“When He Comes, The Spirit of Truth, He Will Guide You
To All Truth.”
(Jn 16:13)
To All Truth.”
(Jn 16:13)
Dear Sisters
and Brothers in Christ,
This Sunday
we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the early Christian community
fifty days after Christ our Lord rose from the dead.
The coming
of the Holy Spirit fulfilled Christ’s promise that He would send Him to guide
all believers to all truth.
This is the
most strikingly interesting sentence which we read in this Pentecost Sunday’s
Gospel.
But what
does “he will guide you to all truth” really mean?
Let me try
to explain to you its implication.
First, we
talk about how we can see people and things around us.
We need
three requirements in order to see: eye, object and light. Without the eye we cannot see. Having the eye we see nothing either, unless
there should be something or someone in front of us. Something or someone does exist right before
us, and our eye sight is very good, but because there is no light, we become
blind.
Second, we
talk about the existence of realities that escape our human senses. Let us take, for example, the mystery of
Christ’s real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. We are taught that bread and wine turn into
the Body and Blood of the Lord after the words of consecration. However, we see no difference, we taste no
difference, and we analyze no difference in the bread and wine before and after
the consecration.
This simply
tells us that our human knowing capacity is limited, imperfect with regard to
the truths that do not belong to our world of material things, but that pertain
to God’s world of spiritual realities.
Now, in
order for us human beings to understand God’s secrets, we need two conditions:
God’s self-revelation and the light of faith.
In fact, we
can only know God just because He first wants to introduce Himself to us. Without divine revelation or God’s leaking of
Himself, we remain absolutely ignorant of His existence and working.
In addition,
as already mentioned above, because God’s realities surpass our human
intelligence, we need His help, which theologians call “grace”, to be able to
see with a new eye, to hear with a new ear, to understand with a new mind, and
to love with a new heart.
These
blessings are the gifts of the Holy Spirit Who was sent upon the early Church
on the first Pentecost Sunday. These
blessings are the gifts of the same Holy Spirit to Whom we pray today that He
may pour out His light of divine wisdom on each and one of us in order for us
to know, in depth and in breadth, the truth of God’s love manifest in the life,
suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Only Son, our Lord and
Savior.
Fr.
Francis Nguyen, O.P.
