Monday in the Seventh Week of Easter, May 30, 2022

John 16:29-33

The disciples said to Jesus, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech. Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you. Because of this we believe that you came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone. But I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass comes from the end of the Lord’s Last Supper Discourse.  After he finished speaking, he led his Apostles out to the Garden of Gethsemane so that he could pray.  

The Lord Jesus has spoken for an hour or even longer, teaching, urging, and warning his Apostles.  He has revealed and promised great things to them.  Now, at the end, they say, “Now you are talking plainly, and not in any figure of speech.”  The Greek word translated here as “figure of speech” actually means “an allegory”.  What is noteworthy here is not that the Lord was finally “talking plainly” but that the Apostles confess that they had thought Jesus was teaching primarily in allegories before.  In fact, apart from the parables, the Lord had spoken plainly throughout the three years of his Public Life.  The Apostles, during this time, had tried to interpret what he told them in accord with their understanding of the Law and of the Messiah.  His speaking was plain and direct, but not their hearing. “Now we realize that you know everything and that you do not need to have anyone question you.”  This could be translated as, “. . . and that no one should challenge you.”  

“Because of this we believe that you came from God.”  This statement of belief is not as strong as St. Peter’s in Matthew 16, 16, and can mean a wide range of things.  It does allow us to gauge the level and depth of the belief of the Apostles before the Lord’s Resurrection and after it, and then after Pentecost.  The Lord responds to this weak expression of their faith: “Do you believe now? Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived when each of you will be scattered to his own home and you will leave me alone.”  Two of the three people who will stand under the Cross with him will be women followers — his Mother, and Mary Magdalene.  Only one Apostle will go there.   “You will leave me alone.”  The Greek verb translated here as “will leave” has the primary sense of “to send away”, so it is as if the Lord were saying that the Apostles would throw him aside as they ran for their lives.  The Greek word translated here as “alone” has the sense of “solitary” and “desolate”.  Of all the Lord’s sufferings, perhaps the most pathetic is how alone he is.  There is no one to comfort him, no one to support him, no one to contradict the evil that people are saying about him.  

“But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”  And yet, in his agony, it will seem that even his Father has abandoned him, for he cries out from the Cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27, 46), taking the verse from Psalm 22.  Even then, though, he knows his Father is with him.  The Lord tells the Apostles this to teach them that if they leave him, they are the ones who will be alone.  They will be “scattered to his own home”, not even together, and they will then will not have the Father with them as they have abandoned his Son.  Their desolation will be so great in their solitude that they will make their way back to the house where they had eaten the Last Supper with him, as though to go back in time to when he was still alive.  “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.”  He foretells these events to them so that they will know at that time to be confident that the other things he has told them will come to pass.

“In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” This should be translated, “In the world you have persecution [or, affliction], but take courage, etc.”  “Trouble” can be small or great and accidental, but persecution and affliction are directed by someone at someone.  It is malicious in a way mere “trouble” is not.  The Lord Jesus announces even before his Death and Resurrection that he has “conquered the world”.  St. Thomas says that he overcame the concupiscence of the eyes, of the body, and the pride of life.  He did this through overcoming lust with his continence, riches with his poverty, and pride with his humility.  

We learn from this reading more of the Lord Jesus, his personality and his knowledge of his Apostles.  He knows very clearly what he is doing and what will happen.  He will be dead in less than 24 hours and he is still the one who is calm, in command, and majestic.  We can share in the victory he won over the world by also conquering its vices and temptations by the virtues which we receive from him.