Life is full of moments of grief and joy. On the surface, all of us would choose a life without the grief, wouldn’t we? And yet we have to face the mystery that if you eliminate the grief and the pain of the past… you’d be somewhere else or someone else.
I was struck by this simple admission of Cardinal Van Thuan, who wrote that even if God told him he could live his life again, “I would not choose any other road but this. I have been happy and full of joy because I have hope in the Lord and have learned to love.”
We’re talking about a Vietnamese archbishop who was imprisoned for 13 years, nine of which were in solitary confinement. He would not have chosen another road. (If you’re facing a time of spiritual dryness or find yourself in a woe-is-me rut, I would highly recommend anything he wrote!)
Or what about St. Josephine Bakhita, who suffered extreme abuse after being kidnapped and sold into slavery? At the end of her life, she said, “If I were to meet those who kidnapped me, and even those who tortured me, I would kneel and kiss their hands. For, if these things had not happened, I would not have been a Christian and a religious today.”
This is not to condone anything of what happened to these saints. But it’s a reminder to us that God works all for the good (Rom 8:28). God even uses the pain of our past to bring good.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is trying to prepare his Apostles for the horrors of the crucifixion. If you are struggling with the mystery of pain in your own life, read this words and remember that there is hope and joy. It might not be immediately apparent. And for some of us, it will only be in heaven.
But God is bigger than our pain. He’s bigger than any wound or suffering.
“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn,
– John 16:20-23
while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.
When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived;
but when she has given birth to a child,
she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy
that a child has been born into the world.
So you also are now in anguish.
But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy away from you.
On that day you will not question me about anything.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.”
If given the chance, it might be tempting to go into a time machine and relive your life without any of the messy bits – without the pain and suffering and anguish. Erase the pain.
But if we do that, do we erase the instrument of our salvation?
Image credit: Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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