Wednesday May 24
After the Last Supper, Jesus announces five times the coming of the "Spirit of Truth". This formula reveals the core mission of the Paraclete, thus in the Gospel: of John, the truth is the divine revelation given in Christ. The Spirit will have a double task. The first relates to the past: he shall take what’s mine, Jesus says, and will help them to understand the words of the Master during his earthly life. The other action of the Holy Spirit is oriented towards the future: to lead the Church into the whole truth, showing the deep richness behind the message of Christ.
Alternative
“He will take what is mine and make it known to you.” “He will remind you of all that I have told you” (Jn 14:26). These verses suggest that we can know something and yet not know it at all. At one level, those disciples knew Jesus well, but at another level they hardly knew him at all. Even after the Resurrection, some of them (the two on the road to Emmaus) still imagined him a political messiah. It is possible to know a great deal of theology and yet not to know Jesus or God at all. It can become just an abstract study. The Germans make a useful distinction between a “Lehremeister” (a professor) and a “Lebemeister” (one who shows you how to live). One of the ancient Desert Fathers said, “Don’t judge yourself; but live with someone who knows how to live.” The Holy Spirit makes us capable of interiorizing what Jesus made visible to us. “The Holy Spirit has two workings in us,” wrote Johann Tauler. “The first is that He empties. The other is that He fills the emptiness, as far and as much as He finds emptiness to fill.”