6h Sunday of Easter

Becoming the Temple of the Lord

Catholic Daily Readings 5-10-2026: Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:23

6th Sunday of Easter

Nina Heereman

Catholic Daily Readings 5-10-2026: Sixth Sunday of Easter

First Reading       Acts 8:5–8, 14–17               Response       Psalm 66:1               Psalm       Psalm 66:1–7, 16, 20               Second Reading       1 Peter 3:15–18               Gospel Acclamation       John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”               Gospel       John 14:15–21

While the 4th and 5th Sunday of Easter had focused entirely on the mystery of baptism, namely that we had become the Temple of the Lord, 1268 “living stones” to be “built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood.”74By Baptism we have been given a share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. We have become, in the words of St. Peter “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light.”75 Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers. (1141; 784)[1], the 6th Sunday of Easter now focuses on the grace of Confirmation, a sacrament which flows equally from the opened side of Christ and which confers the power of the Holy Spirit on us. The theme that weaves the three readings together is therefore, Christ’s great promise to send us another counselor, the Holy Spirit!

John 14:15–21RSVCE

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, (advocatus - Herbeigerufener - Tröster - Beistand). to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. “I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” ((Exodus 19:6 “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”” )

This is the promise of all promises. Jesus is speaking in the upper room and taking his farewell. The disciples are distraught, but he promises that He will return. And not Him alone, He and the Father! How? Through the gift of another counselor.

CCC 687 God’s Spirit, who reveals God, makes known to us Christ, his Word, his living Utterance, but the Spirit does not speak of himself. The Spirit who “has spoken through the prophets” makes us hear the Father’s Word, but we do not hear the Spirit himself. We know him only in the movement by which he reveals the Word to us and disposes us to welcome him in faith. The Spirit of truth who “unveils” Christ to us “will not speak on his own.”Jn 16:13. Such properly divine self-effacement explains why “the world cannot receive [him], because it neither sees him nor knows him,” while those who believe in Christ know the Spirit because he dwells with them. John 14:17 (243)

In the first reading we therefore hear a text from the Acts of the Apostles, a passage in which the Church sees the biblical source text for the sacrament of Confirmation CCC 1315.

Acts 8:5–8RSVCE

Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice; and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.

Acts 8:14–17RSVCE

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

From the beginning of the Church, attested in the NT (letter to the Hebrews: Baptism and teaching of the laying of the hands=confirmation, the Church has understood the laying of the hands as the beginning of the sacrament of confirmation. Here in Samaria, Philipp who was a deacon was preaching Christ. However, to confer the Holy Spirit on these Gentiles, the apostles themselves needed to come. That is why in the Church, the Sacrament of Confirmation is ordinarily administered by a successor to the Apostles, the bishop. The sacrament of confirmation, says the CCC, lets the grace of Pentecost perdure in the Church (CCC 1288). The term “confirmation” signifies that the grace of baptism is confirmed and strengthened.

III.        The Effects of Confirmation

1302 It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. (731)

1303 From this fact, Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace: (1262–1274; 2044)

— it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us cry, “Abba! Father!”;117

— it unites us more firmly to Christ;

— it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;

— it renders our bond with the Church more perfect;118

— it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross:119

Recall then that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in God’s presence. Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed his pledge, the Spirit, in your hearts (St. Ambronse, de myst. 7, 42)

1304 Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the “character,” which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness.121 (1121)

1305 This “character” perfects the common priesthood of the faithful, received in Baptism, and “the confirmed person receives the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially (quasi ex officio).”122(1268[2])

2nd Reading:

The second reading, then, focuses on exactly this capacity and vocation that has been given to us in the Sacrament of Confirmation: The call to given an account for the hope that is in us. As he did the early Church, St. Peter, the first pope. Exhorts us

1 Peter 3:15–18RSVCE

in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord.Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (phobos);and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God’s will, than for doing wrong. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;

In his exortation to reverence Christ as Lord in our hearts, Peter echoing Isaiah 8:12–13 ““Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear and let him be your dread.” While the world is kept in fear and trembling by innumerable conspiracy theories, Peter is telling us: fear nothing, except the Lord, who dwells in your heart. The Heart, according to the hagiographers and the Church Fathers, is the center of the human being, the seat of life. There the living God has made his dwelling in us. If we are aware of this unfathomable reality, we will not fear anything, except to offend our Lord. And this freedom of fear, will draw people to ask us about the source of our hope. And then we have to be prepared to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (phobos).

Peter’s exhortation is reminiscent of Paul’s words to the Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.”)

Similarly Peter: “in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord.” In antiquity there was a debate whether the seat of Life was in the brain or in the heart. The Hagiographers and Fathers did not participate in the debate, but speak about the Heart as the center of man. “Das »Herz« bezeichnet die Einheit des Menschen: den Ort, an dem Vernunft, Gefühl und Wille zusammenfinden; wo Leib und Geist einander durchdringen und eine Einheit bilden.” (Benedikt, Der Herr hält uns an der Hand, 6. Sonntag Osterzeit A).

That is: we have to believe in our hearts, but we also need to  “be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence;” In the middle ages this sentence was the basis of every theological endeavor. All of are, must be enabled to explain the reason for our hope in simple terms: “I have hope because I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was raised on the third day, which is the proof that God has forgiven my sins - they no longer exist - and that Christ can give eternal life to whomever he wills, that is, to who ever believes in him. …

That is why Catechesis is so important.

Do so with gentleness: never use violence!

Do so with gentleness and reverence (phobos = fear of God). That is, fear of God! We must be careful to transmit the entire message exactly like God has entrusted it to his Church without mitigating or falsifying it for fear of human beings. 

74 1 Pet 2:5.

75 1 Pet 2:9.

[1]Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 323.

117 Rom 8:15.

118 Cf. LG11.

119 Cf. Council of Florence (1439): DS 1319; LG 11; 12.

121 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1609; Lk 24:48–49.

122 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 72, 5, ad 2.

[2]Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 330.