Paraclete

This morning's early sun makes these budding leaves blaze like green flames.
I sat out in the sun today to use John 14:23-29 for prayer.  The title "Paraclete" got all my attention.  I got out Father Raymond Brown's 1970 commentary on John's Gospel and really spent a lot of time studying rather than praying.
He summarizes his extensive treatment this way: "It is our contention that John presents the Paraclete as the Holy Spirit in a special role, namely, as the personal presence of Jesus in the Christian while Jesus is with the Father."
The word "paraclete" comes from a Greek verb that basically means "to call alongside."  Brown says it can mean advocate or defense attorney.  In another sense an intercessor, a mediator, a spokesman.  The word can also mean a comforter or consoler, and still again a witness. 
Brown recommends keeping the title in English translations because no single translation captures the complexity of its meaning.  He sums up, "The Paraclete is a witness in defense of Jesus and a spokesman for him in the context of his trial by his enemies; the Paraclete is a consoler of the disciples for he takes Jesus' place among them; the Paraclete is a teacher and guide of the disciples and thus their helper."
Father Brown suggests that near the end of the first century when the Gospel of John was written his community felt that they were losing their connection with Jesus that was provided by eyewitnesses to his life and ministry.  In John 14:16 Jesus says that he will ask the Father to send "another Paraclete," implying that Jesus was also a "Paraclete."  The Christians of John's day, and of ours, are no further removed from  the ministry of Jesus than were the earlier Christians, for the Paraclete remains within us as "the personal presence of Jesus."