Thursday, 6th week of Easter

DAILY GOSPEL COMMENTARY:
“YOUR GRIEF WILL BECOME JOY” (Jn 16:16-20).

Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter
In places where the celebration of Ascension is transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the following readings are used on this Thursday.

READING I
Acts 18:1–8
Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. He went to visit them and, because he practiced the same trade, stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. Every sabbath, he entered into discussions in the synagogue, attempting to convince both Jews and Greeks.
When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began to occupy himself totally with preaching the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. When they opposed him and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your heads! I am clear of responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” So he left there and went to a house belonging to a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next to a synagogue. Crispus, the synagogue official, came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized.
 
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Or: Alleluia.
Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Or: Alleluia.
The Lord has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Or: Alleluia.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
Or: Alleluia.
 
ALLELUIA
The Lord said: I will not leave you orphans. I will come back to you, and your hearts will rejoice.

Gospel of Thursday, 6th week of Easter.
(Jn 16:16-20).

Jesus said to his disciples: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks? We do not know what he means.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.

GOSPEL COMMENTARY from the Navarre Bible, Commentary to the Gospel of St. John (with permission)

Earlier our Lord consoled the disciples by assuring them that he would send them the Holy Spirit after he went away (v. 7).

• Now he gives them further consolation: he is not leaving them permanently, he will come back to stay with them.
• However, the Apostles fail to grasp what he means, and they ask each other what they make of it.

Our Lord does not give them a direct explanation, perhaps because they would not understand what he meant (as happened before: cf. Mt 16:21-23 and par.).

• But he does emphasize that though they are sad now they will soon be rejoicing: after suffering tribulation they will be filled with a joy they will never lose (cf. Jn 17:13).

This is a reference primarily to the Resurrection (cf. Lk 24:41), but also to their definitive encounter with Christ in heaven.

• This image of the woman giving birth (frequently used in the Old Testament to express intense pain) is also often used, particularly by the prophets, to mean the birth of the new messianic people (cf. Is 2 1:3; 26:17; 66:7; Jer 30:6; Hos 13:13; Mic 4:9-10).

The words of Jesus reported here seem to be the fulfilment of those prophecies.

• The birth of the messianic people — the Church of Christ — involves intense pain, not only for Jesus but also, to some degree, for the Apostles.
• But this pain, like birthpains, will be made up for by the joy of the final coming of the Kingdom of Christ: “I am convinced,” says St Paul, “that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).

VIDEO COMMENTARY ON TODAY’S FIRST READING (Acts 18:1–8)
TOPIC: What would you do if you know that Jesus is the person in front of you?

Paul was trying to evangelize Corinth, a city in Greece that was known for sin. According to the Christian Community Bible, it had 600,000 inhabitants and 400,000 of those were slaves. It had a thriving prostitution trade and the city was known for its luxury and corruption. Corinth was the sin city, the “Las Vegas” of the Roman Empire. The task could be too daunting and discouraging even for Paul. Thus, one night, Jesus appears to Paul in a vision and says, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.” Perhaps, Jesus uttered the last phrase “for I have many people in this city” not to mean that they were already disciples but He meant that people there were longing for conversion and holiness. We are all called to be saints through our evangelization efforts. We are called to be holy by seeing Jesus in every person we meet so that we can treat them the way we would Jesus. In this way, conversion will easily follow.

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