Vigils Reading – 6th Sunday of Easter

A reading from

ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

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If you love me, said Christ, keep my commandments. I have commanded

you to love one another and to treat one another as I have treated you. To love

me is to obey these commands, to submit to me your beloved. And I will ask the

father, and he will give you another Counselor. This promise shows once again

Christ’s consideration. Because his disciples did not yet know who he was, it was

likely that they would greatly miss his companionship, his teaching, his actual

physical presence, and be completely disconsolate when he had gone. Therefore

he said: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, meaning

another like himself.

They received the Spirit after Christ had purified them by his sacrifice.

The Spirit did not come down on them while Christ was still with them, because

this sacrifice had not yet been offered. But when sin had been blotted out and

the disciples, sent out to face danger, were preparing themselves for the battle,

they needed the Holy Spirit’s coming to encourage them. If you ask why the

Spirit did not come immediately after the resurrection, this was in order to

increase their gratitude for receiving him by increasing their desire. They were

troubled by nothing as long as Christ was with them, but when his departure

had left them desolate and very much afraid, they would be most eager to

receive the Spirit.

He will remain with you, Christ said, meaning his presence with you will

not be ended by death. But since there was a danger that hearing of a Counselor

might lead them to expect another incarnation and to think they would be able

to see the Holy Spirit, he corrected this idea saying: The world cannot receive

him because it does not see him. For he will not be with you in the same way as I

am, but will dwell in your very souls, He will be in you.

Christ called him the Spirit of truth because the Spirit would help them to

understand the types of the old law. By He will be with you he meant, He will be

with you as I am with you, but he also hinted at the difference between them,

namely, that the Spirit would not suffer as he had done, nor would he ever

depart…

He said that the Spirit was another like himself, that he would not leave

them, that he would come to them just as he himself had come, and that he

would remain in them. Yet even this did not drive away their sadness, for they

still wanted Christ himself and his companionship. So to satisfy them he said: I

will not leave you orphans; I will come back to you. Do not be afraid, for when I

promised to send you another counselor I did not mean that I was going to

abandon you for ever, nor by saying that he would remain with you did I mean

that I would not see you again. Of course I also will come to you; I will not leave

you orphans.