Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 9, 2024

John 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.”

The text for today’s Gospel Reading is again taken from the Lord’s discourse to the Apostles at the Last Supper. From what the Gospels tell us, this was the last occasion on which the Lord Jesus spoke much with them, the appearances after his Resurrection not lasting very long.  He teaches them about his coming Passion, Death, and rising again, and also about his Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  We note his solicitude for them, assuring them over and over that they will be all right and that they will be cared for even as he reveals that he is leaving them so that they can grow and mature as believers.

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”  This literal translation of the Greek text sounds a little awkward.  The Lord Jesus speaks using a parallelism, a distinctly Hebrew poetical form.  It reads almost like a proverb from the Wisdom Books that follow the Psalms in the Scriptures.  This invites a deeper look into the Lord’s meaning.  Along with his meaning, obvious to us, that the Apostles will not see him for a time after his Death, he is saying that they will see him in an entirely new way after he rises from the dead.  Their eyes will be opened and they will confess his divinity with St. Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”  

“We do not know what he means.”  St. John could have left out the details of their confusion since they add nothing to the narrative, but showing their struggle to understand benefits anyone who has ever wondered with the Lord’s teachings: if the Apostles who spent three years with Jesus had a hard time, how much more likely this would be true for those without their experience.  We should compare these verses with the words and actions of his followers in John 6, 65-66.  In the latter case, those who had seen his miracles did not struggle to understand but gave up on the Lord when he gave them “a hard saying”.  Here, the Apostles very much do want to know what he means but do not know how to ask for more clarity — that is, the Lord is very clear; the greater clarity must occur in their minds.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”  They will weep and mourn after his Death, but the Lord is also talking of how they will, with difficulty, leave behind their dreams of an independent Israel and their notions of him as the warrior-Messiah.  However, in exchange they shall know him as the King of kings and Lord of lords, the only-begotten Son of God.  What a leap their faith took!  The grew to know Jesus as the wonder-worker, as the great preacher and prophet, but then to look into his eyes and know that they were looking into the eyes of the Mighty God!

The twenty-ninth article in our continuing series on the Holy Mass: The Ite, Missa Est

The Mass is concluded when the priest, following the post communion prayer, blesses the people and announces, “Go in peace.  The Mass has ended.” (or one of other options provided by the Missal.). And the congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.”   The priest’s words are a translation of the Latin phrase, Ite, missa est, which was used to announce that a public meeting was over.  It is a dismissal.  In the first centuries of Church history it was the second such dismissal, a general one, the first having been the sending out of the catechumens and non-believers.  We have already seen how the use of this phrase led to this most solemn worship of God being called the missa, which became “the Mass” in English.  Unlike the first dismissal, occurring after the reading of the Gospel, this dismissal was given a response, “Thanks be to God”, by which the congregation expresses its gratitude to God for the great privilege of worshipping him, and for the graces received during this worship.  

The command to “go forth” also deliberately echoes the order — “the Apostolic mandate” — to bring the Gospel to the world, in Matthew 28, 19–20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”  Because we abide in the Lord Jesus as members of his Body, a unity strengthened by our reception of Holy Communion, we believe what Jesus tells us: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”  To help us understand that we are sent forth from the Mass into the world on mission we should think about the placement of the Sacrament within the Mass.  Because it is kept until the very end, many of us have the idea that the purpose of the Mass is to receive Holy Communion, but that is not so.  If it were, we would receive it at the beginning of Mass.  instead, it is kept until the end so that, nourished by the grace of the Sacrament we are ready to go out into the world.

On Sundays and feast days a hymn of praise and thanksgiving may be sung as the priest processes out of the sanctuary.  

Next: Gestures of the priest and people during Mass