The Paraklete:

St. John 15:17-16:2 (7/27) Gospel, Feast of the Great-Martyr andHealer Panteleimon The Paraclete: St. John 15:17-16:2, especially vss. 26, 27:"'But when theHelper comes, Whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truthwho proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bearwitness....'" Long for the Spirit to come and fill you, to testify ofChrist within you and strengthen you. When the Spirit descends upon you andupon the Holy Gifts of the Lamb, these become for you the Body and Blood ofthe Savior, of Christ our God. You receive Him; His blood mingles withyours, renews and purifies every drop of blood in your heart and throughoutyour whole body. Long to have such a Helper! To be made gentle, loving,merciful, and worthy - to have Jesus on your lips. Yes, beloved, long forthe Spirit! The Spirit, one with the Father, comes because our Lord Jesus Christ sendsHim, for the Life-giving Trinity, our God, one in essence, is parakletos,Helper and Comforter in every respect. Our Father in Heaven is awesome,dread, and terrible even to look upon (Heb. 12:29). Jesus, the Son of God,took our flesh upon Him and was most accessible for a few, brief years inmany places as He walked about with the Disciples. However, He ascendedinto Heaven to sit beside the Father; yet He sends the Spirit so that we arenot bereft! The Spirit of truth is near, another parakletos to be with us,since Christ, our first parakletos, is lifted up from our physical sight.The Spirit is not seen but known. He is everywhere present, near, within,whispering truth in the ears of the heart, always testifying of Christ.Long for the Paraklete! The coming of the Holy Spirit is not by some physical contact, as St. Basilpoints out: "How could a corporeal being approach the Bodiless One?" Still,we know His presence when He moves and acts within us. How so? In thepresent passage, the Lord Jesus Himself gives us the criteria by which wemay be assured. He contrasts love with hate. When we "love one another"(Jn. 15:17), as our loving Savior commands, rather than hate, "because [we]are not of the world" (vs. 19), then the Spirit is among us and in us. Thisis exactly what St. Basil means when he says, "the Spirit comes to us whenwe withdraw ourselves from evil passions, which have crept into the soulthrough its friendship with the flesh, alienating us from a closerelationship with God." Our very sealing with the gift of our Master's "holy, and almighty, andadorable Spirit" keeps us in His sanctification; confirms us in the Orthodoxfaith; delivers us "from the Evil One, and from the machinations of thesame," to "preserve our soul in purity and uprightness," through the savingfear of God above anyone or anything else. We know that the Spirit is amongus when Christ's word is kept among us, and that it is the spirit of thisworld if we are persecuted by those who "do not know Him Who sent" the LordJesus to us in the first place (vs. 21). Furthermore, we may be assured of the Spirit's presence among us and in uswhen we are able to "bear witness, because [we] have been with" Christ (vs.27) and He with us. All this the Paraklete does for us. Listen again toSt. Basil: "Through Him hearts are lifted up, the infirm are held by thehand, and those who progress are brought to perfection. He shines uponthose who are cleansed from every spot, and makes them spiritual men throughfellowship with Himself." Let this be true: we struggle even thought weare infirm, seek repeatedly to calm the raging of our flesh, and keepgrowing in the things Christ teaches us despite many failures. Do not despair at what is not yet complete. Do not be discouraged when astalwart brother fails you without cause. The Lord Jesus Himself promisedus that the Paraklete would come so that [we] "...should not be made tostumble" (vs. 16:1). Call out to the Life-giving Spirit: O Heavenly King, Spirit of truth, come and abide in us and cleanse us ofevery stain.