To be an ‘advocate’ is to act and speak on behalf of another, to stand beside them, to take their part. By describing the Holy Spirit as ‘another advocate’ (Jesus is the first advocate: see 1 John 2:1), Our Lord is teaching us a lot about the reality of love. It is not just a nice feeling, it is a radical choice to support others and take their situation and needs on ourselves.
God the Son did that as Jesus in his Incarnation, making all things ours his, ultimately taking our sins and misery upon himself. He spoke up for us above all through his suffering and death, his blood speaking more powerfully than Abel’s (see Hebrews 12:24). Abel’s blood had cried out for justice and his killer’s punishment whereas Christ’s blood called out for mercy for his executioners, who are not just the Jews of his time but all of us too.
Advocacy is more expressed the more lowly and rejected are the ones whom one stands for. Thus in today’s first reading we see divine advocacy reaching the Samaritans, a group hated and despised till then by the Jewish people. And the Samaritans too are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, the second advocate, so that henceforth he can act in and through them, speaking on their behalf and empowering them to advocate for others. Because this is the genius of divine love: God not only gives us his love but he gives us power to love others, and by so doing we become more divine and loving – and loveable – ourselves. The subjects of advocacy can then advocate for others.
But Jesus teaches us more about love: “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” More than mere emotions, love is conforming our will and actions to the will of someone else. Any declaration of love rings hollow if we are not willing to do the other’s will, as long as that will is not evil, because – in such a case – the loving thing is to refuse it. But with God, his will is always good and for our good. Jesus insists: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” “Love is deeds not sweet words”, as God once said to St Josemaría. And as Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 7:21).
This involves a conscious effort to hear God and to bring him into our daily decisions. We cannot do his will if we are too distracted to listen to it. God also speaks to us through our conscience and we must be sensitive to hear and obey it, avoiding all impetuosity and pride.
Love is advocacy for others and doing their will. In other words, it is putting them above ourselves. God asks this from us, but only because this is what he himself did for us in Christ Jesus.
The homily on the readings of Sunday, Easter VI (A)
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
