Reflection of Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter (May 19, 2020)

Praise to Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am Fr. Binamungu the parish priest of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi. I welcome you all to listen to today’s Gospel May 19 the Tuesday of the sixth week of Easter. A reading from the Gospel according to John 16:5-11.

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.  Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate [133] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. The word of the Lord.

Praise to Our Lord Jesus Christ! Let us now have a brief reflection of the Gospel, we have just read.  Jesus tells the advantages of him going back to his Father. One of the crucial advantage of him going is that without his going the Holy Spirit will not come. Once the Holy Spirit comes, he will give witness and deal with two categories of people. The first category is that of people immersed itself to worldly affairs. Jesus calls this category those pre-occupied by worldliness, meaning, those whose hearts and minds refuse to cooperate within the dynamics of God’s grace. For today, we shall focus our discussion on this category. For this category, the Holy Spirit will bring to light the true meaning of sin, righteousness and judgement.

Once sin, righteousness and judgement are brought to human knowledge, they will be held responsible, because, no one will find any excuse of any sort that, they do not know. Since, the Spirit will make it clear the meaning of sin, which is to deny, reject and not to trust Jesus by action in one’s life. The Spirit will clarify the meaning of righteousness. Righteousness is not a victory over the fact of oppressing others but rather the victory of helping others in their needs and troubles as shown by Christ on the cross-and through the cross. The Holy Spirit will also bring to light the true meaning of judgement which will be given out when the devil and his advocates, thus, death when the risen Lord out merges death.

The work of the Holy Spirit is to help humanity to know well the sin, righteousness and judgement. Let us pray to God, so that when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and in us we may listen and benefit from his directives in our hearts and minds. Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ! 

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