Fr. Michael Williams

During his life Winston Churchill saw an obituary that had been written for him in a newspaper. This led Churchill to declare, ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’. For two thousand years opponents of the Church have been writing obituaries for her. All these obituaries have also proved premature.

So how has the Church survived two thousand years? Quite simply, the answer is that the Spirit of Truth has been with the Church throughout her history. If the Church was just a human organisation she would have fizzled out a long time ago. Human beings with all their frailties and faults do not have the capacity for the Church’s survival. In fact we could say that the Church, the body of Christ’s disciples, has continued in spite of human beings, and not because of them. The Church has survived for two thousand years, and will continue in the future, because the Lord has not left us as orphans. The Spirit of God accompanies us on our journey through history. We are members of a divine institution that has the Lord at its Head, and He is with us even though we cannot see Him. How else can we explain the Church’s continuing existence and indeed her flourishing?

Jesus says to His disciples in today’s gospel, ‘I shall ask the Father and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth’. This is a source of great consolation for us, because as we make our journey through this life, God is with us. In law an advocate is someone who speaks on our behalf, our defender. The Spirit of truth is our Advocate because our sins have condemned us to separation from God. Yet ‘while were spiritually dead, God brought us to life with Christ’ (Eph 2: 4-6). The Spirit of Christ continues to come to our assistance in our need. Without this Advocate, our existence would be futile and destined to failure. Yet with Him we have ‘the reason to hope’. I recently saw the play by Samuel Beckett, ‘Endgame’. The characters in the play are doomed to hopelessness and futile existences, as all of Samuel Beckett’s characters are. But for a Christian this is never the case. We have an Advocate, and a Consoler, who gives us the hope that, ‘Christ has died once for sins, died for the guilty, to lead us to God’. For this reason the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, is also our consoler, because He brings the consolation of God to difficult situations. He strengthens us.

Yet, ‘The Holy Spirit not only consoles us, He also makes us capable in turn of consoling others’ (Cantalamessa). As we receive the Advocate, the Consoler, from God, we are also called to be advocates and consolers for other people- for the suffering men and women- whom we encounter in our daily lives. Advocates and consolers never turn a blind eye to the suffering; they go to their aid, just like the Advocate, the Spirit of Christ, comes to our aid. The words of St Francis of Assisi sum up the attitude we should take:

‘Oh Master, grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love’.

When we adopt this mentality, we show that the Church is truly alive and active in our world, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.