![]() But the parallel holds that the Holy Spirit walks alongside us to help us and to look out for us. The Holy Spirit is of course much more than merely a defender of his clients. Humbly the villagers approach the lawyer's desk, offering up what they can in terms of payment: grapes, eggs, poultry… all used in trade for assistance in their legal matters. We see a village advocate/attorney's office, with clients lined up to enlist his services. This composition proved already so popular in Breughel's time that no fewer than twenty versions were produced in the artist's workshop. A very narrow interpretation of what an advocate is in a legal framework is portrayed in this painting by Pieter Breughel the Younger. Love is a choice! That is why Jesus commands us to love, because he wants us to will it.Īnd to make it easier for us to love, Jesus promises us that the Holy Spirit will help us. That brings us to the essence of that first verse of today's reading, that love is not first of all some fluffy feeling but it is an active part of our will. Peter Kreeft sums it up well: 'Jesus was anti-legalism, but not anti-law'. In fact, it is also a temptation we have when reading the Gospels that we simply categorise the Pharisees as being the ones strictly obeying the laws, but not loving and we are tempted to see Jesus just as being all pro-love and anti-law. In today's society we see law and love as being almost opposites. Love and obedience are two dimensions of the same thing. Love and obedience are two sides of the same coin. ![]() ![]() Jesus makes the point that love and obedience (to God's commandments) go hand in hand. The start of our reading packs a punch: 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments'. Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him.' On that day you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. In a short time the world will no longer see me but you will see me, because I live and you will live. I will not leave you orphans I will come back to you. I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, that Spirit of truth whom the world can never receive since it neither sees nor knows him but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you. 'If you love me you will keep my commandments. The Peasant Lawyer, by Pieter Breughel the Younger, Painted circa 1620 © Grohmann Museum at Milwaukee School of Engineering, Milwaukee
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