HE HAD PROMISED THEM THE PARACLETE, the Advocate, who would instruct and strengthen them. Now He gave them the promise of His resurrection. He would return to them; moreover, He would enter the hearts of all those who loved Him and kept His commandments:
“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world no longer sees Me. But you see Me, for I live and you shall live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. But he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Here the apostle Jude or Judas (not Judas Iscariot) brought up a question which was troubling them all. “Lord,” he asked, “how is it that Thou art about to manifest Thyself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered:
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word that you have heard is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”
“These things I have spoken to you while yet dwelling with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you.”
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, or be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I go away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved Me, you would indeed rejoice that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it has come to pass you may believe. I will no longer speak much with you, for the prince of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing. But he comes that the world may know that I love the Father, and that I do as the Father has commanded Me. Arise, let us go from here.”
Meditation: He promised not to leave us orphans; and He has remained with us. In the Eucharist His real presence continues in our midst. In the soul of every person in sanctifying grace, all three persons of the Trinity have their abode. In the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, He dwells. Though Christ has risen, He is still with us. Therefore, I must not consider Him a Person far removed from me and my life. He is with me.
Information from The Life of Christ “Our Lord’s Life with Lesson in His Own Words for Our Life Today” The Catholic Press, Inc. 1959. 235-236. © 1954 edited by Reverend John P. O’Connell, MASTD and Jex Martin, following mainly A Chronological Harmony of the Gospels by Stephen J Hartdegen OFM NIHIL OBSTAT John A McMahon; IMPRIMATUR Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago August 1, 1953. Print. Drawing by Albert H Winkler.
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