"If you loved me you would have been glad to know that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
I have told you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen you may believe.'"

I once heard a preacher describe this Gospel as "the first bit of bad news since Easter". The apostles have to try to understand that ­ after the despair of His death and the joy of his resurrection that Jesus is about to go away from them again.

It is part of being a doctor and a priest that I frequently deal with the relatives of people who have died. And one of the extraordinary things about doing that is that it is so often when a person has lived a long, happy and fulfilled life and died after a long illness, when their death was expected by all their family members, it is often then  that there is the greatest grief. And people almost never feel sorry for the person who has died ­ they have gone to their reward and whatever suffering they may have had in life is over. No, rather people grieve for what they themselves have lost ­ the presence of a person who was very important to them and without whom they do not understand how life will continue. So often they say ­ either in their hearts or out loud ­ "why did you leave me".

Two weeks ago, one of my patients died and a couple of days later her son came to see me. She was a lady who lived long enough to see seven great-grandchildren, but her last two years had been a constant struggle with the heart disease which finally killed her. As doctors we had done the best we could to help her, but she was still very restricted by her disease. And eventually she died. And when her 70-year old son came to see me, he was distraught:
-Not by any sense of grief for her ­ he was happy that her sufferings were over and she was in a better place -But he said ­ now I am an orphan.

And I wondered what it was to be an orphan at the age of 70.
-To suddenly feel alone in the world That, I think is what the apostles suddenly feel.
-The realisation that all those things we take for granted as permanent guarantees of our security ­ our parents ­ our families ­ our jobs ­ our good looks - our entire lives ­ are for this time only.
They can be taken away from us at any time.
-Of course our belief as Christians is that there is one thing that can never be taken from us ­ that is the presence in our hearts and in our lives of the presence of the Spirit of Christ who will descend upon us at Pentecost.

Let us stand and profess our Faith in the Spirit of God who will come to us at Pentecost.

Mount Street Jesuit Centre,
114 Mount Street,
London SW1K 3AH.
ENGLAND.
fatbaldnproud@yahoo.co.uk