Holy Spirit as Friend

 

This Sunday is the Solemnity of Pentecost, celebrating the empowering of the disciples after the Ascension of Jesus to heaven with the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

 

Of the three Persons of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—it is the Holy Spirit who seems the most mysterious. Whereas God the Father and God the Son are personal descriptions, many of the descriptions  of the Holy Spirit are nonpersonal images like a dove, or wind, fire, or breath. Yet Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit in personal terms, as an Advocate or Helper (4x in the Gospel of John). The word Jesus uses to describe the Holy Spirit literally means "someone called to your side to help you" (in Greek: parakletos)

 

It occurred to me some years ago that term could describe what a friend does. A friend comes to your side to help you. Out of this thought came the idea that the Holy Spirit is the "Best Friend" of Jesus. Moreover, this Best Friend is within us, Gift of our Baptism, to bring us also into intimate friendship with Christ Jesus. I also discovered that a number of others have developed this same idea.

 

Here I wish to expand on this idea of the Holy Spirit as Friend. On the 6^th Sunday of Easter the Gospel was from John 14:15-21 and the Greek word parakletos was translated in the Catholic Lectionary as "Advocate." There is, however, a version of the New Testament which is a paraphrasing of the original Greek texts called The Message and it translates John 14:15-17 this way:

 

"[Jesus says:] I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!"

 

The idea of the Holy Spirit being the Best Friend of Jesus is consistent with the Catholic teaching that the Son of God, made flesh in Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are always together:

 

"When the Father sends his Word [the Son], he always sends his Breath [the Spirit]. In their joint mission, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct but inseparable. To be sure, it is Christ who is seen, the visible image of the invisible God, but it is the Spirit who reveals him." (Catechism#689)

 

 

 

Another aspect of the Holy Spirit as Best Friend of Jesus is the role of the "friend of the bridegroom." This term is actually applied to John the Baptist (see John 3:29). In the culture of Jesus’ day, the friend of the bridegroom had many duties in the wedding of his friend and the bride. He would be somewhat comparable to the "best man" at a wedding today. One role of the friend of the bridegroom was to go to the home of the bride and escort her to the home of the groom. There he presented her to his friend and the wedding began.

 

The Church is called the Bride of Christ (see Revelation 19:7), and the Friend of the Bridegroom, the Holy Spirit, brings this Bride (and us as members of the Church) to be united to Christ. The Catechism states: "the mission of the Spirit of adoption is to unite [us] to Christ and make [us] live in him." (# 690)

 

We have a saying "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine." The same can apply to the Best Friend of Jesus. If he is the Friend of Jesus, He is our Friend as well. Jesus calls his disciples "friends" (See John 15;15); and his Friend the Holy Spirit lives in us and cultivates both friendship within us for Christ and for others given to us as friends.

 

A few years ago, I discovered that Dr. Alan Schreck, a professor of theology at Steubenville University, wrote about the Holy Spirit as Friend in his book Your Life in the Holy Spirit: What Every Catholic Needs to Know and Experience. Here, then, is an excerpt of his book which I think is a useful meditation upon the friendship of the Holy Spirit in our lives:

 

"Jesus’ way of presenting the Holy Spirit made it evident that his followers were supposed to relate to the Spirit as a teacher, a counselor, a consoler—as someone who would help and guide them in their daily lives as Christians. In the Acts of the Apostles, we saw that Christ’s followers were in a dialogue with the Spirit, who actively directed and assisted them in their missionary activity [beginning with Pentecost]. They knew the Spirit as the gift of Jesus and the Father to help guide and strengthen them, and they knew how to call upon the Spirit for his assistance. May we hope for the same experience?

 

"Jesus taught us to relate to the Father as "Abba." The apostles and disciples—Peter, Mary and Martha, the "beloved disciple," and all the others—learned to relate to Jesus with warmth and friendship, each in his or her own way. How shall we imagine the person of the Holy Spirit in order to relate to the Spirit with the same depth of love and intimacy that we can have in our relationship with Jesus and the Father?

 

"Recall the meaning of the term "paraclete": one who is called to be at one’s side, a companion, a friend. Then, remember that, in John’s gospel, Jesus says that in some ways the Holy Spirit will be even closer to the apostles than he was—as a teacher, counselor, and witness within their hearts. On the basis of those characterizations, I would like to suggest a personal image of the Holy Spirit that embodies all that he is and does for us: the Holy Spirit is "the friend closest to our hearts."

 

"St. Cyril of Jerusalem taught that ‘the Spirit comes with the tenderness of a true friend and protector to save, to heal, to teach, to counsel, to strengthen, to console.’ The Catechism describes the Holy Spirit as ‘the interior Master of life according to Christ, a gentle guest and friend who inspires, guides, corrects and strengthens this life.’ (#1697).

 

"Our friend the Holy Spirit is close to our hearts in order to set them aflame with love for God and with zeal to witness to our faith. He is close to us to convince us of our sin and to cleanse and purify our hearts. He is a friend strengthening us with virtues and gifts for the good of others and the church. But most of all, this image of the friend closest to our hearts reminds us that the Holy Spirit is someone with whom we can speak and relate in an intimate, personal way....

 

"Just as we come to the Father and the Son in prayer, then, we can also pray to the Holy Spirit. The Catechism poses the question, ‘Since he [the Holy Spirit] teaches us to pray by recalling Christ, how could we not pray to the Spirit, too? That is why the church invites us to call upon the Holy Spirit every day, especially at the beginning and end of every important action.’ (#2670)....

 

May the Holy Spirit help us, then, to be faithful friends of Christ and true sons and daughters of God the Father!

 

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The Risen Body of Christ and the Church

We believe that "God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son...so that we should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) The Son of God took flesh, became human, while still remaining God, in the Person of Christ Jesus. This Jesus suffered for us out of God’s sacrificial love, died on the Cross and rose from the dead, his humanity now and forever being in a new and glorious state that transcends our physical lives while still retaining our human nature.

 

 

In the Easter Season, I have written about this Risen Body of Christ (See HERE). I also wrote about how it is the Risen Christ that we receive in the Eucharist (See HERE). We do not receive Jesus in the same state in which he existed on the Cross or at any other time that he lived our mortal existence on earth; instead we receive his Risen Body, his risen flesh and blood, i.e. the totality of who Jesus is in his Risen state. This reception of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist nourishes our relationship with the Risen Christ.

 

This relationship with the Risen Christ is a relationship with Christ and all who are united to him in Baptism, i.e.  the Church. Since his Resurrection, Jesus does not exist separate from his People, the Church. He has, of course, his own body formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary and now Risen, but he has also united us to himself in a real and unbreakable union.

 

This truth is referred to as the Mystical Body of Christ, i.e., we are the Body of Christ and he is the Head of this Body, the Church. This "mystery" exists in what we call a sacramental manner. Sacraments in general take visible things and/or relationships and by the Holy Spirit communicate through them the life of the invisible Risen Christ to us. It is in this way that the Church may be spoken of as a "sacrament."

 

"As sacrament, the Church is Christ's instrument. ‘She is taken up by him also as the instrument for the salvation of all,’ ‘the universal sacrament of salvation,’ by which Christ is ‘at once manifesting and actualizing the mystery of God's love for men.’The Church ‘is the visible plan of God's love for humanity,’ because God desires ‘that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit.’" (Catechism#776)

 

Altar Mural St. Timothy in Mesa, Arizona

 

So it is important for us to realize that when the Church is called the Body of Christ, we speak of a real union between those who belong to Christ and Christ himself, but we do not lose our individuality or free-will as a result of this union. This is why another image is also used to describe the Church as the Bride of Christ. In marriage, a man and woman "become one," i.e., united together in a single communion of covenant love, but they still remain who they are, a man and a woman. So with Christ and his Bride the Church.

 

What is relevant to our consideration here is that we are united in the Church to the Risen Christ. "The Church is the Body of Christ. Through the Spirit and his action in the sacraments, above all the Eucharist, Christ, who once was dead and is now risen, establishes the community of believers as his own Body." (Catechism#805)

 

This is another way of saying that the Church is called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live the Risen life of Christ now, in the manner it is possible in our mortal lives now. It is a life, above, all of the life-changing and saving sacrificial love of Christ that never ends.

 

Moreover, Christ gives us his Risen life, his risen self, body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. The Eucharist renews and strengthens our union in the Body of Christ, the Church, with the risen Christ and with one another. Thus we have this diagram to sum up what I have been describing here:

 

 

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A Scriptural Commentary on the Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent [A]

John 4:5-42 Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

By Il Guercino 17th Century

Since at least the fourth or fifth century, the Gospel Readings for the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Sundays of Lent have been taken from the Gospel of John: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman, from John 4; Jesus and the Man Born Blind, from John 9; and Jesus and the Raising of Lazarus, from John 11. These Gospels were and are used to prepare the Catechumens for baptism at the Easter Vigil and also prepare the already Baptized to renew their Baptism at Easter. Water imagery is used in both John 4 and John 9.

 

"Now [Jesus] had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, 
near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there,
and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well.
It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water,
Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’

(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)" (John 4:5-8)

It is intriguing that the Gospel of John records that Jesus had to go through Samaria. The fact of the matter is that his journey could have been made avoiding Samaria. There had been centuries of political, racial and religious separation between the Jews and the Samaritans (Samaria was a region of ancient Palestine). So Jews did avoid Samaria, "like a bad neighborhood," and considered Samaritans to be unclean and not a part of God’s people, i.e. the Jews.

 

That Jesus felt that he had to go through Samaria indicates that there was something important, or in this case someone important, that he needed to attend. It had to be this Samaritan Woman.

 

Jacob and Rachel at the Well
by William Dyce

Second, the details that Jesus is at this well, Jacob’s well, is significant. John’s Jewish readers would expect to then hear a love story, for a man at a well and a woman who came to draw water was the scene for several Old Testament encounters that resulted in marriage: Isaac (represented by his father’s emissary) and Rebekah, at the well (Genesis 24) , Jacob and Rachel his future wife at the very well Jesus is at in this story (Genesis 29), and Moses and Zipporah his future wife at the well (Exodus 2).

 

It would be like our hearing that there was this sleeping princess who could only be awakened by a kiss. We would expect a handsome prince to come along and kiss her and then they would live happily ever after. The man-at-well-and woman-there-to-draw-water would set up certain expectations of the readers for a future marriage in the making.

 

One final note: near Sychar was the town of Schechem. Here, Joshua renewed the Covenant which God had made with his People in the desert. The name "Jesus" is a variant of the name "Joshua." This "new Joshua," i.e. Jesus, comes to bring a New Covenant. The relationship that is used to illustrate a covenant is very often marriage:

 

"And in that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘my husband’....
And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me
in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord" (Hos 2:16, 19-20).

"The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.
How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink,
you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.’

‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?’

Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.
Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.’"   (John 4: 9-14)

I have already mentioned the animosity between Jews and Samaritans. There was also the convention that a righteous Jew, especially a Teacher, would not address a woman in public: that would be unrespectable. Obviously, Jesus puts aside these barriers to relationship in order to be able to interact with this woman. This type of unconventual behavior often got Jesus into trouble. A complaint made often about him was that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. (See Mark 2:13-17, for example)

 

Jesus has revealed that he is thirsty by asking for a drink. The Woman is surprised by this and doesn’t immediately give him a drink. Jesus further draws her into this encounter by offering her "living waters."

 

We know that this is not just a literal discussion about water–though the Samaritan Woman thinks so. The Gospel of John constantly operates at two levels: the literal and the symbolic. Jesus is talking at the symbolic level about "living water." Of course, this could be literal water, "water of life," for water is essential to our life and like all gifts is a gift from God above.

 

Jesus, is speaking of a spiritual gift, a spiritually life-giving water. He is the one who gives the gift. Elsewhere in John the "living water" refers to the Holy Spirit (See John 7:37-39). The Holy Spirit is not something but someone, a Person. When Jesus gives the Spirit, he also gives himself. And where there is given the Son and the Spirit there is given God the Father.

 

So Jesus is offering this Woman himself–just as one would expect in a love-story. However, he is not giving himself to her in a sexual way, but rather as Spiritual Lover, i.e. Lover in the Spirit.

 

Psalm 42:1-2 "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? "

"The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty
and have to keep coming here to draw water.’
He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’ ‘I have no husband,’ she replied.
Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband.
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.
What you have just said is quite true.’" (John 4:15-18)

The Woman still doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about regarding living waters (why should she at this point?) Perhaps Jesus senses that he must go in another direction to get the Woman to understand (he did say, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.")

 

So Jesus speaks to this Woman about her husband. Some commentators observe how this conversation with this Woman sounds like a man trying to "pick up" a woman, if we didn’t know that this is Jesus who has a different agenda. If a man says to a woman he doesn’t know "what does your husband do?" he could be fishing to see if that woman has a husband without coming right out and asking it.

 

Jesus says to the Woman, "Go call your husband." She says, "I have no husband." The Woman has stayed with Jesus long enough to reveal this truth about herself. In our journey with Jesus this can be important information: we come to know Jesus personally a step at a time usually. A relationship where we trust him must come about. We see here that the Woman begins by knowing Jesus only by externals: as a Jew and as a man; she comes at this next stage to see that he is a prophet.

 

But what is the significance about 5 husbands and the one she is living with who is not her husband? Is this a case again of John’s two levels of meaning: literal and symbolic? John Shea notes: "As water imagery was used [in this story] to symbolize spiritual life in the first part of the conversation, marriage imagery will be used to symbolize spiritual life in the second part." (On Earth As It Is In Heaven, p.120)

 

In fact, the matter of the 5 husbands and the one who is not her husband is barely mentioned and next a discussion ensues about worship. Some say the 5 husbands represent the 5 pagan gods worshiped by Samarians in their past. Yet by Jesus day, Samaritans were strict monotheists. On the other hand, if Jesus is actually pinpointing the woman’s marital history, it would have been a story of rejection of the Woman by five men (only men could divorce in that society) and the unwillingness of the sixth man to commit to this "broken woman." If that was the case, Jesus is opening her to her own need for true love "in the desert of her life"which would be found in the living water of Christ.

 

The Woman comes to see Jesus as a prophet and the story continues; now she is going into the spiritual level Jesus wants her to be at.

 

"[The Woman said,] ‘ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,
but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.’
Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming
when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

Yet a time is coming and has now come
when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit,
and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.’ 

The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming.
When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’ 
Then Jesus declared, ‘I who speak to you am he.’" (John 4:20-26)

Finally, with this discussion of true worship which is the expression of God’s People to their Covenant Relationship, the woman receives direction for her life and the invitation to enter into the relationship Jesus will establish with those chosen: He will be the Bridegroom and the Church will be his Bride. (See Ephesians 5:25-27) This Bride will not just be Jews nor will it only be righteous people who are eligible to be members; instead, all invited–even Samaritans!–and people broken and rejected are more than welcome to have this personal relationship with Christ and his Church. Entry into this relationship is by Baptism, and the use of this story of water and marriage imagery makes it a perfect story to speak about Baptism and the relationship it brings.

The Woman is brought into the revealed identity of Jesus: he is the Messiah.

The next section of this story is like a "Part 2" and it is permissible to omit it as we will do at Holy Faith this Sunday. It is John 4:27-38. It deals with food. The nourishment of Jesus comes when he can bring others into God’s love. Jesus both hungers and thirsts to have this love relationship with us.

 

We will include verse 28-31:
" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town
and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.
Could this be the Christ?’
They came out of the town and made their way toward him."

The Woman leaves her heavy water jar behind, perhaps representing laying down her burdens at the feet of Christ. It is also reminiscent of the disciples who left their nets to follow him and become "fishers of men," i.e. evangelists (See Matthew 4:18-22) . This Woman goes to share her new-found knowledge and relationship with her townspeople, the very ones who probably shunned her before.

 

 

"Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’
So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them,
and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. 
They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said;
now we have heard for ourselves, and we know
that this man really is the Savior of the world.’"  (John 4:39-42)

The identity of Jesus is further revealed: He is the Savior of the world. This knowledge on the part of the townspeople began with listening to the testimony of the Woman, but became personal as they came to know Jesus themselves: "now we have heard for ourselves."

 

This story gives us many insights into the depths of love Jesus wants to bring us into, so that we might not thirst and die but have his life-giving waters. We come to know him gradually as did this Woman. And he comes to where we are at, to speak to our hearts.

 

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