6th Sunday of Easter Season
Witness to Christ with the Help of Paraclete
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Everywhere in Manhattan you see men and women traders trying to sell thing to passers-by. You could buy anything. One thing we have learnt from street trading is that success is often determined not by the quality of the goods but by the ability of the traders to advertise and get themselves noticed. No matter how precious the goods one has to sell, if you keep your mouth shut and do not advertise it to prospective customers, no one will notice and no one will buy. Something similar happens in the business of evangelization. No matter how precious and true our faith is, if we do not tell others about it, they will not know about it and they will not embrace it. In today’s second reading from the First Letter of Peter we have a wonderful teaching on how to share our faith with others.
“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your Hearts” (1 Peter 3:15a). This instruction is directed to those who are not “zealous for what is right” for fear of being harmed.
Fulton J. Sheen once said that we are God’s chosen people but often we behave like God’s frozen people.
We should be ready to defend the truth of our faith, but you may ask how? The simple answer is: Be grounded in the faith yourself and then you can share it with others. You can’t give what you don’t have. We must make effort to know our faith more by knowing the basic documents of our faith, the Bible, the teachings of the church, the Catechism. It was St Jerome who said: “Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ.”
Still we may not be strong enough. Don’t worry in today’s gospel we have another privilege: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete” (John 14:16).
Ronald Amundsen, the great Norwegian explorer who discovered the South Pole took a homing pigeon with him on his trip. He told his wife that if he reached the end of the world, he would release the pigeon. His wife sat for hours, all alone in their big house looking up the sky for the promised pigeon. One day she looked out the bedroom window and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. “He’s alive!” she cried, “My husband is alive!”
Our Lord promised not a pigeon but another paraclete.
What is a Paraclete? Many words have been used to translate this word into English. They include: Advocate, Comforter, Counselor, and Helper. The Greek Paracletos literally describes someone who is called to stand beside a client. In legal terms that would be your attorney. But a Paraclete is much more than an attorney. Probably the English word that we use today that most nearly captures the meaning of Paraclete is the word “coach.” The Paraclete is our coach, always by our side, to instruct and correct us when we make mistakes, to encourage and motivate us when we feel down, to challenge and inspire us to be the best we could, to defend us and fight for our rights when the judges are unfair to us. In short, the Paraclete means for us all that Jesus meant for the disciples.
Why do we need a Paraclete? For the same reason that athletes and sports people need coaches. No matter how good they are, sports people always need coaches. Left on our own, we are prone to mistakes and errors. Without God we can do nothing. In the 5th century ad there was a British thinker called Pelagius who taught that human beings have the natural ability to fulfill God’s commands if they so choose. The church condemned his teaching as a heresy, insisting that human beings always need God’s grace in order to please God. Pelagianism is the belief that we can fulfill our human destiny just by being ourselves, and that we do not need the grace of God that comes through faith, prayer or the sacraments. Many people today are Pelagians without even knowing it. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that we all stand in constant need of divine help. We all need the divine Helper, the Holy Spirit who stands always by our side, the Paraclete.
We need to be witnesses of Christ, sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts in this present world!
"What can I do?" you may ask, "I am only a single individual. What difference can I make?" Maybe we can learn something from the story of the Cracked Pot
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it; and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"
"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."
Yes dear brothers and sisters, each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His table. In God's great economy, nothing goes to waste.
God can use anyone to do His work including our weaknesses. Let’s ask our Lord to send the Paraclete for us.
Come Holy Spirit and fill the heart of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
Amen.
My dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,
Everywhere in Manhattan you see men and women traders trying to sell thing to passers-by. You could buy anything. One thing we have learnt from street trading is that success is often determined not by the quality of the goods but by the ability of the traders to advertise and get themselves noticed. No matter how precious the goods one has to sell, if you keep your mouth shut and do not advertise it to prospective customers, no one will notice and no one will buy. Something similar happens in the business of evangelization. No matter how precious and true our faith is, if we do not tell others about it, they will not know about it and they will not embrace it. In today’s second reading from the First Letter of Peter we have a wonderful teaching on how to share our faith with others.
“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your Hearts” (1 Peter 3:15a). This instruction is directed to those who are not “zealous for what is right” for fear of being harmed.
Fulton J. Sheen once said that we are God’s chosen people but often we behave like God’s frozen people.
We should be ready to defend the truth of our faith, but you may ask how? The simple answer is: Be grounded in the faith yourself and then you can share it with others. You can’t give what you don’t have. We must make effort to know our faith more by knowing the basic documents of our faith, the Bible, the teachings of the church, the Catechism. It was St Jerome who said: “Ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ.”
Still we may not be strong enough. Don’t worry in today’s gospel we have another privilege: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete” (John 14:16).
Ronald Amundsen, the great Norwegian explorer who discovered the South Pole took a homing pigeon with him on his trip. He told his wife that if he reached the end of the world, he would release the pigeon. His wife sat for hours, all alone in their big house looking up the sky for the promised pigeon. One day she looked out the bedroom window and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. “He’s alive!” she cried, “My husband is alive!”
Our Lord promised not a pigeon but another paraclete.
What is a Paraclete? Many words have been used to translate this word into English. They include: Advocate, Comforter, Counselor, and Helper. The Greek Paracletos literally describes someone who is called to stand beside a client. In legal terms that would be your attorney. But a Paraclete is much more than an attorney. Probably the English word that we use today that most nearly captures the meaning of Paraclete is the word “coach.” The Paraclete is our coach, always by our side, to instruct and correct us when we make mistakes, to encourage and motivate us when we feel down, to challenge and inspire us to be the best we could, to defend us and fight for our rights when the judges are unfair to us. In short, the Paraclete means for us all that Jesus meant for the disciples.
Why do we need a Paraclete? For the same reason that athletes and sports people need coaches. No matter how good they are, sports people always need coaches. Left on our own, we are prone to mistakes and errors. Without God we can do nothing. In the 5th century ad there was a British thinker called Pelagius who taught that human beings have the natural ability to fulfill God’s commands if they so choose. The church condemned his teaching as a heresy, insisting that human beings always need God’s grace in order to please God. Pelagianism is the belief that we can fulfill our human destiny just by being ourselves, and that we do not need the grace of God that comes through faith, prayer or the sacraments. Many people today are Pelagians without even knowing it. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that we all stand in constant need of divine help. We all need the divine Helper, the Holy Spirit who stands always by our side, the Paraclete.
We need to be witnesses of Christ, sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts in this present world!
"What can I do?" you may ask, "I am only a single individual. What difference can I make?" Maybe we can learn something from the story of the Cracked Pot
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole, which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it; and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made.
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"
"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.
The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."
Yes dear brothers and sisters, each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His table. In God's great economy, nothing goes to waste.
God can use anyone to do His work including our weaknesses. Let’s ask our Lord to send the Paraclete for us.
Come Holy Spirit and fill the heart of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.
Amen.
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