Patrick Comerford
Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (20 April 2025) and continuing until the Day of Pentecost (8 June 2025), or Whit Sunday. This week began with the Fifth Sunday of Easter (Easter V, 18 May 2025), known in the calendar of the Orthodox Church as the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman.
The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today celebrates Saint Dunstan (988), Archbishop of Canterbury and Restorer of Monastic Life. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
‘The Advocate, the Holy Spirit … will … and remind you of all that I have said to you’ (John 14: 15) Pentecost (El Greco)John 14: 21-26 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 21 ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ 23 Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
25 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.’
Today’s Reflection:
Today’s short Gospel reading provided in the Lectionary at the Eucharist (John 14: 21-26) continues our readings from the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in Saint John’s Gospel.
This chapter (John 14) includes questions from three of the disciple and three answers from Jesus, which we hear over the course of three days, Friday, Saturday and today:
• ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ (Thomas, John 14: 5)
• ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied’ (Philip, John 14: 8)
• ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (Judas Thaddeus, John 14: 22)
These are also the questions and problems faced by the communities and churches gathered around Saint John in Ephesus and in Asia Minor. The answers Jesus gives to these three questions are like a mirror in which those communities find a response to their doubts and difficulties.
Jesus is preparing the disciples to separate themselves and reveals to them his friendship, communicating to them security and support.
Today’s reading begins with Jesus reminding the disciples: ‘They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them’ (verse 21).
This continuing use of encouraging words in the face of troubles and differences reflects the many disagreements within those communities, each claiming to have the right approach to living out the faith and believing the others are living in error.
Jesus’ words in this morning’s reading are reminders that the unity of the church should reflect the unity found in the Trinity.
Judas Thaddeus or Jude then asks ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ (verse 12).
Jesus replies, saying that anyone who responds to Jesus with love will certainly experience the love of Jesus. He again reminds the disciples that everything he passes on to them comes ultimately from the Father and not from him alone. He is the mediator, he is the Way, he is the Word of God. And later, after he has gone, this role will be taken over by the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
The word ‘paraclete’ (παράκλητος, paráklētos) has many meanings. It can mean a defence lawyer in a court of law who stands beside the defendant and supports him in making his case. It means any person who stands by you and gives you support and comfort. So, the word can signify:
1, Someone who consoles or comforts.
2, Someone who encourages or uplifts.
3, Someone who refreshes.
4, Someone summoned or called to one’s side, especially called to one’s aid.
5, Someone who pleads another’s cause before a judge, a pleader, the counsel for the defence, a legal assistant, an advocate.
6, Someone who intercedes to plead another person’s cause before another person, an intercessor.
7, In the widest sense, a helper, one who provides succour or aid, an assistant.
So, in its use, παράκλητος appears to belong primarily to legal imagery. The word is passive in form, and etymologically it originally signified being ‘called to one’s side.’ The active form of the word, παρακλήτωρ (parakletor), is not found in the New Testament but is found in the Septuagint in the plural, and means ‘comforters’, in the saying of Job regarding the ‘miserable comforters’ who failed to rekindle his spirit in his time of distress: ‘I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all’ (Job 16: 2).
However, the word παράκλητος in its passive form is not found in the Septuagint, where other words are used to translate the Hebrew word מְנַחֵם (mənaḥḥēm ‘comforter) and מליץ יושר (Melitz Yosher).
In Classical Greek, the term is not common in non-Jewish texts. But the best known use is by Demosthenes:
‘Citizens of Athens, I do not doubt that you are all pretty well aware that this trial has been the centre of keen partisanship and active canvassing, for you saw the people who were accosting and annoying you just now at the casting of lots. But I have to make a request which ought to be granted without asking, that you will all give less weight to private entreaty or personal influence than to the spirit of justice and to the oath which you severally swore when you entered that box. You will reflect that justice and the oath concern yourselves and the commonwealth, whereas the importunity and party spirit of advocates serve the end of those private ambitions which you are convened by the laws to thwart, not to encourage for the advantage of evil-doers.’ (Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 19: 1).
In Jewish writings, Philo of Alexandria speaks at several times of ‘paraclete’ advocates, primarily in the sense of human intercessors. The word later passed from Hellenistic Jewish writing into rabbinical Hebrew writing.
In the Greek New Testament, the word is most prominent in the Johannine writings, but is also used elsewhere:
1, In Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 5: 4), Christ uses the verb παρακληθήσονται (paraclethesontai), traditionally interpreted to signify ‘to be refreshed, encouraged, or comforted.’ The text may also be translated as vocative as well as the traditional nominative. Then the meaning of παρακληθήσονται, also informative of the meaning of the name, or noun Paraclete, implicates ‘are going to summon’ or ‘will be breaking off.’ The Paraclete may thus mean ‘the one who summons’ or ‘the one who, or that which, makes free.’
2, In Saint John’s Gospel, it is used four times (14: 16, 14: 26, 15: 26, and 16: 7), where it may be translated into English as counsellor, helper, encourager, advocate, or comforter. In the first instance (John 14: 16), however, when Christ says ‘another Paraclete’ will come to help his disciples, is he implying that he is the first and primary Paraclete?
3, In one brief paragraph in II Corinthians 1: 3-7, the word παράκλητος, is used in various forms seven or eight times in the sense of comfort and support. The word has a wide range of meanings that include advocate, encourager or comforter.
4, In I John 2: 1, παράκλητος is used to describe the intercessory role of Christ, who advocates for us or pleads on our behalf to the Father.
The Early Church identified the Paraclete with the Holy Spirit (Το Άγιο Πνεύμα) received in the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts 1: 5, 1: 8, 2: 4, and 2: 38; see also Matthew 3: 10-12 and Luke 3: 9-17).
The word Paraclete may also have been used in the Early Church as a way of describing the Spirit’s help when Christians were hauled before courts. Christ has already promised ‘When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit’ (Mark 13: 11; see Luke 12: 11-12).
In the next chapter of this Gospel (John 15: 26-27), much of the legal imagery remains intact. Here the Spirit is the advocate employed by the Father to advocate on behalf of the Son. Even the language of ‘sending’ is legal, since one of the major avenues of communication in the ancient world was through one’s legal agent or ἀπόστολος (apostolos), ‘sent one.’
So the role of the Spirit is to make a case for Christ in the court of the world and to help us to do so. That is our task in mission as the Church.
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Today’s Prayers (Monday 19 May 2025):
‘That We May Live Together: A Reflection from the Emerging Leaders Academy’ is the theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update from Annsli Kabekabe of the Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 19 May 2025) invites us to pray:
Father, we praise you for Annsli and young people enrolled in the Emerging Leaders Academy. Thank you for their willingness to serve you and follow your example.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who raised up Dunstan to be a true shepherd of the flock,
a restorer of monastic life
and a faithful counsellor to those in authority:
give to all pastors the same gifts of your Holy Spirit
that they may be true servants of Christ and of all his people;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Dunstan revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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