Catholic Bible Scholars

Easter 6A

Brant Pitre

THE MASS READINGS EXPLAINED

Fr. Francis Martin

THE WORD PROCLAIMED INSTITUTE

Kieran J. O'Mahony, OSA

HEARERS OF THE WORD

Wikipedia Articles

Easter 6A

1st Reading

1st Reading – Search

2nd Reading

2nd Reading

Gospel Reading

Gospel

Easter 6A

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. He is distinct from the Father and the Son but one in being, coequal, and coeternal with them because, like them, He is God in the fullest sense. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit during His homily at the Last Supper, calling Him the “Paraclete” (Advocate) and “the Spirit of Truth” (Jn 14:16-16). The Holy Spirit’s mission is to fill and indwell every baptized member of the Body of Christ, who is in a state of grace. He is present not only through the gifts of grace, which He dispenses but by His uncreated divine nature. His indwelling is a manifestation of the love of God the Father and the love of God the Son that is appropriate to the Holy Spirit. He has the power to bind the people of God in the unity of faith through “life in the Spirit,” making it possible for Christ to be present in the lives of the faithful of His Body, the Church.

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1st Reading

Reception of the Holy Spirit

Acts 8:5-8, 14-17

This event took place in the second stage of the expansion of the Church according to the command Jesus gave His disciples at His Ascension (Acts 1:8). The first stage was the establishment of the Church in Jerusalem. The second stage was the spread of the Gospel throughout Judea and Samaria, and the third stage will start with the founding of the Church in the Gentile lands of Antioch (Syria) in Acts 11:20 and reaching “to the ends of the earth.”

It was Philip the deacon who first went to Samaria to proclaim the Gospel. Samaria was the capital city of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel. However, after the Assyrian conquest of Israel in the 8^th century BC, the Assyrians sent the Israelite population into exile. Then they brought five Gentile groups into the territory that they renamed Samaria (2 Kngs 17:24). At the time Philip evangelized in Samaria in the first century AD, the region was a Roman province ruled by the Roman governor whose residence was in Caesarea Maritima on the coast. The Samaritans were not friendly with the Jews, and the Jews despised the Samaritans who they considered to be either apostate, mixed-race Jews, or heretical former pagans who perverted the Law of Moses. They did not worship at the Jerusalem Temple but built an illicit temple on Mt. Gerizim (Jn 4:20, 22; 2 Kng 17:6; 24-33). They only accepted their revised version of the Torah of Moses as canonical Scripture (first five books of the Bible) and rejected all the other sacred texts.

Philip was one of the seven deacons ordained by the Apostles in Acts 8:2-14. He cannot be Philip the Apostle because Acts records that the Apostles remain in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). The people of Samaria welcomed Philip’s healings and his Gospel message, for they too were expecting the coming of the Messiah (Jn 4:25). You may recall in Luke 9:51-53 that the people of a Samaritan village would not welcome Jesus or the disciples because they were on their way to Jerusalem. Now that Jerusalem had rejected Jesus’ emissaries and the Jerusalem Temple authorities declared their hostility toward Christians, the Samaritans were ready to welcome them.

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2nd Reading

Life in the Spirit

1 Pt 3:15-18

St. Peter sent this letter to Christian communities located in the five provinces of Asia Minor, which included areas evangelized by St. Paul (1 Pt 1:1; Acts 16:6-7; 18:23). He encourages Christians living in those communities to remain faithful despite threats of persecution and to proclaim the Gospel of salvation fearlessly. Christians must bear witness to their hope in Christ to the Gentiles, who previously had no hope because their pagan beliefs could not offer eternal salvation.

Peter writes: Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope (verse 15b). It is one of the most frequently quoted verses from St. Peter’s letter that eloquently states the mission of Christian witness that Peter urges the communities of the Church to accept. Christians must always be ready to give a defense or testimony of the Gospel, which is their hope of salvation, even when confronted with persecution and suffering. The word “explanation,” translated from the Greek word apologia, can be used in a legal sense as a “defense” of one’s position as in giving one’s “testimony.” It is the origin of the word “apologetics,” the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of information. Early Christian writers who defended the Christian faith against critics and gave testimony concerning their faith to others were called “apologists.” Is it the same word used in Luke 12:11-12 when Jesus told the disciples they would have to defend themselves to rulers/authorities. It also appears in Acts 22:1 where St. Paul gave a legal defense of his belief in Jesus Christ to the Jewish Sanhedrin and in Acts 25:16when St. Paul defended his Christian beliefs to the Roman governor Felix and King Agrippa of Judea. But in this verse, St. Peter uses the word in a more general sense, writing, “to anyone who asks you.”

Next, St. Peter focuses on how one offers his Christian defense/testimony. Peter advises, 16 but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. If one behaves badly in presenting a defense, the bad conduct will reflect not only on all Christians but on Christ Himself, whereas good behavior is a credit to both Christ and His Church.

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Gospel

The Eternal Presence of God the Holy Spirit

Jn 14:15-21

Jesus says that we demonstrate our love for Him by our obedience to His commandments. He makes this point twice in verses 15 and 21. His commandments include everything He has taught us. We must exhibit love in action! St. John the Apostle writes: Children, let us live not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (1 Jn 3:18), and also, For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith (1 Jn 5:3-4).

The “other” Advocate Jesus promised to send is God the Holy Spirit, who is, for the first time, revealed as the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Old Covenant people did not have the revelation of the Trinitarian nature of God. In Hebrew, the word ruah/ruach means wind, breath, air, or soul/spirit, and in Scripture is often expressed as the “spirit” or “divine wind” of God (i.e., Gen 1:2). Ruah can denote human breath (the air humans breathe to stay alive that is a sign of life, or the absence of which indicates death). However, the use of this word in association with Yahweh is the very breath or spirit that comes forth from the “mouth” of the Living God (Gen 2:7) that is His living power (see Ps 33:6). It is the “breath of God” that inspired the holy prophets and received by the Davidic kings of Israel at their coronation as Yahweh’s anointed (Is 11:2). In the Greek translation of the Old Testament and New Testament, the Hebrew word ruah is usually translated by the Greek word pneuma and used to identify the God the Holy Spirit, who Jesus calls the Comforter and Advocate (Paraclete).

The word “Paraclete” is an anglicized transliteration of the Greek word parakletos, a term only found five times in Sacred Scripture, and only in St. John’s Gospel and in St. John’s First Epistle (see Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; and 1 Jn 2:1). The word parakletos can have various meanings. It can mean advocate, intercessor, counselor, protector, or supporter. The literal Greek entomology is from para = “to the side of” and kaleo = “to summon.” Therefore, the word means “to be called to someone’s side to accompany, console, protect and defend that person.”

In this passage, Jesus says: 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate [Paraclete/ parakletos] to be with you always… In John 15:26, Jesus will continue telling the Apostles of the coming of the Holy Spirit when He says, “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me.” Then in John 16:7c, Jesus will reassure the Apostles: “I will send him (the Holy Spirit) to you,” and after the Resurrection, the glorified Jesus, God the Son, will breathe on the Apostles in the Upper Room and will say “Receive the Holy Spirit” (see Jn 20:22).

These passages do not contradict each other; they establish the procession of the Most Holy Trinity as we affirm in the Nicene Creed. But why does Jesus speak of God the Holy Spirit as “another advocate” in John 14:16? The Church will receive the Holy Spirit in Christ’s place as Advocate, Defender, and Teacher because Jesus will ascend to Heaven to take His place with the Father. But the Advocate the Father will send is not different from Christ; instead, He is another similar to Himself (see Mt 6:24). He will send the Spirit after His Ascension in Acts chapter 2 on Pentecost Sunday when God the Holy Spirit will fill and indwell the Church.

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