In Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize Award-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer in a racially-divided town of Maycomb, Alabama, takes a monumental risk of defending Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. He stands up against a deeply ingrained racism of his time, challenging a status quo, and fighting for what is right. He is the embodiment of integrity, compassion, and moral courage, a true model for lawyers or advocates.

In the movie version, he is played by Gregory Peck for which he won the Oscar Award’s best actor. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the Advocate (Greek paraklētos). A paraclete is an advocate, helper, comforter—someone called to one’s aid, exactly what Atticus did for the accused Tom Robinson and his family. While this is an epithet of the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks elsewhere of “another” Advocate (14:16-17), implying that he is “the first” Advocate. In fact, this is what he does for his disciples: teaching them, defending their actions against their accusers, comforting them, especially in view of the scandal of his passion and death. The coming of the Holy Spirit is a continuation of his care for his disciples.

Pope Benedict XVI speaks of Jesus as “paraclete” when he faces the Lord at the end of his earthly life: “Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life. Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer, for I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings, and is thus also my advocate, my ‘Paraclete.’”

We set sail from Troas, making a straight run for Samothrace, and on the next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, a leading city in that district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We spent some time in that city. On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there. One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God, listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.

“The Lord takes delight in his people.” or “Alleluia.”

Jesus said to his disciples: “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”