Today's readings can be found: [HERE].
God has blessed us with the capacity to interact with the world that he has created. He has given us eyes to see. It wouldn't make sense for us to have eyes to see if there were nothing visible in the universe. Likewise, we have ears to hear, and it wouldn't make sense to have ears if there were no such thing as sound.
When we are deprived from sight or sound due to darkness or silence, we generally don't lose the capacity to see or hear. In fact, those capacities may increase in sensitivity and become more highly attuned to sight and sound when they are experienced again.
Our capacity to interact with the world isn't limited to perception. Take our capacity to eat, for example. It wouldn't make sense to have a whole system devoted to eating and digesting substances if there was nothing that was digestible. Rather, when we lack food, we don't lose the capacity to eat. We experience hunger, which makes our capacity to eat more voracious.
Spiritually, we have a capacity to receive Jesus Christ into our soul. Life makes no sense if Jesus isn't in it. Like someone experiencing hunger, the disciple experiences grief in the "apparent" absence of Christ. But just as hunger doesn't destroy our capacity to eat, but prompts us to devour food more eagerly; likewise, the disciple's grief, when triggered by a forced separation from Christ, "consumes" the experience of encountering the Lord again with great eagerness.
That's my hope when we're all able to celebrate Mass together publicly again. My hope is that this forced separation of believers from their Church has sparked a spiritual hunger for the sacred that can only be satisfied by the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
In our gospel today, Jesus tells his disciples: "Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy." May this time of exile come again, and may our joy be complete once again in the house of the Lord. May God bless you.
Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper: image retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)
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