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| Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles by Duccio |
John 14:21–26
21 He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Cited in the Catechism: In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, St. John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 243, 244, 260, 263, 647, 692, 729, 1099, 2466, 2615 and 2623.
Commentary
14:22–23. It was commonly held by the Jews that when the Messiah came he would be revealed to the whole world as King and Saviour. The apostles take Jesus’ words as a revelation for themselves alone, and they are puzzled. Hence the question from Judas Thaddeus. It is interesting to note how easy the Apostles’ relations with our Lord are: they simply ask him about things they do not know and get him to clear up any doubts they have. This is a good example of how we should approach Jesus, who is also our Teacher and Friend.
Jesus’ reply may seem evasive but in fact, by referring to the form his manifestation takes, he explains why he does not reveal himself to the world: he makes himself known to him who loves him and keeps his commandments. God repeatedly revealed himself in the Old Testament and promised to dwell in the midst of the people (cf. Ex 29:45; Ezek 37:26–27; etc.); but here Jesus speaks of a presence of God in each person. St Paul refers to this presence when he asserts that each of us is a temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor 6:16–17). St Augustine, in reflecting on God’s ineffable nearness in the soul, exclaims: “Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you in the world outside myself.… You were with me, but I was not with you. The beautiful things of this world kept me far from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all. You called me; you cried aloud to me; you broke my barrier of deafness; you shone upon me; your radiance enveloped me; you cured my blindness” (Confessions, 10, 27, 38).
Jesus is referring to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul renewed by grace: “Our heart now needs to distinguish and adore each one of the divine Persons. The soul is, as it were, making a discovery in the supernatural life, like a little child opening his eyes to the world about him. The soul spends time lovingly with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and readily submits to the work of the lifegiving Paraclete, who gives himself to us with no merit on our part, bestowing his gifts and the supernatural virtues!” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 306).
14:25–26. Jesus has expounded his teaching very clearly, but the Apostles do not yet fully understand it; they will do so later on, when they receive the Holy Spirit who will guide them unto all truth (cf. Jn 16:13). “And so the Holy Spirit did teach them and remind them: he taught them what Christ had not said because they could not take it in, and he reminded them of what the Lord has taught and which, either because of the obscurity of the things or because of the dullness of their minds, they had not been able to retain” (Theophylact, Enarratio in Evangelium Ioannis, ad loc.).
The word translated here as “bring to your remembrance” also includes the idea of “suggesting”: the Holy Spirit will recall to the apostles’ memory what they have already heard Jesus say and he will give them light to enable them to discover the depth and richness of everything they have seen and heard. Thus, “the Apostles handed on to their hearers what he had said and done, but with that fuller understanding which they, instructed by the glorious events of Christ (cf. Jn 3:33) and enlightened by the Spirit of truth, now enjoyed” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 19).
“Christ has not left his followers without guidance in the task of understanding and living the Gospel. Before returning to his Father, he promised to send his Holy Spirit to the Church: ‘But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all I have said to you’ ” (Jn 14:26).
“This same Spirit guides the successors of the Apostles, your bishops, united with the Bishop of Rome, to whom it was entrusted to preserve the faith and to ‘preach the gospel to the whole creation’ (Mk 16:15). Listen to their voices, for they bring you the word of the Lord” (John Paul II, Homily at Knock Shrine, 30 September 1979).
In the Gospels is consigned to writing, under the charism of divine inspiration, the apostles’ version of everything they had witnessed—and the understanding of it, which they obtained after Pentecost. So it is that these sacred writers “faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation, until the day when he was taken up (cf. Acts 1:1–2)” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 19). This is why the Church so earnestly recommends the reading of Holy Scripture, particularly the Gospels. “How I wish your bearing and conversation were such that, on seeing or hearing you, people would say: This man reads the life of Jesus Christ” (St Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, 2).
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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