Holy Friendship

A Reflection on the Gospel for June 12th, 2022:
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

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John
16.12-15

Jesus said to his disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
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If I had been a companion of Jesus during His earthly life, I think hearing Him say to me “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” would have broken my heart. I am naturally a curious person, but Jesus held back — and not because He wanted to seem mysterious or because the apostles hadn’t earned His trust. Jesus didn’t tell His friends the whole truth because He loved them, and He knew the news of His death would break their hearts. 


It would break anyone’s heart to hear that a friend is going to die. The apostles were not only friends of Jesus but companions. They had given up their old lives to follow Him. They’d left behind family, friends, careers and communities. They’d rooted themselves in following Jesus and nothing else. This is why the news of His death — the loss of a beloved friend and the person they had built their entire lives around — would have been unbearable. 


Of course, this pain was coming anyway, whether they knew it or not. Was it cruel of Jesus to keep this burden from them for a little while longer, or was He simply protecting the joy and peace they had found in following Him? 


These are questions we can ask ourselves as much as we ask them of the apostles. I am writing this reflection as the world mourns the deaths of 19 children and two teachers in a school shooting; by the time it is published, I sadly expect that public attention will have moved on to a new tragedy. Big or small, we all know that suffering will be a part of our future in some way. God doesn’t want this suffering for us, any more than Jesus wanted to die. He asked His Father to take this suffering away from Him, just as I have often begged God to take away my own suffering. But He can redeem it.


When I read the gospels and see how God redeemed the suffering of Jesus — taking what was supposed to be His humiliating end and using it to redeem the entire world — it seems obvious that His suffering was a temporary pain for eternal good. But the apostles couldn’t understand this in the moment, which Jesus knew well. And in my own moments of suffering, I am often as confused and heartbroken as the apostles were after the crucifixion. 


I find it easy to understand how God worked through my suffering when all is done. Finding that peace and the wisdom to trust Him in the midst of the suffering is much harder. Thankfully, we have the Holy Spirit, who can strengthen us as we join our suffering to Jesus’, as we cry out to our Father who hears and loves us. This Sunday, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is an opportunity to bring our suffering to God. He can bear it when we cannot, and His love will redeem it in ways we cannot yet imagine. 


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​Jenna Young
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