From the Gospel acclamation: “The Spirit of truth will testify to me, says the Lord, and you also will testify.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 15:26—16:4a)
Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
Jesus is preparing the disciples for his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. When he refers to this coming, he speaks of the Trinity, the Spirit of truth that Jesus sends them from the Father. When Jesus ascends to heaven, he doesn’t go away. There is no diminishment of his presence but an amplification of it. In his ascension, he sends more of himself through the Father in the Spirit of truth, from the power of the Holy Spirit who proceeds from him. Strengthening them with these words, Jesus goes on to prepare the disciples for their coming persecution and rejection from the Jewish leaders. “I have told you this so that you may not fall away,” he says to them. Rather than alienating them, the suffering they will face will take place not apart from Jesus but in the fulfillment of his mission and in the consummated embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.