Commentary on the Gospel of
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As I read today’s gospel, I put myself in the place of the disciples. They had given up their professions, their families, their friends and followed Jesus. He was their Master, their leader, their teacher. It is not surprising then that they could not fathom life without Jesus. But Jesus assures them that his physical self has to return to the Father so that the Holy Spirit can come into the world and continue the work that he began. So, instead of being grief-stricken he tells them that they should rejoice because his presence with them will be at a different and more intimate level than they have known. Besides, the Spirit would enable the world to see that Jesus’ claim of his relationship to the Father was true, thereby, silencing the critics and exposing as the ultimate sin, their unwillingness to believe.
In many ways, this ultimate sin continues to be present even in our day. There is still an unwillingness to open ourselves to the vision of life that Jesus gives us; a vision of God’s unconditional love for us and of our intricate interconnected-ness with each other and with the physical environment. We fail to treat one another as sisters and brothers as evidenced by racism, human trafficking, etc. And we fail to relate to the environment with care, instead exploiting and polluting it. As, followers of Jesus, it is our task, inspired and guided by the Spirit, that we make that vision of life that Jesus gives us a reality. And like in the case of Jesus, this might mean laying down our life. But like Paul and Silas in the first reading, we can be assured that the Holy Spirit will give us the strength to do so. |
