Weeping, Mourning and Rejoicing

In today's Gospel, John 16: 20-23, we are again reminded that here on earth we will have times when we "will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; [we] will grieve but [our] grief will become joy. When a woman is labor,"  Jesus says to us, "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."   The sufferings of this life that cause us anguish, I believe,  are "birthing" us, if you will,  into the persons God intends us to be.  We might think of suffering as a means of  being "born" into holiness, a way in which God is "birthing" us into the self that resembles God and molds us into our Christ-self!  And if a natural birth is painful, and it is, then, too, is being "born" into our best selves, our God-self.  Suffering could be perceived, I believe, as the "birth canal" into a new self according to God's holy will.

Wanting life to be easy would be as unreasonable as wanting the birth of a child to be easy.  It is not and neither is life lived for and with and through God.  Jesus models for us how to deal with life's difficulties. He shows us how to deal with the traumas of life: being betrayed, being rejected, being ridiculed, being condemned, being impoverished, being bullied,  being a refugee or a stranger in a foreign land, being misunderstood. He even shows us how to deal with death and those causing us "death": "Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing."  And throughout His life up to and including the crucifixion on the cross, I believe, that Jesus often forgave his persecutors, his detractors, and those who scoffed at His teaching, those who hated Him.  Jesus kept His eyes on His Father and spent time each day in communication with Him. May we do the same so that we, too, are able to put things in their right perspective, especially when they cause us to weep and mourn.

Grief Turned into Joy

In today's Gospel, John 16: 16-20, the disciples are trying to figure out what Jesus meant when he said to them:  "A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.....Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, 'Are you discussing with one another what I said,...Amen, amen, I say to  you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.'" 

Jesus gives us the same message.  Our life here on earth is short--eighty years if we are strong, the psalmist says to us.  Our time here on earth is brief. And, from time to time,  it is filled with weeping and mourning, while the world around us rejoices.  We will grieve for a time but our sorrow will be turned into joy, just as Jesus' was!  Much of Jesus' life was filled with grief: the grief of the loss of His foster father, the grief of being rejected by many, by having chief priests and leaders of His people plotting to kill Him, the grief of others walking away from Him when He spoke of the Eucharist, that is, of eating His Body and drinking His blood. That was too much for many of His disciples.  He endured being accused of blasphemy when He spoke of being one with His Father. Jealous of His growing popularity and of the crowds following Him, the chief priests and leaders found a way to destroy Him, that is to have Him crucified as a criminal to the State of Israel. Yes, Jesus wept and mourned over Jerusalem while the world around Him rejoiced. His grief was turned into joy at the resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday. Our grief will also be turned into joy when we, too, like Jesus, return to our Father in heaven!  May we have the courage to endure until the end of our lives, believing in Jesus, trusting Jesus and loving Jesus beyond all else that is!

Turn to the Lord with our Whole Hearts

In today's first reading, Joel 2: 12-18, the Lord says to us through the prophet: "return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping and mourning; rend your hearts," the Lord says, "not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment....Blow the trumpet in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly; gather the people, notify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast....And say, 'Spare, O Lord, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach....'  Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?"

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. This Lent, may we as a nation return to the Lord with our whole hearts. Let us acknowledge our sins before God. "Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing." No doubt, in my mind, peoples throughout the world are saying of the U.S.: "Where is their God?" as they witness greed, avarice, narcissism, pride and arrogance, deceit and corruption, violence and hatred erode the values upon which this great nation was built by our forefathers and foremothers.

"Be merciful, O Lord," for we have sinned," we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 51.

May you and I personally return to the Lord, asking mercy for the ways in which we have succumbed to the sins of hatred, greed, narcissism, pride, lust, avarice, gluttony, selfishness, deceit and/or any others ways in which we are not in right relationship with God, self and others.  During this Lenten season, let us heed the Scriptures above and remember what St. Paul says to us in today's second reading, 2 Cor 5: 20-6:2:  "We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us."
St. Paul asks us to "be reconciled to God" and reminds us that God the Father "made [Jesus, His Son] to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

Through Christ Jesus, you and I are "the righteousness of God."  Do our behaviors and attitudes, our interactions with others, reveal this truth?

Enduring Joy

In the  first reading of today’s liturgy, Baruch 4: 5-12, 27-29,  Baruch tells the people not to fear but to remember that the reason that they were conquered by other nations was that they had abandoned the covenant God made with them.  This did not happen, Baruch tells them, because God wanted them to be destroyed, but that they had provoked God by sacrificing to “demons, to no-gods; you forsook the Eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you.”  Further on in the reading,  the holy city of Jerusalem—where God dwelt, as God dwells in our Tabernacles--says that with “joy I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go.”

I could not help but think of the times the Lord is directing us and we simply ignore the Spirit’s direction and do our own thing. “With joy,” God says, “I fostered them; but with mourning and lament I let them go.”  God deeply respects our free will and does not ever force us to embrace His will.  God lets us  go to experience the emptiness, if you will, or the frustration of not having followed the way to which God was calling us. It may be as simple as calling a friend, reaching out to someone we slighted and saying “I’m sorry,”  spending some leisure time in the evening with family or community members, listening with an open mind and heart or taking time to study the Scriptures or to do some substantive reading that nurtures our spiritual lives. Or, it may be more serious, like not getting involved with the wrong crowd that leads us into selfish pursuits  or that leads us into violating the rights of another person or of doing that which violates our own personal integrity.  Baruch says to us, then:  “As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God turn now ten times the more to seek him; for he who has brought disaster [frustration, emptiness, pain] upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.”