“THE HELPER HELPS YOU TO JESUS”
Saint John 16: 5-15
Cantate: 29 April Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
The Lord has “gone” to Him Who sent Him. The mysteries of The Holy Trinity are inscrutable, sublime, and wonderful beyond words. The Godhead is not to be analyzed and systematized but adored. God is Love. The Father loves The Son and The Son loves The Father. Love is not parceled, separated, and kept apart. After The Son’s saving work of Keeping the Law and suffering and dying for the transgressions and falleness of all men, it is only meet, right, and salutary for The Prince of Peace to again assume His throne on The right hand of The Father. Whatever that means. Your own heavenly and beatific vision of The Lord will soon come when at the end of time your glorified bodies behold The Trinity. Then you will worship The Father in The Son by The Holy Spirit. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Or, as you this very day join in with the Host of Sabaoth doing the same at the foretaste of the Lamb’s High Feast: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.
Sorrow fills your hearts when things break, go awry, fall apart, and are no more. You are sad when a loved one dies and is removed from your physical touch and eyesight. You are sad when your health slips away and old age plants another flag. You are sad because the “new creation” in you does not “see” the benefits of either “new” or “creation” as your “old Adam” lusts to see them. You know what is coming—the Resurrection of all flesh and the joys of eternal glory—and yet your receive very little, if any, of the deposit on all that Grace…in the flesh…with your eyes. You see not crowns but thorns in your daily walk. You know the true merit and value of Christ’s Crucifix, i.e. His vicarious satisfaction for all your failure, and yet, living under the cross is not fun or rewarding…it stinks. Sin stinks. Sinners stink. Change and decay in all around you see. The sadness at its core, at your core, is the state of being alone; lonely without family without Father and Brother and, Love.
But Love is also Truth. The Brother, your Brother is also Son, The Son of The Father. While we don’t understand what it means for The Christ to “return” to His Heavenly Father, the 1st Person of The Blessed Trinity, we do understand that Jesus tells His friends that He is sending them The “Comforter,” the Helper. That same Comforter “helped” you to arrive here this morning—helped you to arrive here safely to the only genuine location of comfort. The Comforter is God the Holy Ghost. The Comforter is also not visible, as Jesus is no longer visible, but The Helper stands beside you as your Advocate, Counselor, and Paraclete. He has His “shoulder” if you will, against your shoulder as He puts His “arm” around you guides and points you to The Word of God, Christ Jesus. He speaks Jesus’ own comfort of loosing and remission. He whispers, He speaks, Jesus’ Peace into your ears through The Word of God. He guides Jesus’ own pierced hands through a pastor to place Jesus on your heads in watery coolness and clean refreshment; and in nourishing, fortifying, and absolving Body and Blood. Your Helper takes no credit and expects no attention because He, as the Lord and Giver of Life, is recognized by you when He gives you That Life—in Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and reigning. He is remembered and worshipped by you in Creed, (“Who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified…”) Invocation, Benediction, and all Holy + Signings of your New and Precious Name!
Dear disciples, it was “expedient” for you that Christ gave up Trinitarian-only Mystery and became conceived by The Comforter of The Blessed Virgin. It was “expedient” for you that He, The God/Man, obeyed all The Commandments perfectly and said to His Father—"this is now the obedience of My Sheep”—of all of you! It was “expedient” that The Shepherd became the sacrificial Paschal Lamb and was tortured and butchered on the wood of the cross in your place. It was “expedient” that The Redeemer rose from the dead, the “first fruits” of all His children who too will rise glorious at the Eschaton, and that He ascended to the right hand of His Father and your Father that He might constantly judge you “not guilty” in His Blood and Merit!
Messias tells you that you “see” Him no more the way you see your neighbor. But in seeing your neighbor you do see the Face of Christ in His Holy Catholic Church. You see His forgiveness and real Bodily Presence in this Assembly and in The Supper of The Mass. The helping Comforter directs and focusses you and in fact and deed and you do Hear Jesus speaking to you, declaring to you, and showing to you your Salvation and Peace.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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