the Holy Spirit inspires us, we will be loved by the Father and by the Son.  Love has everything to do with it!

So in the week ahead, can we reflect more deeply and personally on the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives?  May I suggest we learn more about the Holy Spirit by reviewing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 683-747?  Also, we can call upon the Holy Spirit in prayer:

Come Holy Spirit, kindle in us the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.  Oh God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant us in the same Spirit grant us to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in his consolation.  Amen.

What’s love got to do with it?  It’s the Love of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!

What’s love got to do with it?  Everything!