From
a commentary on the Gospel of John
by Saint Cyril of Alexandria
If I do not go away, the Comforter
will not come to you
 fter Christ had
completed His mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to become sharers in
the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up our own life and be so
transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that
would be pleasing to God. This was something we could do only by sharing
in the Holy Spirit.
 It was
most fitting that the sending of the Spirit and His descent upon us
[1]
should take place after the
departure [2]
of Christ our Savior. As long as Christ was with them in the flesh, it must
have seemed to believers that they possessed every blessing in Him; but when
the time came for Him to ascend to His heavenly Father, it was necessary
for Him to be united through His Spirit to those who worshipped Him, and
to dwell in our hearts through faith. Only by His own presence within us
in this way could He give us confidence to cry out, Abba, Father,
make it easy for us to grow in holiness and, through our possession of the
all-powerful Spirit, fortify us invincibly against the wiles of the devil
and the assaults of men.
It can easily be shown from examples
both in the Old Testament and the New that the Spirit changes those in whom
He comes to dwell; He so transforms them that they begin to live a completely
new kind of life. Saul was told by the prophet Samuel: The Spirit of the
Lord will take possession of you, and you shall be changed into another
man. Saint Paul writes: As we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled
faces, that glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, transforms
us all into his own likeness, from one degree of glory to
another.
Does this not show that the Spirit
changes those in whom He comes to dwell and alters the whole pattern of their
lives? [3]
With the Spirit within them it is quite natural for people who had been absorbed
by the things of this world to become entirely other-worldly in outlook,
and for cowards to become men of great courage. There can be no doubt that
this is what happened to the disciples. The strength they received from the
Spirit enabled them to hold firmly to the love of Christ, facing the violence
of their persecutors unafraid. Very true, then, was our Savior’s saying
that it was to their advantage for Him to return to Heaven: His return was
the time appointed for the descent of the Holy Spirit.
—Saint Cyril of Alexandria,
bishop
Office of Readings, Thursday
Seventh Week of Easter
___________
1. The descent of the Holy Spirit occurred at
Pentecost, 50 days after the Resurrection (counting, in the Hebrew tradition,
Easter Sunday itself). See Acts 2:1-13.
2. The Ascension. Christ spent 40 days with his
Apostles and disciples after the Resurrection to prove to them that He had
truly risen from the dead, and to teach them and prepare them for the coming
of the Holy Spirit—and to prepare them for their mission to expand and
nurture the Church. Ten days after the Ascension, the Holy Spirit descended
on the Apostles and Mary as they were gathered together for the celebration
of the Jewish feast of Pentecost.
3. It’s essential, though, that we “get
out of the way” and let the Holy Spirit do His work. As long as we persist
in clinging to the familiar psychological
defenses that preserve our pride in how we
think our lives should be, we will only obstruct the transformative
action of divine purification.
|
