In continuation with the readings from last Sunday which introduced us to the Sacrament of Holy Orders, the liturgy for this week teaches us something about the workings of the Holy Spirit through the men who have taken on the role of serving the spiritual needs of the church.

The Gospel from John (John 14:15-21) picks up the scene from last week where Jesus is speaking to the disciples at the Last Supper. He has promised to prepare a place for them in heaven and guaranteed that they have heard the words and seen the works of the Father through him.

In today’s passage he extends their relationship to the Father through him by saying, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (John 14:15a, 21). Loving the Son and following his ways are the most direct routes to the Father for those who serve Him.

Now Jesus is going to be leaving the apostles and they will no longer have his personal presence and assurance to guide them. But he guarantees that he will not leave them orphans and gives them another promise. He says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.” (John 14:16).

This Advocate which Jesus promises is the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit which Jesus describes to his followers as, “the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” (John 14:17).

In the First Reading for today (Acts 8:5-8, 14-17) we see an example of the way in which the Holy Spirit works through the apostles in their service to the Lord. Philip has undertaken the mission to bring the good news of Jesus to the area of Samaria. It is a territory where the people are at odds with the Jews over a feud stemming from centuries before when the Samaritans developed their own system of religion and place of worship outside of Jerusalem.

Philip has done wonderful work in introducing the people of Samaria to Jesus as the Messiah and brought great joy to the city. We are told, “With one accord, the crowds paid attention to what was said by Philip when they heard it and saw the signs he was doing. For unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed and crippled people were cured.” (Acts 8:6-7).

When the apostles in Jerusalem hear that the Samaritans have come to believe in the name of Jesus as Lord through baptism, they send Peter and John to Philip and the new believers in Samaria. These apostles, now bishops and leaders of the men who have been ordained to the Sacrament of Holy Orders, lay hands on the converts so that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

The leaders from Jerusalem have welcomed the Samaritans as legitimate members of the Church. What once had become a division for Israel and a spiritual rivalry between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, has become reunified by the Holy Spirit working through the apostles.

We might say that Peter and John were sent to the Samaritans to “confirm” the baptism that they had received. This is a tradition which continued on for Christians where it became customary for the bishops in line with the apostles to confer the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist – to the new converts, or catechumens at the same time.

In the 4^th century when Christianity became the national religion of the Roman Empire, the number of people coming into the Church became too large for the bishops to preside at every baptism so they delegated this function to the leaders of local parishes. However, the bishops retained the function of anointing with oil and laying on of hands and would visit Churches in their areas periodically to perform this service.

Although this sacrament has evolved somewhat into a sacrament of maturity in the Roman Catholic Church, Confirmation retains the same purpose for which it was originally intended. It is a sacrament performed in the name of the Father and the Son through the action of the Advocate, the Spirit of truth, once alive in the apostles and still present in the holy men ordained to the episcopacy today.