The Sixth Sunday of Easter (2026)
Most of us have probably experienced this at some point:
Sitting with a decision you don’t know how to make, or facing something in your life that feels bigger than you, or carrying a weight that you don’t quite know how to name…
When you realize you don’t have the answer, and you’re not sure how to move forward.
And yet, in those moments, there can be this quiet pressure—to have it figured out, to be able to handle it on our own.
And maybe that’s because we are formed, from a young age, to be self-starters, to stand on our own two feet, to believe that we should be able to manage whatever comes our way.
Our culture teaches us to see every person as a self-sufficient individual responsible, in the end, only for themselves and their own happiness.
Another way we say it is that it’s every man, every woman for themselves.
Tied up in all of this is our sense of self-worth. And so we can find ourselves white-knuckling our way through life—exhausted—and our world becomes very small.
When that happens, “me,” my preferences, my intellect, my tastes, my satisfaction become all that matters. We become the center of a universe of our own creation. That independence we try to hold on to can become isolation… we find ourselves alone. Our perspective becomes too narrow and we lose the ability, the freedom to ask for help.
Help.
It is such a small word—but it is also one of the hardest words to say… It holds a world of meaning and possibility, especially when those times come when we can’t do it all ourselves. And most of us know what that feels like—more than we would like to admit.
In a way, “help” is what the Readings for this Sunday’s liturgy are inviting us to reflect on.
In the Gospel proclaimed a few minutes ago, we heard a passage taken from the “Farewell Discourse” of John’s Gospel. The setting is the Last Supper—only a few hours before Jesus will be betrayed and arrested—and he is sharing his final thoughts and instructions with the disciples.
His time with them is short. He knows that, once he is gone, they will have questions: “What’s next?” “What do we do now?”
How could they not feel abandoned—orphaned—once he was taken from them? It would make sense that each of them could become isolated in a world of their own questions, their doubts, and their fears.
But Jesus names and addresses this reality when he says to them,
I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always… the Spirit of truth…
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you...
You will see me, because I live and you will live.
“I will not leave you orphans.”
But how?
How could he remain with them? How does he remain with us, nearly 2,000 years after his ascension into heaven?
To answer that question, we need to be mindful of this promised “Advocate,” the “Spirit of truth.”
This “Advocate” is the Paraklētos—the Paraclete. The word Jesus uses means one who comes alongside us—someone who helps and guides us.
To say it another way, the Holy Spirit remains with us as our “helper.”
By promising to send this Advocate, Jesus is telling his closest followers that even though he could no longer be physically present to them, his Spirit would remain with them—
encouraging them,
defending them,
guiding them as they continued Jesus’ mission of mercy through their own work of sharing the Good News. They weren’t on their own in fulfilling this mission. Rather, the Spirit of Jesus—the Spirit of truth—was their advocate and helper.
And this is where everything begins to change. That small, closed-in world we can fall into—the isolation we experience—is exactly what the Spirit comes to transform.
Because of the Spirit’s help, they weren’t left in that small world of uncertainty, trying to make sense of what was next on their own, like Thomas on that first Easter Sunday. The Spirit of truth drew them together. And in doing so, their world—their vision—began to expand beyond anything they might have imagined, and the whole world became their place of mission and ministry.
This is what we discover in the Acts of the Apostles, as we hear about the joys and struggles of the Early Church. The Holy Spirit—as Advocate, Comforter, and Defender—inspired those first Christians to throw open the doors and leave their places of security to go out and share the gift of God’s healing and forgiving love.
That could only happen because of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit at work among them and within them.
This Sunday, the Church is inviting us to look forward to the Solemnity of the Ascension and to Pentecost, asking us to reflect on the gift of the Holy Spirit—our Advocate—and to open our minds and hearts to the Spirit’s transforming love.
And, in this, we are not alone. The Spirit remains with us—our Advocate, our helper—and that is the reason for our hope. And perhaps that means that faith begins there—not in having all the answers, not in being strong enough on our own, but in allowing ourselves to ask for help… and to trust that we are not alone, and that, with the help of the Spirit, we can keep going forward.
Grant, almighty God,
that we may celebrate with heartfelt devotion these days of joy,
which we keep in honor of the risen Lord,
and that what we relive in remembrance
we may always hold to in what we do.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
Homily prepared for Ss. Peter and Paul Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
