Every time I heard a story of a person who was  put to prison for a crime, but then, have been proven to be  innocent, I feel sad. I wonder why does it take 20 or 30 years for the truth of the crime to come out. I wonder why does this happen, when a person is wrongly accused, is made to suffer in prison for a crime he/she never committed. I wonder why the people who put him/ her in trial could not see the truth when they were still in the process? Today’s gospel somehow offers me an answer to these questions. “The Spirit of Truth” has been blocked by the false witnesses, by the false allegations. The Spirit of Truth, is always there, but it is not welcomed.

Thus, Jesus would tell us today, he is going but,  he would not leave us orphans. In a way, he would not leave us to suffer, to mourn, to be afraid,  even to be falsely accused of anything, because he would send us his precious gift- The Holy Spirit, the one who would lead us to the truth. This Spirit would enable us to go on doing the right, the true and the useful, to  accept our fate, to live joyfully,  correct us, guide us, help us, and the one who would encourage us to even say, “It is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong.” So today Jesus invites us to welcome this Spirit that he is going to send us…as our advocate…as our strength in carrying out our mission to the world,  as the Apostles did. If the Spirit of Jesus is in us, then we can proudly claim that we love him, and we can show this love by doing what he asks us to do, to love God and to love our neighbours, as ourselves, and then to love one another.

This sixth Sunday of Easter doesn’t just prepare us for the Ascension of Jesus; it calls us to ponder how much we need the descent of the Holy Spirit of truth to be the counsellor of each of us in this very confused and misguided world. What good is freedom, if we don’t know the truth? A person lost in the desert may be free, but if he has no idea where to find food and drink, he is not free to save his life.

So, in the light of the Holy Spirit, we reflect that we are not really free until truth unlocks our chains of ignorance, false ideas, and false values. Only God’s own truth does that. We take hold of his truth by believing his word. Then light is shed on the path we should freely take, and that is our true good. If we take it, it leads us to the true life given by the one God.

So let’s pray that God would open our hearts to welcome the Spirit of truth, so as to live out our lives in loving God and one another. Let’s continue to celebrate the resurrection of the Son of God, receive his risen body in the Eucharist, and walk his way to everlasting life.