In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. That short prayer is the way many an old-time sermon began. But somehow, I’m expected to begin my homilies with a question. So, not to disappoint you, I do have a question. In fact, it’s almost a poll I would like to take. However, since I don’t want to embarrass anyone, you don’t need to raise your hand or answer out loud. The question is this: When you pray to God, do you usually pray to God the Father? Or do you usually pray to God, the Son? Or do you usually pray to God, the Holy Spirit?
When this question appears in surveys, the majority of Catholics will say they usually pray to either God, the Father, or to God, the Son, that is, Jesus. Roughly only 10 to 20 percent address their prayers routinely to God, the Holy Spirit1. Well, today, the focus of my reflection will be on the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. After all, the Holy Spirit is the focus of today’s Gospel reading. This next Thursday we’ll celebrate the Ascension of the Lord and nine days later, Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles. So, it’s appropriate I speak about the Holy Spirit, today.
It’s also appropriate I talk about another important person, or persons, today. Of course they are “mothers,” since today is the special, once-a-year-day when we honor them. So, the real focus for this reflection is on both the Holy Spirit and upon mothers, upon the similarity of these two manifestations of God’s love for us. 2
So, to begin, let’s take another look at today’s Gospel reading from John, where Jesus says: “If you love me and obey the commands I give you, I will ask the Father and he will give you another paraclete — to be with you always: the Spirit of truth ….” And Jesus goes on to say: “I will not leave you orphaned; I will come back to you. …. on that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
I find it interesting, and comforting, that Jesus, himself, says he will not leave us orphaned. He, himself, will come back to us, almost as if he were our parent as well as our brother. And how will he return? As another paraclete.
“Paraclete.” That’s a strange word. In some translations it’s rendered as “advocate.” But I’m not sure this makes it any easier to understand. Yet, it does come close to the original meaning of the term, lawyer, one who speaks for you and defends you in a court of law. But somehow, for most of us, we would not be greatly comforted if we heard Jesus say: “I’m going to send you a lawyer … to be with you always.” So, instead, let’s look at some other ways we might describe this paraclete, this advocate, this lawyer, this Holy Spirit.
One of the first words that might come to mind is: consoler. We often speak of the Holy Spirt as the great consoler or comforter. And in this light, I would offer you the image of a mother as the great consoler or comforter in the life of her child. After all, who is there, kneeling beside you, when you fall off your bike, or scratch your leg when the roller skates go out from under you? Or now a-days, perhaps, it’s a skateboard or roller blades. But no matter what it is that we fall off of, or out of, from moving objects to stationary tree houses, mom is always there to console, to comfort. And so is the Holy Spirit.
And how does mom make the wound better? She kisses it. A mom’s kisses are very therapeutic for the young, and for the old. They heal a hurt even faster than her chicken soup heals a cold. Both moms and the Holy Spirit are spoken of as “healers.”
Advocates, lawyers – and moms – are also councilors. Mom advises us on how to get along with other people, with friends at school. And while dads offer much advice, the chances are that when the son or daughter goes out on a first date, most of the advice you really listen to comes from mom. And when you return from a date, or from any event in your life having real importance to you, your mom is among the first to hear all about it. Just like the Holy Spirit is there, inside of each one of us, to offer council and to listen intently to how the relationships and the events of our lives are going, either well or not-so-well.
When relationships or events don’t go well, mom is always there to protect us and defend us. Dad may offer young boys advise on how to combat bullies, but it’s mom who goes to the principle’s office, or to the school board. It’s mom who chases off the puppy dog nipping at your heels. And she may even yell at those bullies, themselves, if the opportunity arises.
Dads aren’t as sure as moms about who cause what in life. Dad might suspect a child has done wrong, but mom knows, with absolute certainty, her child is never, or at least seldom, wrong. Perhaps, mom and the Holy Spirit have something in common when it comes to protecting us from the rest of society and from ourselves.
And when something does go wrong, when we feel estranged from dad, or have had a bad argument with a brother or sister or a friend, mom is there as the great reconciler. Reconciler. That’s another name for the Holy Spirit. Mom and the Holy Spirit are there to help us get back on the right track, to make amends, to help us kiss and make up, to become reconciled.
When we need to do the right thing, mom and the Holy Spirit are there. When a piece of unpaid-for candy leaves the store, she is the one who finds out by the look on our face what we did and makes us return it. Mom has a keen eye for looking into our hearts. Or as Erma Bombeck has written: mom has three pairs of eyes. “One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, ‘what are you kids doing in there?’ when she already knows. Another in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn’t, but what she has to know, and of course the ones in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say, ‘I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.”
I love you. That’s really what Jesus was saying in today’s Gospel reading. I love you and I will teach you about love. At the end of today’s Gospel he says: “The [one] who loves me will be loved by my Father. I too will love [you] and reveal myself to [you].”
Reveal myself. The Holy Spirit is also called the one who reveals God to us. This, too, is the role of a mother. She is the one who usually teaches us our first prayers. And when we go to church, it is from her pocketbook that she pulls out the car keys to keep us occupied so others will not be distracted. And it is from this same bottomless purse that she pulls out a small plastic bag of Cheerios – and mints – and picture books of Bible stories – and small images of Pocahontas and John Smith3. Yes, mom reveals God to us in the prayers she teaches and the little things in life that make us happy in his house.
And from that purse, she also pulls out a Kleenex. She notices a dirty spot on the tip of our nose, and licking her finger, applies both moisture and a dry tissue to clean us up. I maintain, while modern dads may do many of the things moms do, there is not a single dad who would clean a child’s face that way. He would look for the wet wipes.4
But in this image of mom cleaning up a child’s grubby face, I also see an image of the Holy Spirit who offers us the cleansing waters of Baptism. For it is with these waters, we are, indeed, washed clean. It is with these waters, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are welcomed into the family of Christians. It is with the same diligence a mom has in trying to keep her kids free from grime and dirt, that the Holy Spirit takes in making us worthy of the Kingdom.
Often we perceive life as a struggle, as a battle, as a contest. Some might use the analogy of a sporting event. St Paul certainly liked to talk about running and about races. And when we watch a live TV presentation of football players who have been making mincemeat of one another on the field and the camera pans to a particular dirty and messed up player resting on the bench and he looks up shyly at the camera, what does he say? “Hi mom!”
And so, perhaps, when we engage in our own daily battles, in the many games we play each day, when we feel especially beat up by everyone and everything we see, perhaps, each one of us can look up into the heavens and say, “Hi, Holy Spirit,” with the same love shown by that football player for his ever-present, ever-loving mom.
Sixth Sunday of Easter; May 12, 1996 and Mothers’ Day
Acts 8:5-8, 14-17; 1 Pet 3:15-18; Jn 14:15-21
- The “statistics” came, I believe, from a copy of US Catholic I had read shortly before preparing this homily, so, the issue must have appeared in the spring of 1996.
- {In the original draft for this homily I included a paragraph on the “gender” of God. It was not included in the delivered homily, in order to decrease its length. The omitted paragraph follows.} Some of you might prefer for me to talk about God as mother. Others would be very disturbed by such a reflection. For both groups I want to emphasize that my words are used by way of analogies and metaphors. To make myself clear, I’d like to read part of a paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 239, which reads: “… by calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for us. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. [God] is neither man nor woman: [God] is God.”
- The Disney movie Pocahontas was popular during this season and the action figures were evident among the smaller members of the gathering.
- After Mass, one of my sons (who at latest count has seven children) disagreed with me on this point. Evidently, he, too, licks.