Sixth Week of Easter 

John’s Gospel offers us com­fort and peace in a very direct way for the 6^th Sun­day of East­er. Jesus says “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be trou­bled or afraid.”

Thurs­day much of the world will cel­e­brate Solem­ni­ty of the Ascen­sion of the Lord, while the rest will cel­e­brate it the fol­low­ing Sunday.

Our East­er sea­son read­ings from Acts of the Apos­tles con­tin­ue this week. We read of Paul con­vert­ing a wealthy cloth trad­er, Lydia; of the dra­mat­ic con­ver­sion and bap­tism of the jail­er and his fam­i­ly; Paul’s bold speech to the crowd at the Are­opa­gus and his fear­less preach­ing in Corinth, despite the grow­ing threat from the Jews. We also see how fol­low­ers of Paul catch the fire of his faith and now begin to con­vert others.

In John’s Gospel, we real­ize we are approach­ing Pen­te­cost in a few weeks as Jesus begins to speak of his leav­ing the earth and of the com­ing of the “Advo­cate” - the Spir­it of Truth. The image of the Trin­i­ty is clear: “when the Advo­cate comes whom I will send you from the Father.…” To his dis­ci­ples, the idea of his leav­ing fills their hearts with grief but Jesus reas­sures them, “it is bet­ter for you that I go” so that the Spir­it can come to them. The Spir­it “will guide you to all truth.” Jesus promis­es, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoic­es; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.” “This is my com­mand­ment: love one anoth­er as I love you.” “What­ev­er you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”

Whether the Solem­ni­ty of the Ascen­sion of the Lord is cel­e­brat­ed this Thurs­day or on Sun­day, it is a stir­ring sto­ry from Acts of the Apos­tles of Jesus leav­ing his dis­ci­ples and promis­ing them the sup­port of the Holy Spir­it. The Gospel of Luke tells of Jesus as he led his dis­ci­ples out “as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he part­ed from them and was tak­en up to heaven.”

On Sun­day, much of the world will cel­e­brate the Sev­enth Sun­day of East­er. As if in prepa­ra­tion for Pen­te­cost Sun­day on June 8^th, we read in Acts of the ston­ing of Stephen, who is “filled with the Holy Spir­it.” In John’s Gospel the poet­ic words of Jesus are a love song to us as he prays to his Father, “Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glo­ry that you gave me.…”

Dai­ly Prayer This Week

We some­times keep the idea of the Trin­i­ty firm­ly in our heads, rather than move it to our hearts. Our log­i­cal, prac­ti­cal minds can­not make sense out of three per­sons in one God.

But clear­ly this week Jesus wants us to have some sense of what the Trin­i­ty is - a con­tin­u­a­tion of the seam­less love and iden­ti­ty between him and the Father. It is the Spir­it of that love between them that lives on in us today, guid­ing us and help­ing us to fol­low the mes­sage of Jesus’ life. It is that Spir­it of Jesus that is with us in each of the dif­fi­cult and joy­ous moments of our days.

Jesus invites us to dis­cov­er the pow­er of the Spir­it in our lives through an aware­ness of “the Advo­cate” sup­port­ing us each day. Jesus encour­ages us in the same kind of inti­mate rela­tion­ship he has with the Father. The star­tling idea of this close, per­son­al con­ver­sa­tion one might have with a par­ent, mod­els for us how we can speak to him.