A Little While
Our Lord warned his disciples that “a little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while and ye shall see me. Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”
We are sometimes tempted to think that we seek Christ’s presence in vain, that he has abandoned his Church and the world to their own nefarious devices. Nothing could be further from the truth. The trials and misfortunes of this world serve their own purpose in God’s plan, just as the Crucifixion was necessary for our salvation, just as Christ’s Ascension into heaven had to happen so that he could send his Holy Spirit to fill the souls of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of his love. We must put up with some very challenging situations, so that better times may come. They will come!
Meanwhile, as we weep and lament while the world rejoices, it is in our Lord’s promise that we must always bear in mind, that “ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”
Out of the billions of souls who have ever lived, God chose us to live through these times of testing. Why us, you might ask? Because he saw in us the potential courage and sense of loyalty to his commandments necessary to withstand the onslaughts of Satan’s last desperate attempts to thwart God and his Church. We have been chosen as his warriors of truth and righteousness, we are the ones he has hand-picked to carry the light of the faith and the grace of the sacraments to a world being enveloped with darkness and evil. What will be our response? Are we to fall into the same mindless swamp of mediocrity and sin that the rest of the world is so eagerly pushing upon us? Will our Catholic ideals be corrupted by the message of the world and the devil that anything goes? Will we remain good Catholics, or will be become lapsed Catholics? We have the free will to make up our minds on these questions.
We might regret that our Lord had to physically ascend from this world and leave us alone. To do so would be to neglect his promise that he would send the Holy Ghost. There are three Persons in the Blessed Trinity, let’s not forget, and one is not greater or lesser than another. They are the same God. Only the Second Person assumed human form and that was for a very specific purpose, namely, so that he could physically suffer and die to make reparation for our sins. Once that had been accomplished, his human role was over and he rejoined his Father in heaven. But God remains with us through the presence of the Holy Ghost in our souls and bodies, closer even than a physical human being could ever be.
Truly, it was only “a little while” that the world was, in a certain sense, “without” its God. Nine days after the Ascension, the Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles, inspiring them to baptize and confirm the faithful, and ordain others to pass on the faith and sacraments. We have not been left as orphans, but truly as the heirs and children of God.
Just a little while longer… Very soon, perhaps this very morning, we will be able to receive the very Real Presence of God in the form of the Holy Eucharist. Then a little while and we will pass silently from this vale of tears into glory. A little while and this whole world shall perish—“heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” “Again a little while and ye shall me… and your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”