Hear the message as intended by Jesus

June 3, 2007 -- The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

By Fr. Michael Stubbs

	Fr. Mike Stubbs

There is a childhood game called "gossip," in which one person will whisper a message into the ear of another per­son, who will in turn whisper the message to another person, and so on. The process continues until the message has gone through the ears of all those present. The last person then says out loud what he or she heard, which ordinarily differs ­radically from the original message.

The game illustrates how easily the ­content of a message changes when we pass it on. Each person hears the message in a slightly different way from the manner it was intended. Each person introduces something of himself or herself.

In this Sunday's Gospel reading, Jn 16:12--15, Jesus discusses another handing on of a message. However, in this case the process is completely different. The persons involved in handing on the message add nothing to it to distort it. They remain faithful to the original.

In the situation that Jesus is talking about, the persons handing on the message are not ordinary human beings. They are the three persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That is why they transfer the message with such authenticity.

Specifically, Jesus informs us that he has received the message from the Father. "All that the Father has belongs to me." Jesus, as the Incarnate Word of God, has announced the message of salvation during his life on earth. It is a message that faithfully reports what Jesus has received. Whatever has been added through the fact of Jesus' humanity only clarifies and makes accessible the message for us.

At this point, however, Jesus is leaving his disciples. He will no longer be able to speak to them in person, face to face. He will not be able to finish the job of revealing this message to his disciples, a job that he has not been able to complete, not through his own fault, but because of the human weakness of his disciples. "I have much more to tell you, but pass it on. You cannot bear it now."

The Holy Spirit will then take up the task of revealing the message to the disciples. In doing that, the Spirit will remain completely faithful to the original."He will not speak on his own, but will speak only what he hears." In order to stress this point, it is repeated twice. "He will have received from me what he will announce to you." In their faithfulness to the original, the three divine persons hand on the message in a radically different way than what we would expect from human beings. It is a long way from the childhood game of "gossip." We can hope to receive this message incorrupt, as it was intended.

That is why we can listen to the Gospel proclaimed on Sunday, and believe that we are hearing the message as intended by Jesus Christ. Despite the vast distance in time, almost 2,000 years, despite the huge differences in our cultures, - we believe that Jesus Christ is still speaking to us by means of the Holy Spirit.

We do not have to fall back upon a fundamentalist belief in a verbatim reporting of Jesus' words, because the Holy Spirit provides us a much better guarantee. "Being the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth."

(Fr. Stubbs, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, has a master's degree in theology from Harvard.)