The Spirit of the Conqueror

WORD 2day: Monday after Ascension Sunday

May 17, 2021 - Acts 19:1-8; John 16: 29-33

No one probably understood Jesus when he was around. They were only making their guesses, putting together things that they saw, the things they heard and the things that were being reported. Today, in the Gospel, as many other times Jesus confronts them with the truth! When the disciples presume that they knew and understood what Jesus was saying, Jesus makes them realise their folly and their weakness - not out of despise - but out of genuine concern and fraternal love.

We are beginning a new phase of our liturgical year, a short but very important phase...when Jesus has ascended and the Spirit has not yet descended...it is the interim phase when the disciples had to be patient and strong, holding on to the teachings that they have heard from their Master. They still had not known the Spirit, just as those persons of Ephesus whom we come across in the first reading. 

Jesus begins to introduce to them and speak to us of the continuous presence of God, which is the indwelling Spirit. It is with the coming of the Spirit that the apostles come to understand Jesus and all that Jesus said while he was with them... it is only with that they became conquerors, because the Spirit they received was the Spirit of the Conqueror - the one who had conquered the world and even death!

Beginning today, we are invited to contemplate on this Spirit of the Lord, who will make of us too, conquerors of the world and all its wiles. The Spirit will make us understand things plainly - with a lot of things happening around us today, we are unable to understand anything in life! We need the Spirit all the more to plainly understand the meaning of all that is happening and be calm and serene, because the Spirit promised to us, the Spirit who lives in us, the Spirit that awaits to take control of our lives, is the Spirit of the Conqueror....let us be brave!