Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
See how Jesus does all He can to comfort and assure His friends! They are anxious about all His talk about betrayal, about leaving; they are in grief. Imagine three amazing years with Jesus coming to a sudden, tragic, and uncertain end! Yet He uses the beautiful image of a woman giving birth to give them hope. For months a mother anticipates the birth of her child, and suddenly the pangs of birth are upon her. It can be a frightening experience, a painful experience, but once that child is in her arms it is as if all that fear and pain was never there. That is what their experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection shall be; that is the experience of the Church since His Ascension into Heaven, and our experience likewise. The whole history of the Church is one of anticipation, of being in the midst of something that is growing, maturing, and “not yet.” But when the time comes, and Jesus returns, our “…hearts will rejoice, and no one will take…” our joy from us, for our joy will have returned: Jesus.