R Acts 13:26-33
Jn 14:1-6.

When someone you love deeply is seriously
ill and is not going to get better, it is a real way
of the cross. You feel helpless before the physical
decline of the person who has meant so much to
you for so long.

You sense that all you can do is to travel this difficult journey with your loved one, doing all you can to make that journey a little easier.

At the last supper, the disciples were aware that Jesus who had come to mean so much to them was soon to die, and there was nothing they could do about it. That is the setting of today’s gospel reading. In that highly charged moment, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me”.

It is a word that Jesus speaks to all those who are being called to let go of those they love because of illness. It is not easy to trust in God at such times. When Jesus calls on his disciples to trust, he also gives them a reason to trust. He assures them that in dying he will be going to the many roomed house of God his Father; he will be returning home to God his Father.

Jesus also assures them that where he is going is where he will bring all who trust in him when they come to the end of their earthly lives. ‘I will return to take you with me’, he says, ‘so that where I am, you may be too’. Jesus has passed through death to a new and fuller life for all of us. Where he has gone, he wants us to follow.

The decline associated with approaching death is the prelude to a great fullness of life in God our Father’s heavenly home. These words of Jesus to his disciples on the night before his own death give hope and comfort to us all as we face into the death of our loved ones and our own death, and more so in this difficult time of Covid-19. Let’s trust Him and He will not leave us alone. Amen.

Fr. John Peter | PP Kigoowa Parish.