• VI Easter (C), May 13, 2007
• Theme: “I will send you another Advocate”
• Mother’s Day

• Ask Mothers, then Grandmother, then Godmothers to stand.

• It is hard to leave a place where you have been for a period of your life.
• Who doesn’t “hate goodbyes?”
• Unless a person is glad to get out of a destructive relationship, or a very difficult situation, I don’t know anyone who finds farewells easy.
• Most of us look forward to farewells with sadness and dread.
• Even people who are moving to a promising future—marriage, a better job, a new home—still feel pain about packing up and leaving.
• They know they are leaving a known world behind for an uncertain future. (Cf. Jude Siciliano)
• The Apostles have these concerns in today’s Gospel.

• The scene is the Last Supper
• Jesus is going to his Father, and he is concerned for the well being of his disciples.
• He knows they can be weak and that they can squabble among themselves to see who is going to be the most important.
• Jesus knows that they are going to be scandalized by the suffering and death that he must endure.
• This passage in John’s Gospel is kind of Jesus’ Last Will and Testament,
• Jesus wants to leave his disciples something of great value – not trinkets that will rust, or get lost,
• Rather, he wants to leave his disciples “The Pearl of Great Price” that will last forever.
• Jesus wants to leave something that will remind his disciples of him,
• To help them grow together,
• To get them through difficult times
• He has been the first Advocate for the disciples, but now, as he prepares to leave them,
• He promises to send them Another Advocate as their inheritance.

• This Last Will and Testament has two parts:
• First is the Memorial:
• Jesus says to remember me, “Keep my commandments”
• He doesn’t ask for a granite monument, or a memorial arch, but rather that his disciples keep his commandment to love one another as he has loved them.
• Then the Inheritance:
• Another Advocate from the Father – the Spirit of Truth

• Advocate:
• Dictionary definition:
• One who speaks in favor of; one who argues a cause; one who pleads on another’s behalf

• One point of view: The advocate argues our case with God
• Some have a rather harsh image of God.
• In this model Jesus is the advocate who argues to assuage God’s anger against us for our sins, while trying to encourage us to do better
• Better point of view: the advocate argues God’s case with us.
• Directing and encouraging us the way a Mother directs and encourages her children.
• The Advocate that Jesus sends intercedes with us on God’s behalf.
• To remind us of God’s love for us, and
• To help us love one another as Jesus taught.
• The Advocate will REMIND US that Jesus demonstrated his love in hundreds of ways:
• Forgiving prostitutes and sinners
• Washing the feet of his disciples
• Offering his life on the cross
• The Advocate will urge us not to give up in the face of difficulties: a bad marriage, trouble with the children, a boring job, etc.
• The Advocate will remind us that Jesus’ commandment is
• About taking care of one another,
• About working for a just world,
• About seeking peace between individuals and between nations,
• About thinking beyond ourselves

• Farewells are difficult, but the Advocate – the Holy Spirit – is God’s gift
• To assure us that God will never abandon us.
• To urge us on to spread the Good News that we have heard.
• Lectors bring into the Liturgy the Book of the Gospels
• At the end of Mass, the Book stays in the Sanctuary, because we have heard the Word, now it is our turn to take the Word with us and live it out in our daily lives.

• Jesus said, “Keep My Commandments” – “Love one another, as I have loved you.”
• Let us live our lives as Jesus commands:
• Trusting the Spirit of Truth, God’s spirit, our Advocate, to lead us through the dark times in our personal lives as well as the dark times that we experience as a community and as a world
• Trusting the Spirit of God to bring us to the light of a new day

• Amen

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