The Consolation

Gospel: John 16: 5-11

The disciples are overcome with grief.  Jesus has been unjustly executed, and they have some guilt regarding this death.  One of their band betrayed him, another denied him three times, and the rest abandoned him to this cruel fate.  The trauma of all these events magnifies the grief they feel, all of which are perfectly natural and understandable responses to trauma and death that human beings experience each and every day.  

However, Jesus promises to send them the Consoler, the Holy Spirit who will help them overcome this grief.  Over time they will come to see and realize many things.  Jesus is physically absent from them, but his Spirit moves among them, enabling them to carry out the works of mercy and loving kindness he performed while on earth.  Eventually, their sorrow will turn into joy, knowing that Jesus lives among us in word, sacrament, and the presence of others.  

In our own grief we experience with the loss of loved ones we too can find consolation in the Spirit and in the ongoing presence of Jesus in the world.  Grief can seem like a slab of concrete that crushes us.  But like a little tiny tree shoot in the crack of the concrete, over time it grows above the concrete and breaks that concrete to be a strong tree.  The concrete, the grief, will always be there, but it no longer dominates our life.  This is what the Spirit enables us to do with the consolation she brings to our lives.