People Formed by the Lord - towards truth and testimony

WORD 2day - Tuesday, Sixth week in the Eastertide

May 7, 2024 - Acts 16:22-34; John 16: 5-11

The discourse continues as yesterday, the Lord instructs the disciples that he has to go, in order that the Advocate could come. One of the changes or renewals that the Advocate, the Spirit, would make is outlined today: as the Gospel acclamation hints - it is leading us to the complete truth. The Spirit leads us to understand all incomplete, wrong and imperfect understanding and make us see the absolute truth that rests in the Lord. 

This teaching is corroborated with a miraculous happening, in the first reading from the Acts. Paul and Silas, in the guarded prison, have their binding chains broken in a miraculous manner, but they do not escape, leaving the jailer totally dreadfully confused. He is not able to understand what makes these persons so passionate about what they are involved in, that is the announcing of the Word. When he realises it, he asks a radical question: what do I have to do to be saved? He knew they had within them something that could save him, his family, the whole humanity. That was the convicting Spirit.

The convicting Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord who throws light into our souls to see what is wrong, to understand what lacks within us, to realise what is holding us prisonners to imperfection and sadness in life: sin, unrighteousness, stubborness of heart. The moment we realise these and open our hearts to the Spirit, we are saved. And we are invited to share the same experience with the others and that is testimony!

In the school of the Risen Lord we are formed by the Spirit to understand the complete truth and become spledid testimonies to the saving Lord.