Your Grief Will Become Joy
“For the Souls in Purgatory – Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord”
John 16:20,22
Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy… 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 from you.
Grace Prayed For
Lord, give us patience in grief and hope that does not disappoint, trusting that the morning you promise will come and the joy will be worth the wait.
Reflection
Twice in these few verses Jesus names something the disciples are not quite ready to believe: the grief is real, and it is going to get worse before it gets better. ‘You will weep and mourn.’ He is not speaking hypothetically. The cross is hours away.
But alongside the acknowledgment of grief, a promise: your grief will become joy. Not your grief will be replaced by joy, as if the painful thing simply vanishes. It will become joy — transformed, not erased, the way labor pains are transformed when the child is born. The same experience, completely reorganized by what comes after.
The woman in labor, Jesus says, does not remember the pain once she holds her child. This is not amnesia; it is a new perspective that recontextualizes everything before it. The disciples will reach a morning when they see Jesus alive, and the grief of these days will not have disappeared — it will have become the very depth of their joy.
And this joy, Jesus says, no one will take from you. This is a striking promise. There are many joys that can be taken: the joy of health, of success, of human relationships, of pleasant circumstances. But the joy rooted in knowing the Risen Christ — the joy that has passed through grief and come out the other side — this joy is of a different order. It is not dependent on circumstances because it has already survived the worst circumstances.
For those in your group who are currently in the weeping — or who have been, and can remember it — this is the word of the Risen Christ to you: the grief is real, and it is not the end. I will see you again.
When Time Allows Reflect on the Posts in Library and Musings
Sharing
Jesus last words on Earth were to his disciples, can be found in Matthew Chap 28 when Jesus told his disciples, “Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Jesus calls all of us to share in his redemptive mission here on Earth. I would ask you to share this Scripture reflection with your family, your friends and your acquaintances, and then share it with a couple of individuals that you may may not be comfortable sharing with, keeping in mind always the words of Jesus, And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age
Author was assisted by AI in the drafting of this Post