Moments of Absence of God

05-26-2019Weekly ReflectionFather Prince Raja

We are fast moving towards the end of the Eastertide. Next Sunday will be the feast of Ascension. The liturgy of the word is preparing us for the farewell of Jesus. The gospel text for this Sunday comes from the farewell discourse of Jesus after the last supper (John 14:23-29). Jesus says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. You heard me say: I am going away and shall return." Though the going away of Jesus is a preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit, the absence of Jesus could be agonizing. We might all go through moments of absence of God/Jesus, just as St John of the Cross, a Carmelite mystic who lived in the 16 century in Spain, is known for his mystical poems. His famous "Spiritual Canticle" (written in 1678) opens with these lines: Where have you hidden Yourself, and abandoned me to my sorrow, O my Beloved! You have fled like the hart, having wounded me. I ran after you, crying; but you were gone.

More recently, St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta seemed to have gone through this feeling of the absence of God for nearly 50 years of her life. Her letters and journal entries, published as a book entitled, Come Be My Light, express a darkness that Mother Teresa had to go through even as she was being the sign of the love of God for many people.

Against the backdrop of the farewell speech of Jesus in the gospel of today, I would like to invite you to reflect on the feeling of the absence of God in our lives, and how we might handle these situations.

1. Am I looking for Jesus in the right place? In Mt 2: the Magi went looking for Jesus – the king who was born, in the palace of Herod. Human logic. They preferred to follow human logic rather than that 'irrational' star in the sky. Logic failed them. When the women went to the tomb on the Sunday morning after the Sabbath, the angels told them: why seek the living among the dead? Simple logic: that is where they had seen him last on the Friday evening. But Jesus was not there!

2. Am I ready to be surprised by him? In the gospel today, Jesus says, I am going away so that the Holy Spirit could come. And he "will teach you everything" (Jn 14:26) While speaking to Nicodemus earlier in the Gospel of John (3:7-8), Jesus invites him to give the Holy Spirit his space: "The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

3 .Therefore, am I humble enough to accept that praying is my effort but what will happen during prayer is the Grace of God?

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