The Spirit of Truth

Fourth Sunday after Easter In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. As we are getting closer to Pentecost, our Gospels start to focus more and more on Christ leaving this world and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We hear our Lord today promise to send the Advocate to the apostles, who will lead them into all truth.

To be honest, the Holy Spirit is probably the least acknowledged Person of the Blessed Trinity. Christ is often the first, only because of the Incarnation and His taking on our human nature. Because of this, we naturally are drawn to Him. And the Father easily comes next, as a Son needs a Father. Most of our prayers are addressed to the Father, through Christ our Lord (Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Fillium tuum…). The Apostles’ Creed, the earliest baptismal creed that we have, professes faith in the Father, and in the Incarnate Son and the major events of His saving life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, but then just continues, “And in the Holy Spirit.” It wasn’t until the Council of Constantinople in 381 that we get the expansion of our understanding of the Holy Spirit. He is professed as, “the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son (that last part, in Latin, Filioque, being added some centuries later), who, with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” St. Paul describes, especially in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. the gifts of the Holy Spirit and some of the charisms that can accompany the work of the Holy Spirit. St. John in his first Epistle describes the Spirit as one of the three witnesses to our Lord (along with water and blood). With the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, there was an explosion of interest in the Person of the Holy Spirit, but some (including many of those who love the Usus antiquior) were a bit skeptical of this focus on the Holy Spirit, if, for no other reason, than some of the liturgical innovations that accompanied it. What’s interesting is that, as far as theology, charismatics tend to be in step with traditional Catholics as far as being obedient to the teachings of the faith through Scripture and the Magisterium. But the Holy Spirit is given to us all, not only in Baptism, but especially in Confirmation, and works through all the seven sacraments. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that the work of Christ continues to this day. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is demonstrated by extraordinary gifts like speaking in tongues, or words of prophecy (we hear about these charisms in the New Testament, but they didn’t stop after that). Other times the Holy Spirit is demonstrated by an attentiveness to doing God’s will in the present moment, those nudges that we get to assist this poor person with money or food, or a different way of expressing the faith to a person who is struggling, which seems to immediately help that person understand what we are saying. We need not be afraid of the Holy Spirit, any more than we need be afraid of the Father or the Son. Every good gift, as St. James says today in the Epistle, comes from above, from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But I want to focus today on another way the Holy Spirit is revealed, which is mentioned directly in both the Gospel and the Epistle: and that is the revelation of the truth. We live in a world which both demands obedience to certain truths, all the while denying that there is any objective truth. We are told that science is to be believed by all (usually only science that favors certain policies or agendas). But then we are told that there is no truth outside of scientific facts (which is a self-defeating statement, because if there is no truth, then the statement that there is no truth is not true). One of the reasons why the Catholic Church is so often under attack is because we claim that there is truth, and that it has been revealed by our Lord through His Church. Any group that opposes the Church has to call into question the Catholic Church’s authority to proclaim the truth. I remember reading an article about how the New York Times works very hard to undermine the Catholic Church because the Grey Lady wants to be the bearer of truth (through its own ideological lenses), and does not want any competition. But we know that truth is not simply a set of propositions. Truth is a Person, a Person with a human nature and a human face, Jesus Christ. That is why we insist so much on truth, because it is an expression of faith in the Incarnate Lord. Our lies, no matter how small, are denials of Christ, who refers to Himself as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But even Christ says that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us more truth, truth that the Apostles couldn’t bear during our Lord’s public ministry. And we know that this promise of Christ, this gift of the Holy Spirit to help us know the truth, has been preserved unbroken through 2,000 years of the Church. Doctrines do, indeed, develop, but truth does not; only our understanding of the truth expands. St. John Henry Newman likens the development of dogma as the growth of a human: the person has to remain the same, it cannot change, even while the limbs and features grow.

The Holy Spirit is the great Easter gift. When it comes to faith and morals, we don’t have to make it up, and rely on merely human wisdom (which is so subject to error). God Himself promises to reveal what we need to know about the truth, and that, when the Mystical Body of Christ teaches, it is without error. What a great assurance that is for us, especially in these days when everything seems to be changing and re-examined on an almost monthly basis! The promise of the Advocate who reveals the truth to us is the stabilizing factor as the barque of Peter is tossed about by the waves. May we hold fast to the truth always, given to us by the Father of lights, through His Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, in the power and protection of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.