In some contexts this term means “consoler,” in others “defender,” and sometimes it means both. In the Old Testament God is the great consoler of his people. This “God of consolation” (Romans 15:4), became “incarnate” in Jesus Christ, who is named the first consoler or Paraclete (cf. John 14:15).
The Holy Spirit, being the one who continues Christ’s work and brings the common work of the Trinity to completion, also had to be called “Consoler”: “The Consoler who will remain with you forever,” as Jesus says.
After Easter the whole Church had a living and powerful experience of the Spirit as consoler, defender, ally, in its internal and external difficulties, in the persecutions, in the trials, in everyday life. In the Acts of the Apostles we read: “The Church grew and walked in the fear of the Lord, full of the consolation (“paraclesis”) of the Holy Spirit” (9:31).
We must now draw a practical conclusion for our lives from this. We ourselves must become paracletes! If it is true that the Christian must be “another Christ,” it is just as true that he must be “another Paraclete.”
The Holy Spirit not only consoles us, but he also makes us capable in turn of consoling others. True consolation comes from God who is the “Father of all consolation.” This consolation comes to those who are suffering, but it does not stop with them; its final goal is reached when those who have experienced consolation in turn console their neighbors with the same consolation with which God has consoled them.
They must not be content to offer only platitudes (“Take heart, don’t worry -- you will see that everything will turn out fine!”), but to bring the authentic “consolation that comes from the Scriptures,” which is able to “keep hope alive” (cf. Romans 15:4). This is how we explain the miracles wrought by a simple word or gesture, offered in a climate of prayer, at the bedside of a sick person. It’s God who is consoling that person through you!
In a certain sense, the Holy Spirit needs us in order to be the Paraclete. He wants to console, defend, exhort; but he does not have a mouth, hands, eyes to “give a body” to his consolation. Or better, he has our hands, our eyes, our mouth.
If we stick to the letter of what Paul tells the Thessalonians -- “console each other” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) -- we must take him to be saying: “Be paracletes to each other. If we want to selfishly keep to ourselves the consolation that we receive from the Spirit and it does not pass from us to others, it will quickly disappear.” This is why a beautiful prayer, attributed to St. Francis, says: “Let me not so much seek to be consoled as to console; or to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.”
In light of what I have said it is not hard today to see who the paracletes are around us. They are the ones who care for the terminally ill, who care for those sick with AIDS, those who seek to alleviate the solitude of the elderly, the volunteers who spend their time visiting hospitals. They are the ones who dedicate themselves to children who are victims of various types of abuse, inside and outside the home.
Let us conclude this reflection with the first verses of the Pentecost sequence, which invoke the Holy Spirit as the “best consoler”:
“Holy Spirit, come and shine
On our souls with beams divine,
Issuing from Thy radiance bright.
Come, O Father of the poor,
Ever bounteous of Thy store,
Come, our heart’s unfailing light.
Come, Consoler, kindest, best,
Come, our bosom’s dearest guest,
Sweet refreshment, sweet repose.
Rest in labor, coolness sweet,
Tempering the burning heat,
Truest comfort of our woes.”
[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]
Fr.
Raniero Cantalamessa is a Franciscan
Capuchin Catholic Priest. Born in Ascoli Piceno,
Italy, 22 July 1934, ordained priest in 1958.
Divinity Doctor and Doctor in classical literature.
In 1980 he was appointed by Pope John Paul II
Preacher to the Papal Household in which capacity he
still serves, preaching a weekly sermon in Advent
and Lent.
