WORD 2day: Wednesday, 6th week in Easter time
May 12, 2021: Acts 17:15,22 -18:1; John 16: 12-15
When we fail to see, the Spirit gives us the wisdom and leads us to see it, leading us to light, as St Paul tries to lead the Athenians. The grace comes through the Spirit to overcome our inability to see and observe God present in a situation that is not so obviously manifest of that Divine presence. It is like an ordinary day, when everything seems 'normal' and 'ordinary', that we do not get to observe anything out of the ordinary or anything extraordinary!
When we are tempted not to see, the Spirit fills us with the courage to see it, making us free and bold as children of God, as Jesus promises his disciples. The light comes with the Spirit illumining the darkest moment of our lives. It could be a crisis, a loss, a failure, a disappointment, a delusion that comes up in life and we are tempted to question the presence and real mercy of God. More than ever, we need courage at those moments and it is the Spirit of Truth who can give us that courage and light.
When we choose not to see, the Spirit convicts us, as we heard yesterday and makes us understand how mistaken we are. Peter, Paul, the other apostles and everyone who owes his or her rapport with God to a dramatic conversion, would vouch for this role of the Spirit. What is at play is more stubborness, insensitivity and arrogance of human mind to rebel against the presence of God, than an inability or a genuine crisis. This is a sin against the Holy Spirit and the person here keeps oneself deliberately away from God.
The crux of the message is: that I need to open my mind to the Word, failing which I will laugh at the Word or postpone listening to it, to another convenient moment, as the people do in the first reading today. Then I shall be the loser; a tragic loss at that.