From the responsorial psalm: “Because of your kindness and your truth, you have made great above all things your name and your promise. When I called, you answered me; you built up strength within me. Your right hand saves me, O Lord.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John (Jn 16:5-11)
Jesus said to his disciples: “Now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts. But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
In prayer to the Lord, the psalmist says, “You have made great above all things your name and your promise.” In the Gospel, Jesus expresses the fulfillment of those words in sending the Advocate, the Holy Spirit. In obedience to the Father through his passion and death, Jesus is able to say of the Advocate: “And when he comes he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and condemnation.” Only in perfect obedience to the point of death on a cross, Jesus can say that the Holy Spirit convicts in regard to righteousness because he ascends to the Father, having fulfilled his redemptive mission. In that mission, he is also able to speak of conviction in regard to the sin of unbelief and the condemnation of Satan. “Because of your kindness and your truth, you have made great above all things your name and your promise.”
Father in heaven, increase my faith because of the words of your Son. “I am going to the Father,” he says, “and you will no longer see me.” Jesus saw the grief and sadness in the eyes of the disciples when he told them he was going away. No one asked where he was going, but if they had, they would have known the joy of Jesus in his imminent return to you—the same joy he wished to share with them. I am unable to see Jesus as the disciples saw him, yet he is present to me in Scripture, through the Eucharist and the sacraments of the Church, and in the people you place before me. Help me, Lord, in receiving the Spirit of truth today so that he guides me one day to come to all truth, face to face with you in unending joy.