John 16:12–15
Jesus said, 'I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.'"
Commentary
During his discourse at the Last Supper, Christ had promised his disciples that he would send them the Holy Spirit – the Paraclete – to strengthen and console them and recall to their minds the truths he had taught them. In today’s gospel, he repeats the promise and tells them the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and that the truths he will reveal to them will be those which the Gather and the Son want revealed.
In these verses from St. John and the second reading of today – St. Paul’s letter to the Romans -- we have a clear statement of the faith of the infant Church in the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity that Christ himself, who was the second Person of the Blessed Trinity become man for our salvation. As regards tis basic dogma of our faith then, that there are three Persons in the One God, there is no room for doubt, we have it on the authority of Christ who is God. If we cannot understand how this can be, we need not be surprised because our human minds are very limited and they depend on our human senses for their images of things.
We Christians should have no difficulty in admitting the existence of the Blessed Trinity and today as we honour the three divine Persons, our central thought should concentrate on gratitude to each of the three; the loving Father who planned not our creation but our elevation to adopted sonship/daughtership; the all-obedient loving Son, who carried out the Father’s plan, sharing with us our humanity so that we could share in the divinity; the Holy Spirit, fruit of the love of Father and Son, who has come to dwell in the Church and in each individual member, in order to fill our hearts with a true love of God.
We know we are unworthy of this divine generosity. The greatest saints that ever lived on earth were un worthy of such divine interest. That should not and must not stop us from availing of this divine generosity. We can show our gratitude in one way only, that is by appreciating our privilege and by striving to show our appreciation of it in our daily lives.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit know all our human weaknesses, they knew them before they arranged to make us sharers in their own eternal happiness. They know also that it is those of us who try and try again to rise above our human weaknesses, who will finally share their heaven with them.
This possibility is open to all. The Blessed Trinity will exclude nobody from heaven. What we know of their plans for man’s sanctification makes such a thought impossible. If one fail the fault will lie completely and entirely with themselves, they did not do the little that was asked of them.
May God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit grant us the strength to overcome our human weaknesses and live and die in their love so that we may share their eternal kingdom with them. Amen.