TEXT: The Holy Gospel according to St. John 14: 15-21

Who will stand beside me?
Who will come with me to take up the cross and follow me?
Is there any here who will come with me?
Must Jesus bear this Cross alone and all the world go free?

There is a Cross for you and me, dear people of God.

It was many years that I focus in my youth upon the absence of suffering and the need to avoid suffering at all "costs."  I was somehow constrained to believe that suffering was not for the Christian, because Jesus had somehow paid it all and that suffering was a thing that was a curse if it came, or, you willingly embraced it.

Yet, it is Love that shows to us the necessity of suffering.

I grew older in my faith and learned of suffering Love. . . how Mercy came down and dwelled among us and was called, "Immanuel," taking upon himself the Cross willingly suffering for you and me, calling us to follow him.

He said to us before he left us with One who stands beside us, even when he knew we would forsake him --

15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Commandments. . . mine. . . you will keep. . . if you Love me.

How many times I have failed my God?  They are more than we might count, like the stars of the heavens, they seem without number.  How helpless we feel in the presence of the memories of our failures.  YET, Jesus is rich in Mercy.  And, his Mercy does not fail, because it endures forever.

It is Jeremiah who tells of the Mercy of God, the Love of Jesus -- when he says:

21  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22  The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end;
23  they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.
24  "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."
25  The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
26  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

For salvation is of the LORD -- the Name of JESUS.

And, JESUS now prays for us, you and me, the whole of the people of God!

16  And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 
17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

I will pray the Father!

He will give. . .

And,

". . . be with you forever."

What a promise.  This is greater than we could ever have hoped for.  For the Spirit of Truth, the Third Person of the Blessed and Holy Trinity is sent by the Father and the Son.

The world cannot receive the Holy Spirit.  However -- WE KNOW HIM.

WHY?  Because the Spirit of Truth DWELLS in us, and will BE in us!

I will pray the Father!

He will give. . .

And,

". . . be with you forever."

The Spirit of Truth, the Lord Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and, the Life!

Jesus will stand beside us, because the Spirit stand beside us, proceeding from the Father and the Son.  This is a wonderful promise to us all.

We may have left Jesus desolate.  We may have failed Jesus, but, thanks be to God, Jesus never has failed us, is not failing us, and never will fail us -- ever!

Into the wilderness we may go, and we will surely suffer as all those who live a godly life in Christ Jesus will, but, God the Holy Spirit will accompany us into the desert and wilderness where our Mother goes before us, where Jesus has gone before us, and there will be the place prepared by God for her and her seed.  There we shall find consolations and great peace, because when we suffer for God we gain all manner of graces and hope in the Mercy of God.

18 "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.

There are desolations within us that we meet face to face in the world.  They take many forms.

St. Augustine said -- "We need not despair of any man, so long as he lives."  (St. Augustine, Psalm 36, Sermon 2, 11)

There is a dark night of the soul?

St. John of the Cross said consoles us by saying, "The reason for which it is necessary for the soul, in order to attain Divine Union with God, to pass through this dark night of mortification of the desires and denial of pleasures in all things, is because all the affections which it has for creatures are pure darkness in the eyes of God, and, when the soul is clothed in these affections, it has no capacity for being enlightened and possessed by the pure and simple light of God if it cast them not first from it; for the light cannot agree with darkness."

Jesus knows this in the Holy Trinity.  So, the Holy Spirit, who stands beside us, in us, instructs us with his spouse, the Blessed and ever Virgin Mary, who abides with us in the place of desolation to brings us to the place prepared for her by God.

It take time to make us like her, beloved.  But, we will be presented to God like her.  (II Corinthians 11:1-3.

Here is the promise. . .

19  Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.
20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

Jesus reveals himself to those who have faith.

Faith comes with obedience attached to it, because faith, the fruit of the Spirit of Truth, produces the obedience of faith spoken of by St. Paul (Romans 1:5) -- through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

I will serve Jesus, because I love Jesus!

We will keep his commandments which are not grievous, because we love Jesus!

Therefore, Jesus is revealed to those who love him so.

Let us walk with Mary in the wilderness and there we shall see Jesus face to face.

Let us Love him.



Deus et Sanctissima.