Homily for Wednesday of the 6th Week of Easter Year A
Theme: Is the God you worship a true God and how much do you know him?
By: Rev. Fr. Callistus Emenyonu, cmf
Homily for Wednesday May 21 2020
READINGS: Acts 17: 15. 22 – 18: 1, Ps. 148, John 16: 12-15
The issue of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the brethren continues to take the central attention in our daily readings. This calls Christians to begin the novena to the Holy Spirit so as to get ready like the first Christian community of the apostolic era to receive him with the right disposition. Today’s gospel witnesses the revelation of Jesus that his three years effective public ministry was inconclusive. He had a little time to finish all that he had for humanity but must go back to the Father after doing the main and big mission: that is dying the death of man and saving man from eternal damnation. He tells us today that even though he has many other things to teach us which he did not do, that someone is coming to finish it. The time was not enough for us to bear the teaching of Jesus but soon someone will come with another methodology to make us bear it. This person is the Holy Spirit the great teacher who teaches with great understanding and irresistible approach. He is called here the Spirit of truth who will guide the world into all that is true.
This Holy Spirit is not autonomous and independent of the Father and the Son that is why all that he will teach will be what he is told and under the authority of God the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit shall in all his ministry and work of teaching will not contradict Jesus rather would glorify him since he will take what is Christ’s and declare to the world.
He will declare the things that are yet to come and yet to happen. Here Jesus unveils the mystery of the oneness, sameness and unity of the tree persons. For those who doubt the existence of the Trinity, they should read in between lines and see how he aptly reveals the Trinity. Here the second person Jesus Christ speaks about the third person’s coming and his mission (that is the Holy Spirit) and then connects the Father to it. So Jesus said: All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. It means that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are the same since He and the father are one. The Holy Spirit will work to praise him as He worked to praise the Father and the praises are of the Holy Spirit. The mystery is here propounded again for us to believe and adore not to be completely understood.
No one can come to the Father according to Jesus except by Him and no one can know the Father except the Holy Spirit reveals it to him. This was why when Peter made the true confession at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus quickly said: It was not flesh and blood that revealed it to you but the Spirit of my Father. For anyone to know the true God and enter into worshipping him, the Holy Spirit must do the revelation. If He does not reveal to you the true God, you will worship the false God. Many people worship many things that are not revealed by the Holy Spirit and not guided by him. They may claim to be religious and worshipping but that may be a god not the true God. Even in Christianity today many who call themselves Christians are worst than the people of Athens because they worship what they do not know and what is not true. Today St Paul encountered the religious people of Athens and went round to see the gods they worship in the form of images and the shrines they have built and reservation for the unknown god. He acknowledged it but made them know that they worship what is not revealed and guided by the Holy Spirit and that they worship what they do not know. He was ready to teach them about that God that they do not know but worship in derogatory manner. Pride and arrogance did not allow them to ask for clarification and to learn from him- a man filled with the Spirit of truth. Here they refused the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit through Paul and they deserted him for an unknown god.
Beloved, it is on this note that we have to ask ourselves the important question whether we worship what we know and how much we know him truly. Are we sure we worship him in the right manner and follow him in the right ways? We must note Jesus’ instruction that those who worship God must do it in Spirit and in truth.
May we be humble and ready to learn the true God and how best to worship him and be in the true religion and become true Christians. Let us hasten to the openness of heart and allow the Holy Spirit to enter and teach us all that is true. We pray that we may dispose ourselves to receive him anew and renew our lives by this new experience we are expecting, Amen.
Rev. Fr. Callistus Emenyonu, cmf