6^th Sunday of Easter

Introduction:

Good morning/evening everyone. I am so happy to welcome you all to celebrate today’s holy Mass and our special welcome to all our visitors and cottagers. I would like to thank you all for coming out today to deepen your faith in Christ our Lord who was, who is and who will be.

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells His disciples that He is going to the Father; He will send another advocate-the Paraclete and then He asks them to keep His commandments.

1. He is going to the Father. We come to know from the gospels how much the disciples were suffering without Christ. When Christ was crucified, they thought that the story was over. They thought that He would not come back to life. They were sad and insecure. They were hiding behind locked doors for the fear of authorities and others. They did not go out publicly. They did everything hidden. Then on the third day, Christ our Lord appeared to them saying, “peace be with you”. He breathed on them the Spirit. They were so happy and there was a celebration called the Alleluia festival. But their happiness did not last forever. Now Christ is talking to them about His going to the Father, His departure. They all became sad again. But Christ is saying that they will not be abandoned.


2. He will send another advocate: Jesus says that He will not leave them as orphans but send another advocate-the Paraclete. One day the explorer of South Pole called his wife and said, “I will not return home until I discover the end of the world. Now I am taking this homing pigeon with me. Once I discover the end of the world, I will let this come home. When you see this pigeon, you know that I am alive and reached the end of the world. His wife waited for many many years and nothing happened. Then one day while she was looking out the kitchen window, there she saw the pigeon flying high circling the sky. She screamed saying, “My husband is alive. My husband is alive”. The bible talks about the Holy Spirit in the form of dove. But it is more than a mere communicator. When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit in the form of dove came upon His and there came a voice saying, “this is my beloved son listen to Him’. Jesus is talking about the same Spirit today. What is a Paraclete? Paraclete is also called advocate, counselor, helper, guide and so on. The Paraclete is the one who stands beside. Yes, the Holy Spirit helps us to know and love God and humanity. The Holy Spirit guides us to know what Jesus did and taught. He fills us with wisdom and knowledge, understanding and right judgment.


3. He asks us to keep His commands; one day a manager from a big corporation called his six executives and said, “I am leaving this job in six months. Yes, I am going on pension and before that I would like to appoint one of you to this managing director position”. They said, ‘what about your sons or your wife”. He said this job needs qualification and education. And I see good qualification and high education that you all have and one of you deserve to be the managing director of this company but before that I am going to have a small test. Yes, I am going to test you. They were all excited and then he giving them each a plant pot saying, “I sowed a potential seed in each pot. And whoever water regularly and make it grow well will get the job”. They all thought that he was going to test them with they educational qualification and potentially but not thinking to grow a plant. So they all tried their best and after six weeks they all came to him with their grown plant. They were all looking so beautiful and gorgeous except one. He did not have any plant in his pot. They director looked at him and asked him why. He said as you commanded I did everything but nothing came up. Then he looked others pot, they had grown beautiful tall plants blooming. He finally said, ‘I am offering the managing director position to the man who did not grow any plant because the pot I gave you did not have any seed at all and you all in order to impress me did so many things but this man kept what I said. Today so many people instead of doing what Jesus said, they run from place to place to know more of God and they then end with nothing. But if we keep His golden commandments of loving god and neighbors then we will be given life that will never end.Conclusion: Jesus is going away not to leave us as orphans but to send the Holy Spirit who will teach us everything. So let us keep the commandments of Christ and thus enter into the kingdom of God. Amen.