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From: Romans 5:1-5

Reconciliation Through Christ’s Sacrifice, the Basis of our Hope

[1] Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Through Him we have obtained access to this grace
in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. [3]
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces en-
durance, [4] and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
[5] and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

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Commentary:

1-5. In this very moving passage God helps us see “the divine interlacing of the
three theological virtues which form the backing upon which the true life of every
Christian man or woman has to be woven” (St. J. Escriva, “Friends of God”,205).
Faith, hope and charity act in us in turn, causing us to grow in the life of grace.
Thus, faith leads us to know and be sure of things we hope for (cf. Hebrews 11:
1); hope ensures that we shall attain them, and enlivens our love of God; charity,
for its part, gives us energy to practise the other two theological virtues. The de-
finitive outcome of this growth in love, faith and hope is the everlasting peace that
is of the essence of eternal life.

As long as we are in this present life we do have peace to some degree — but
with tribulation. Therefore, the peace attainable in this life does not consist in
the contentment of someone who wants to have no problems, but rather in the
resoluteness full of hope (”character”) of someone who manages to rise above
suffering and stays faithful through endurance. Suffering is necessary for us,
because it is the normal way to grow in virtue (cf. James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:5-7);
that is why it is providential (cf. Philippians 1:19; Colossians 1:24) and leads to
joy and happiness (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

“A person who hopes for something and strives eagerly to attain it is ready to
endure all kinds of difficulty and distress. Thus, for example, a sick person if he
is eager to be healthy, is happy to take the bitter medicine which will cure him.
Therefore, one sign of the ardent hope that is ours thanks to Christ is that we
glory not only in the hope of future glory, but also in the afflictions which we suf-
fer in order to attain it” (St. Thomas Aquinas, “Commentary on Romans, ad.
loc.”).

A person who lives by faith, hope and charity realizes that suffering is not some-
thing meaningless but rather is designed by God for our perfecting. Perfection
consists “in the bringing of our wills so closely into conformity with the will of
God that, as soon as we realize He wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all
our might, and take the bitter with the sweet, knowing that to be His Majesty’s
will [...]. If our love is perfect, it has this quality of leading us to forget our own
pleasure in order to please Him whom we love. And that is indeed what happens”
(St. Teresa of Avila, “Book of Foundations”, Chapter 5).

5. The love which St. Paul speaks of here is, at one and the same time, God’s
love for us — manifested in His sending the Holy Spirit — and the love which God
places in our soul to enable us to love Him. The Second Council of Orange, quo-
ting St. Augustine, explains this as follows: “To love God is entirely a gift of God.
He, without being loved, loves us and enabled us to love Him. We were loved
when we were still displeasing to Him, so that we might be given something
whereby we might please Him. So it is that the Spirit of the Father and the Son,
whom we love with the Father and the son, pours charity into our hearts” (Se-
cond Council of Orange, “De Gratia”, Canon 25; cf. St. Augustine, “In Ioann.
Evang.”, 102, 5).

6-11. The friendship which reigned in paradise between God and man was fol-
lowed by the enmity created by Adam’s sin. By promising a future redeemer,
God once more offered mankind his friendship. The scale of God’s love for us can
be seen in the “reconciliation “ which the Apostle speaks about, which took place
on the Cross, when Christ did away with this enmity, making our peace with God
and reconciling us to him (cf. Eph 2:15-16).

The petition in the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that
trespass against us”, is an invitation to imitate the way God treats us, because by
loving our enemies “there shines forth in us some likeness to God our Father, who,
by the death of his Son, ransomed from everlasting perdition and reconciled to him-
self the human race, which before was most unfriendly and hostile to him “ (”St
Pius V Catechism”, IV, 14, 19).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: John 16:12-15

The Action of the Holy Spirit (Continuation)

(Jesus said to His disciples,) [12] “I have yet many things to say to you, but you
cannot bear them now. [13] When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you in-
to all the truth; for He will not speak of His own authority, but whatever He hears
He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. [14] He
will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. [15] All that
the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and de-
clare it to you.”

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Commentary:

13. It is the Holy Spirit who makes fully understood the truth revealed by Christ.
As Vatican II teaches, our Lord “completed and perfected Revelation and con-
firmed it...finally by sending the Spirit of truth” (Vatican II, “Dei Verbum”, 4). Cf.
note on John 14:25-26.

14-15. Jesus Christ here reveals some aspects of the mystery of the Blessed
Trinity. He teaches that the Three Divine Persons have the same nature when
He says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son, and everything
the Son has belongs to the Father (cf. John 17:10) and that the Spirit also has
what is common to the Father and the Son, that is, the divine essence. The ac-
tivity specific to the Holy Spirit is that of glorifying Christ, reminding and clarify-
ing for the disciples everything the Master taught them (John 16:13). On being
inspired by the Holy Spirit to recognize the Father through the Son, men render
glory to Christ; and glorifying Christ is the same as giving glory to God (cf. John
17:1, 3-5, 10).

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.