Prayer Prompt before reading JN 16:20-23: Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and God the Son so that I may know who I am.
“YOU WILL GRIEVE, BUT YOUR GRIEF WILL BECOME JOY.” JN 16:20-23
Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
We are still in the Last Supper account and today Jesus reminds us of something that seems backwards, suffering brings joy. When a person forgets this, they think comfort and luxury bring joy and they try to fill their yearning heart with material things. The Gospel is a Gospel of detachment. Jesus had to go through the Passion to get to the Resurrection. We, too, must suffer to be rewarded with joy.
Catholics don’t enjoy suffering, but Jesus gives purpose to suffering, it is a great avenue for grace. God’s grace restores what sin has damaged. Any pain or suffering we are going through can be offered up with Jesus’s suffering on the cross (don’t forget to do this while you are suffering) and receive grace. Jesus never promises to take away our suffering, but that He will be with us in it.
Most importantly, this is the point of a vocation, our call to give our life up for another in priesthood, religious life, or mother and father. Our suffering is joyful and not a burden or work, when we are doing it for another called by God in our mission. Jesus Christ is the most joyful Man hanging on that cross. He took on everyone’s sins and atoned for them.
This was His mission. We cannot take His place and die for our own sins. This is the greatest sacrifice and act of love. God humbly became one of us to do it. Amazing humility and love!! The Father is radically in love with His creation. May we suffer joyfully in mission for our Father, the rewards are eternal.
Peter Kreeft reminds us that the worst pain or suffering on earth will be like a cough due cold compared to the joy and glory of heaven. Our greatest witnesses (martyrs) willingly go to their death for Christ based on this very fact. What many North American Christians don’t realize is that there have been more martyrs in the 20th century than all other centuries combined.
This Is The Age of Martyrs
“In a recent article, Justin D. Long emphasized the startling fact that more people have died for their faith in the Twentieth Century than in all of the previous centuries combined. “During this century, we have documented cases in excess of 26 million martyrs. From AD 33 to 1900, we have documented 14 million martyrs.””
http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/modern-persecution-11630665.html
Amazing! God’s love is the most powerful thing in the world. Allow Him to give it to you!
Today’s challenge: Offer up all suffering with Christ’s suffering on the cross and receive grace which makes us holy and helps us grow closer to Jesus who knows what suffering is about which in turn helps us to enter eternal joy-heaven!
Be a servant, be a saint today!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
This reading teaches me to offer up all of my suffering to Jesus’s suffering on the cross. It teaches me to go to God when I am suffering.