Prayer of the Day

Fifth Week of Easter

Throughout the Gospels we become aware that the followers of Jesus, even his chosen apostles, were often confused by his words and actions.  They saw everything from their own very limited point of view.  The learned Jews couldn’t understand Jesus either.  We see the same kind of confusion at the Last Supper.     Jesus promised that the Father would send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who would “teach them everything and remind them of all he had said to them.”  This is a wonderful promise because it means that we can rely on the Gospels.  The stories of the words, actions and miracles of Jesus were first of all orally shared within the small communities who, we are told, met every day for “the breaking of bread.”  Later these stories were written down and finally became the four Gospels.  To this day we still recall and reflect upon these Gospels at every Mass believing that the Holy Spirit did in fact “teach ” and “remind” those early disciples of everything Jesus said and did.  We also believe that the Holy Spirit speaks personally to each one of us as we meditate on the words of the Gospels.