Your hearts will rejoice

In today’s Gospel, John 16: 20-23, Jesus  says to us:  “…you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you are in anguish. But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

What an image; namely, that you and I are in anguish as we give birth to the image of Christ within us, as we are being reborn into Christ.  There will come a day when you and I will be more Christlike than we now are.  There will come a day when you and I will be more free than we now are,  more patient, more loving, more caring, more prudent, more courageous, more honest, etc.—perhaps  as courageous as St. Paul and all of the apostles who overcame their fear of persecution following Pentecost. Sometimes we triumph because we have let go of our fears and prejudices, our biases and doubts, our angers and resentments  and  no longer put ourselves down  or consider others stronger than ourselves, smarter than myself,  more competent than ourselves as an excuse to not develop our own potential. There will come a day when we won’t care, in the good sense of not caring, and will do whatever the Spirit calls us to do in His name, no matter what the consequences. Yes, we are in anguish, as we truly want to become the persons God has called us to become before we die. Each of us will arrive at that point where we allow no one to take away the joy of doing God’s will, no matter how difficult or how painful that might be. And though we wonder if we will ever be like a Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a St. John the Baptist, a St. Thomas More,  a Dorothy Day, a Nelson Mandella, a Martin Luther King,  a Kateri Tekawitha, or a Mary Magdalen,  or whomever we want to emulate, each of these persons, at one time or another, were where we now are in our transformation.  We are in the process of becoming one with Christ and our efforts will not go unrewarded. “I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice.”