Your grief will become joy

THURSDAY 21 MAY (Jn 16,16-20)

Jesus is on the cross. The disciples are in tears and sadness. Jesus rises. They are in great joy. Jesus is in the great tribulation. He is called back to life by the Father, giving him a spiritual, glorious, incorruptible and immortal body. He is raised above the heavens and seated on his right hand. The suffering has been great. Joy is divinely and eternally greater. The Father has transformed his suffering into eternal joy by multiplying it for eternity and moreover, by his sacrifice, the Father gives the grace of salvation and redemption to every man who believes in the name of his Only Begotten Son. Even the disciple of Jesus for a moment of suffering, for a suffered martyrdom, will receive an immense amount of glory and eternal joy. No drop of blood will be lost. Everything will become glory and perfect joy.

The Book of Revelation reveals us how great the joy of the saved and in particular of the martyrs is: “After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.” All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed: “Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.” Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. “For this reason they stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple. The one who sits on the throne will shelter them. They will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them. For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”” (Rev 7,9-17). We are in the glory.

St. Paul reveals that present time sufferings are not at all comparable to the glory of Paradise: “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. But we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance” (Cf. Rm 8,16-25). The martyrdom of a moment is rewarded by the Father with an eternal glory that is without measure and without end. But to see the glory of heaven the eyes of the Holy Spirit are needed. All the saints had these eyes and made of life a sacrifice to God.

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ (of which he speaks)? We do not know what he means.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.

We can possess the eyes of the Holy Spirit to contemplate future glory prematurely, if we ask our Father to make us with a pure, humble and meek heart, in all similar to the heart of Jesus. However, this prayer must be the fruit of a will that wants to obey every command of Christ the Lord, according to his Word.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, obtain for us the constancy to walk towards heaven.