HOMILY FOR SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER A – 10 MAY 2026
Five weeks ago, we began the season of Easter, a time of exploring the depths of the resurrection mystery. These Easter days are based on the forty days the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples before his ascension into heaven.
This coming Sunday, moved forward from Thursday, we will celebrate the feast of the Ascension. The Ascension begins our nine days of waiting for Pentecost — the original novena, when the disciples and Mary prayed together in the upper room for the coming of the Spirit. The Church continues this tradition, praying for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit on all of us, on the whole Church, on our world.
In today's first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of the fearless preaching of Philip, one of the first deacons of the Church. He was a powerful preacher: huge crowds responded when they heard him, and he performed miracles, exorcising evil spirits and curing the sick. In a beautiful line we hear that there was much joy in that city.
Significantly, following their baptism by Philip, the apostles Peter and John are sent to confirm them in the Holy Spirit. This is the origin of the Sacrament of Confirmation, which we continue in the Church today, when the bishop, a successor of the apostles, comes to a parish for Confirmation. Hidden in this detail of Peter and John going to administer Confirmation is something important. The Samaritans had been baptised — they had truly received the Gospel — and yet there was more to receive. The Christian life for us, as for them, is not a single event but an ongoing receiving of the Spirit. There is always more of God to be welcomed in.
The second reading from the first letter of St Peter is a spiritual masterpiece. Imagine an old St Peter, full of love for the people he has been given to care for, writing to encourage and teach them. The first point he makes is that we must reverence in our hearts Christ as Lord. Notice where Peter places this lordship: not in the world outside, but in the inner room of the heart. Before any external witness, before any defence of the faith, there is this hidden act of enthroning Christ within. From that hidden lordship everything else flows. Then St Peter gives his teaching about the hope that is in us. He calls on us to always be ready to explain the hope that is within us — and to do this with gentleness and reverence.
Who or what is this Holy Spirit that is given when Peter and John laid hands on those who had been baptised? Who or what is the Holy Spirit that we have received in Confirmation? One way to answer is to think about the hope within us, the hope we are called to explain and defend. It is a hope grounded in the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit is called the forgotten person of the Trinity. Of the three — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — the Spirit is the most neglected in our thoughts, words and prayer. Perhaps it is because it is easier for us to imagine God the Creator as a heavenly Father, and the Son as a man like us, while the Spirit seems much more mysterious. And yet we invoke him constantly: from the Sign of the Cross at the start of Mass, through the Gloria, to the moment we pray for the Spirit to come down on the gifts of bread and wine that they may become the Body and Blood of Christ. Today we are invited to consciously consider the Spirit's role in our lives.
In the Gospel Jesus promises the sending of the Holy Spirit, and this same passage gives us an insight into how the early Christian community understood God to be a Trinity of persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Listen again to the tender words Jesus speaks: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." This is the affective heart of today's Gospel. On the eve of his departure, he knows the disciples' fear of being abandoned. His answer is the Spirit — the One who will make his presence real and interior. We are never alone. The God we worship dwells within us. But notice, too, the condition Jesus places on this gift. Twice in this short passage he says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." This is not moralism. It is the simple truth that the Spirit is given to those whose hearts are turned toward Christ in the practical fidelity of love. The commandments are not the price of the Spirit; they are the shape that a Spirit-filled life takes.
Who, then, is the Holy Spirit for us? Perhaps the easiest way to answer is to look at what he does — what Jesus tells us in today's Gospel and elsewhere in Scripture.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit is another Advocate or Counsellor. Like Jesus, the Spirit acts on our behalf and pleads our cause. He defends us, protects us, walks alongside us on our journey through life. The Holy Spirit is our Paraclete, our Comforter. There are times when we have to cling to hope, times when we need reassurance of God's love and the forgiveness of our sins. St Peter says we must always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us. This presupposes that we have this hope within us. We have to cultivate a reflection within ourselves to be in touch with the Holy Spirit working within us.
Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God living with us and within us. We are temples of the Spirit. The presence of the Spirit is Jesus' way of remaining with us. Think of the extraordinary dignity we have in the Holy Spirit being within us. The Spirit teaches us to pray and helps us to pray. St Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, says that when we do not know how to pray, the Holy Spirit prays in us and with us and for us, with sighs and groans too deep for words. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He also says something striking — that this is the Spirit "whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him." Christian life is life in a different mode of seeing. We walk through the same streets as our neighbours, but with the Spirit within us we see the world as charged with the presence of God. The Spirit gives us a hunger for the things of God — a desire to read, to learn, to grow — so that we can give the reason St Peter speaks of.
Another sign of the Holy Spirit is joy. In the first reading we hear that there was much joy in that Samaritan town. Joy is a deep-seated confidence in God's love and mercy. It is a knowing that we are safe in God, that our lives have purpose and meaning, that we are loved by God. This joy is the principal flag of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is not the same as cheerfulness or optimism — it is the gladness that survives even suffering, because it is rooted in the resurrection of Christ.
This is the Holy Spirit we are preparing to receive again. As the scripture scholar William Barclay wrote, "The Holy Spirit gate-crashes no one's heart; he waits to be received." In these days before Pentecost, we can pray for a new and greater appreciation of who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in our lives, and for receiving him again at Pentecost.
Let's invite the Holy Spirit, desire the Holy Spirit, welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives. Let's give ourselves over to the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit. We can simply pray, over and over again: Come Holy Spirit.
