Homily: 19 May 2023: 16:20-23

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Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.

Grief and joy: you will grieve, but not for ever.  Your joy, no one can take from you.

Our lives are like births.  Current studies suggest that the birth of a child is somehow an agreement made between mother and child, when the mother can no longer nourish the child adequately from inside her womb.

Studies also show that at times it takes much convincing to get a child to be born.  Indigenous peoples have had the ancient members of the family or clan present for births.  When the labor is long and intensive, the ancients start chanting for the child, encouraging the child to come forth, promising to care for the child after birth, soothing the anxieties of the unborn child.  After this the birth takes place easily and joyfully.

Pain and anxiety are often present at birthing moments, not only for the mother, but also for the child.  Afterwards, however, there is joy at the birth, joy for the mother and joy for the child.  Sorrow gives way to joy.

Jesus’ going away is like a childbirth.  It would involve pain and sorrow from the passion and death on the cross.  It would also involve joy because he would rise again and return to his disciples.  Then he would lead them into the kingdom of his Father.

We are born; we also die.  Just as birth the child must do something, so also in dying the person does something, the person dies.  Just as a person comes to birth so also a person dies.  Coming to birth and dying are personal acts. 

The process of birthing entails pain and suffering for a moment, and the process of dying also involves pain and sorrow for a moment.  After birth and after death, however, there is joy.  In between, our lives are filled with challenges and pain, alternating with joy and gladness as we grow up into maturity.

The disciples would miss Jesus when he would die on the cross, but he would rise again, and their joy would come back.  There have been times, and there will always be times, when the Church experiences the presence of Jesus.  There have been and will be times when the Church seems to experience the absence of the Lord.  The Church throughout history has experienced both the join of union with Christ and the pain of an absence. 

The early disciples experienced both the pain and the joy of living in the world where often Jesus seemed missing and at other times present.  The ancients of the Church are gathered with Christ around us, urging us to keep coming despite obstacles, promising to be with us in the process of our growing into the fulness of Christ.