Navarre Bible Commentary:Wednesday, 6th Week of Easter

John 16:12–15

12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Catholic Exegesis:

The Second Vatican Council teaches  that if we are to derive the true meaning from the sacred texts,  attention must be devoted “not only to their content but to the unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the entire Church, and the analogy of faith. […] Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred communion and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (Dei Verbum, 12).

St. John Paul II, when he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church,  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).

Cited in the Catechism:

Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 91, 243, 244, 485, 687, 690, 692, 1117, 2466, 2615 and 2671.

Commentary:

16:13. It is the Holy Spirit who makes fully understood the truth revealed by Christ. As Vatican II teaches, our Lord “completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it … finally by sending the Spirit of truth” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 4). Cf. the note on Jn 14:25–26.

16:14–15. Jesus Christ here reveals some aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. He teaches that the three divine Persons have the same nature when he says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son, and everything the Son has belongs to the Father (cf. Jn 17:10) and that the Spirit also has what is common to the Father and the Son, that is, the divine essence. The activity specific to the Holy Spirit is that of glorifying Christ, reminding and clarifying for the disciples everything the Master taught them (cf. Jn 16:13). On being inspired by the Holy Spirit to recognize the Father through the Son, men render glory to Christ; and glorifying Christ is the same as giving glory to God (cf. Jn 17:1, 3–5, 10).

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  

Pentecost

El Greco's Pentecost (detail)

John 20:19–23

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  

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 several Catechism paragraphs.

Commentary

Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples (20:19–23)

20:19–20. Jesus appears to the apostles on the evening of the day on which he rose. He presents himself without any need for the doors to be opened, by using the qualities of his glorified body; but in order to dispel any impression that he is only a spirit he shows them his hands and his side: there is no longer any doubt of its being Jesus himself, about his being truly risen from the dead. He greets them twice using the words of greeting customary among the Jews, with the same tenderness as he previously used put into this salutation. These friendly words dispel the fear and shame the apostles must have been feeling at behaving so disloyally during his passion: he has recreated the normal atmosphere of intimacy, and now he will endow them with transcendental powers.

20:21. Pope Leo XIII explained how Christ transferred his own mission to the apostles: “What did he wish in regard to the Church founded, or about to be founded? This: to transmit to it the same mission and the same mandate which he had received from the Father, that they should be perpetuated. This he clearly resolved to do: this he actually did. [Here the Pope cites John 20:21 and John 17:18.]. […] When about to ascend into heaven he sends his Apostles in virtue of the same power by which he had been sent from the Father; and he charges them to spread abroad and propagate his teachings (cf. Mt 21:19), so that those obeying the Apostles might be saved, and those disobeying should perish (cf. Mk 16:16). […] Hence he commands that the teaching of the Apostles should be religiously accepted and piously kept as if it were his own: ‘He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me’ (Lk 10:16). Wherefore the Apostles are ambassadors of Christ as he is the ambassador of the Father” (Satis cognitum). In this mission the bishops are the successors of the apostles: “Christ sent the Apostles, as he himself had been sent by the Father, and then through the apostles made their successors, the bishops, sharers in his consecration and mission. The function of the bishops’ ministry was handed over in a subordinate degree to priests so that they might be appointed in the order of the priesthood and be co-workers of the episcopal order for the proper fulfilment of the apostolic mission that had been entrusted to it by Christ” (Vatican II, Presbyterorum ordinis, 2).

20:22–23. The Church has always understood—and has in fact defined—that Jesus Christ here conferred on the Apostles authority to forgive sins, a power which is exercised in the sacrament of Penance. “The Lord then especially instituted the sacrament of Penance when, after being risen from the dead, he breathed upon his disciples and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit …’. The consensus of all the Fathers has always acknowledged that by this action so sublime and words so clear the power of forgiving and retaining sins was given to the Apostles and their lawful successors for reconciling the faithful who have fallen after Baptism” (Council of Trent, De Paenitentia, chap. 1).

The sacrament of Penance is the most sublime expression of God’s mercy, described so vividly in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (cf. Lk 15:11–32). The Lord always awaits us, with his arms wide open, waiting for us to repent—and then he will forgive us and restore us to the dignity of being his sons.

The popes have consistently recommended Christians to have regular recourse to this sacrament: “For a constant and speedy advancement in the path of virtue we highly recommend the pious practice of frequent confession, introduced by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; for by this means we grow in a true knowledge of ourselves and in Christian humility, bad habits are uprooted, spiritual negligence and apathy are prevented, the conscience is purified and the will strengthened, salutary spiritual direction is obtained, and grace is increased by the efficacy of the sacrament itself” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis).

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

Navarre Bible Commentary:Wednesday, 6th Week of Easter

John 16:12–15

12 “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it 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 91, 243, 244, 485, 687, 690, 692, 1117, 2466, 2615 and 2671.

Commentary

16:13. It is the Holy Spirit who makes fully understood the truth revealed by Christ. As Vatican II teaches, our Lord “completed and perfected Revelation and confirmed it … finally by sending the Spirit of truth” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, 4). Cf. the note on Jn 14:25–26.

16:14–15. Jesus Christ here reveals some aspects of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. He teaches that the three divine Persons have the same nature when he says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son, and everything the Son has belongs to the Father (cf. Jn 17:10) and that the Spirit also has what is common to the Father and the Son, that is, the divine essence. The activity specific to the Holy Spirit is that of glorifying Christ, reminding and clarifying for the disciples everything the Master taught them (cf. Jn 16:13). On being inspired by the Holy Spirit to recognize the Father through the Son, men render glory to Christ; and glorifying Christ is the same as giving glory to God (cf. Jn 17:1, 3–5, 10).

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

Navarre Bible Commentary:Tuesday, 6th Week of Easter

Source: Catholic Man Night

John 16:5–11

5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

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 385, 388, 692, 729, 1287 and 1433.

Commentary

16:6–7. The thought that he is going to leave them saddens the apostles, and our Lord consoles them with the promise of the Paraclete, the Consoler. Later (vv. 20ff), he assures them that their sadness will turn into a joy which no one can take away from them.

Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit three times during the discourse of the Last Supper. The first time (14:15ff), he says that another Paraclete (advocate, consoler) will come, sent by the Father, to be with them forever; secondly, he says (14:26) that he himself will send them, on behalf of the Father, the Spirit of truth who will teach them everything; and now he unfolds for them the complete plan of salvation and announces that the Holy Spirit will be sent once he ascends into heaven.

16:8–12. The word “world” here means all those who have not believed in Christ and have rejected him. These the Holy Spirit will accuse of sin because of their unbelief. He will accuse them of unrighteousness because he will show that Jesus was the Just One who was never guilty of sin (cf. Jn 8:46; Heb 4:15) and therefore is in glory beside his Father. And, finally, he will indict them by demonstrating that the devil, the prince of this world, has been overthrown through the death of Christ, which rescues man from the power of the Evil One and gives him grace to avoid the snares he lays.

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

Navarre Bible Commentary:6th Sunday of Easter

John 14:15–21

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.

18 “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 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.”

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, 687, 692, 729, 788, 2466, 2615 and 2671.

Commentary

14:15. Genuine love must express itself in deeds. “This indeed is love: obeying and believing in the loved one” (St John Chrysostom, Hom. on St John, 74). Therefore, Jesus wants us to understand that love of God, if it is to be authentic, must be reflected in a life of generous and faithful self-giving, obedient to the will of God: he who accepts God’s commandments and obeys them, he it is who loves him (cf. Jn 14:21). St John himself exhorts us in another passage not to “love in word or speech but in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18), and he teaches us that “this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 Jn 5:3).

14:16–17. On a number of occasions the Lord promises the apostles that he will send them the Holy Spirit (cf. 14:26; 15:26; 16:7–14; Mt 10:20). Here he tells them that one result of his mediation with the Father will be the coming of the Paraclete. The Holy Spirit in fact does come down on the disciples after our Lord’s ascension (cf. Acts 2:1–13), sent by the Father and by the Son. In promising here that through him the Father will send them the Holy Spirit, Jesus is revealing the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.

“Counsellor”: the Greek word sometimes anglicized as “paraclete” means, etymologically, “called to be beside one” to accompany, console, protect, defend. Hence the word is translated as Counsellor, Advocate, etc. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as “another Counsellor”, because he will be given them in Christ’s place as Advocate or Defender to help them, since Jesus is going to ascend to heaven. In 1 John 2:1 Jesus Christ is described as a Paraclete: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous”. Jesus Christ, then, also is our Advocate and Mediator in heaven where he is with the Father (cf. Heb 7:25). It is now the role of the Holy Spirit to guide, protect and vivify the Church, “for there are, as we know, two factors which Christ has promised and arranged in different ways to continue his mission […]: the apostolate and the Spirit. The apostolate is the external and objective factor, it forms the material body, so to speak, of the Church and is the source of her visible and social structures. The Holy Spirit acts internally within each person, as well as on the whole community, animating, vivifying, sanctifying” (Paul VI, Opening Address at the third session of Vatican II, 14 September 1964).

The Holy Spirit is Counsellor as we make our way in this world amid difficulties and the temptation to feel depressed. “In spite of our great limitations, we can look up to heaven with confidence and joy: God loves us and frees us from our sins. The presence and the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church are a foretaste of eternal happiness, of the joy and peace for which we are destined by God” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, 128).

14:18–20. At various points in the Supper, we can see the apostles growing sad when the Lord bids them farewell (cf. Jn 15:16; 16:22). Jesus speaks to them with great tenderness, calling them “little children” (Jn 13:33) and “friends” (Jn 15:15), and he promises that he will not leave them alone, for he will send the Holy Spirit, and he himself will return to be with them again. And in fact he will see them again after the Resurrection when he appears to them over a period of forty days to tell them about the Kingdom of God (cf. Acts 1:3). When he ascends into heaven they will see him no longer; yet Jesus still continues to be in the midst of his disciples as he promised he would (cf. Mt 28:20), and we will see him face to face in heaven. “Then it shall be that we will be able to see that which we believe. For even now he is with us, and we in him […]; but now we know by believing, whereas then we shall know by beholding. As long as we are in the body, such as it is now, that is, corruptible, which weighs down the soul, we are making our way towards the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight. But then we shall see him directly, we shall see him as he is” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 75, 4).

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

Navarre Bible Commentary:Saturday, 28th Week in Ordinary TIme

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

Saturday, October 19, 2013

28th Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 12:8-12

Various Teachings of Jesus (Continuation)

(Jesus said to His disciples,) [8] "And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; [9] but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God. [10] And every one who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. [11] And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; [12] for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

Cited in the Catechism: In declaring the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed 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 333, 1287 and 1864.

Commentary:

12:8–9. This follows logically from Christ’s previous teaching: worse than physical evils, worse even than death, are evils of the soul, that is, sin. Those who out of fear of temporal suffering deny our Lord and are unfaithful to the demands of the faith will fall into a greater evil still: they will be denied by Christ himself on the Day of Judgment; whereas those who are penalized in this life because of their faithfulness to Christ will receive the eternal reward of being recognized by him and will come to share his glory.

12:10. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists in maliciously attributing to the devil actions that have God as their origin. A person who does that prevents God’s pardon from reaching him: that is why he cannot obtain forgiveness (cf. Mt 12:31; Mk 3:28–30). Jesus understands and excuses the weakness of a person who makes a moral mistake, but he is not similarly indulgent to someone who shuts his eyes and his heart to the wonderful things the Spirit does; that was the way these Pharisees acted who accused Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebul; it is the way unbelieving people act who refuse to see in Christ’s work a sign of the goodness of God, who reject the invitation God offers them and who thereby put themselves outside the reach of salvation (cf. Heb 6:4–6; 10:26–31). See the note on Mk 3:28–30.

Note from Mark 3:28-30

3:28–30. Jesus has just worked a miracle but the scribes refuse to recognize it “for they had said ‘He has an unclean spirit’ ” (v. 30). They do not want to admit that God is the author of the miracle. In this attitude lies the special gravity of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—attributing to the prince of evil, to Satan, the good works performed by God himself. Anyone acting in this way will become like the sick person who has so lost confidence in the doctor that he rejects him as if an enemy and regards as poison the medicine that can save his life. That is why our Lord says that he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven: not because God cannot forgive all sins, but because that person, in his blindness towards God, rejects Jesus Christ, his teaching and his miracles, and despises the graces of the Holy Spirit as if they were designed to trap him (cf. St Pius V, Catechism, 2, 5, 19; St Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2–2, 14, 3). Cf. the note on Mt 12:31–32.

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