Friday, Sixth Week of Easter

The hour of Jesus’ passion and death was a time of great sorrow for his disciples. As Jesus declares to them, speaking in the setting of the last supper, ‘you will be weeping and wailing… you will be sorrowful’. We have all know the deep sorrow associated with the death of a loved one, be it a parent or a spouse or a sibling or a dear friend. Jesus then immediately speaks of the joy his disciples will experience when he rises from the dead and appears to them, ‘your sorrow will turn to joy… I will see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy’. He speaks of this joy as like the joy of a mother at the birth of her child, after the suffering of childbirth. Both Easter and the birth of a child speak of the joy of new life. We are in the season of Easter, but Easter is not just a seven week season. It is always Easter because the Lord is always risen. As the risen Lord says to Paul in the first reading, ‘Do not be afraid… I am with you’. The risen Lord is always with us and the joy of Easter is always available to us, even in our moments of profound sadness. Saint Paul speaks of this joy as the fruit of the Spirit, the Spirit of the risen Lord. Because the risen Lord is always with us, and because he has poured the Spirit of his love into our lives, we can experience something of the Lord’s own joy, even when the emotion of sorrow overwhelms us. Even in our darkest valleys, the light of Easter always shines. The joy Jesus speaks about is rooted in his relationship with us, a relationship of love that endures in good times and in bad, which  is why Jesus can say in the gospel reading, ‘that joy no one shall take from you’.