Fresh Dew Media

 

Friday of 6^th Week of Easter: reflection

THEME: YOUR SORROW WILL TURN INTO JOY, AND NO ONE WILL TAKE YOUR JOY FROM YOU 

Reading: Jn 16:20-23a

Dear friends in Christ, the world we live in is full of hardships and sorrows. While good men and women are doing their best to build a society where justice, equity, and welfare of all are guaranteed, the devil uses his agents, especially those at the helm of affairs of different nations, to thwart their project/efforts and subject the people to endless hardships and sorrows. This sorrow is exacerbated for Christians because the type of message they carry and the type of life they live always attract negative reactions and attacks from those who are of the world.

While acknowledging the inevitability of sorrows in our world, but looking at them from God’s perspective, Jesus addresses us with some words of hope and assurance. He tells you and I that even though sorrows will surely come to us in this world, if we remain firm in the moments of our sorrows, they will surely turn into joy, the kind of joy that no one can steal from us.

Jesus used an image that is known to us, the pain of a woman in labour and her state of mind when she watches her child grow, to drive home this message of hope. Undoubtedly, mothers do not remember their labour pains when they carry their babies in their arms; rather, the joy of seeing their smiling babies eclipses such pains.

Dear friends, whatever be the situation that is causing you sorrows at this time, Jesus wants you to look up, remain focused and resist the temptation of giving up because joy is on the way. This joy will erase the traces left by sorrows in your life, and NO ONE will be able to steal this joy from you.

May God guide and direct you this Friday. Amen

 Fr Isaac Chima