“Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy… In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”
— John 16:29-33
The disciples suddenly announce with touching confidence that now they understand everything. It is one of the most human moments in all the Gospel. They think they are standing on a mountain peak of understanding when in fact they are only standing at the doorway of confusion. They believe they are prepared for glory while they are actually about to run away in fear. Christ, with the patience of eternity, lets them speak their brave little speech before calmly informing them that by nightfall they will scatter like frightened sheep.
There is comfort in that for me. The Lord does not wait for my understanding before He loves me.
2. Meditatio
I am one of those men who naively imagines that my purpose in life is to avoid trouble. I arrange schedules, build fences, check forecasts, prepare contingency plans, and rehearse conversations in my head as if salvation could be achieved by sufficient management. Yet the absurdity is that the very actions I take to prevent trouble often become the source of the trouble itself.
This week Kim and I are preparing to travel to Missouri to deliver an LGD to old friends who raise sheep and cattle. The trip itself is joyful, yet my imagination keeps trying to turn it into an apocalypse. I worry about what trouble will happen at The Glenn while I am gone. I worry about what trouble may happen on the road. I worry about the dogs, the sheep, the water lines, the weather, the timing, and all the thousand invisible disasters my mind manufactures with astonishing creativity.
The comic thing is that I secretly behave as though the entire cosmos depends upon my remaining physically present in one small patch of Texas. I act as though God Himself might glance away for a moment if I leave town.
But Christ says quite plainly: “In the world you will have trouble.” He does not say, “If you organize yourself correctly, you will avoid trouble.” Nor does He say, “Blessed are those who maintain complete control over every circumstance.” He says trouble is part of the world itself.
Perhaps trouble is not always an interruption of discipleship. Perhaps it is often the very road upon which discipleship travels.
The truth is that every journey of faith eventually forces me to admit that I am not the shepherd of the universe. I am only one sheep among many, trying to follow the Shepherd who has already conquered the very troubles I fear. My anxieties reveal how much I trust my own fences more than His providence.
Chesterton once observed that an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. Perhaps trouble is simply the raw material from which God fashions adventure, humility, and trust.
And perhaps the deepest trouble of all is not suffering, but the illusion that I can save myself from it.
3. Oratio
Lord Jesus Christ, when trouble comes, my first instinct is to tighten my grip upon everything I cannot control.
Teach me instead to loosen my hands and cling only to You.
When I travel, guard what I leave behind. When I remain, guard my restless heart. When anxiety invents disasters, remind me that You have already conquered the world.
Give me courage enough not to avoid trouble, but to walk through it beside You.
Saint John I, Pope and Martyr, knew something about trouble. He lived in a world where emperors believed the Church should simply bend itself into political convenience. He was sent as an aging pope into dangerous negotiations and eventually died imprisoned because he would not surrender the truth.
The world always believes trouble can be solved by compromise with falsehood. But the saints know there are troubles worse than suffering. There is the trouble of losing one’s soul. There is the trouble of becoming so comfortable that one forgets eternity.
Saint John I reminds me that Christianity is not a religion for men seeking safety. It is a religion for men who have discovered that Christ is more solid than safety itself.
The modern world says courage means conquering trouble. Christianity says courage means trusting Christ in the midst of trouble.
That is why the martyrs remain strangely cheerful people. They have already accepted the worst the world can do and discovered that even death cannot outlast Easter.
5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality
How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?
A spirit of fraternity can flow from families, leading to the recognition of others as brothers and sisters belonging to the human family: “A married couple who experience the power of love know that this love is called to bind the wounds of the outcast, to foster a culture of encounter and to fight for justice. God has given the family the job of ‘domesticating’ the world and helping each person to see fellow human beings as brothers and sisters” (AL 183).
Pope Francis teaches in Laudato Si’ that anxiety and domination often arise from the illusion that we are masters of creation rather than caretakers within it. Synodality asks me not to carry the world alone, but to walk together in trust.
Action:
Today I will practice relinquishing one unnecessary worry to God. Instead of attempting to control every outcome, I will intentionally entrust one “trouble” to prayer and shared community. I will remember that stewardship is not ownership, and discipleship is not domination.
Even the flock belongs first to the Good Shepherd.
A comic anthem for the human tendency to manufacture catastrophes out of every uncertainty. Harold Hill sells fear with theatrical brilliance; Christ answers fear with peace. One spreads panic to gain control. The other conquers the world by surrendering Himself upon a Cross.
A film about rebellious girls, patient nuns, and the mysterious way grace often works through chaos rather than despite it. Trouble becomes the unlikely classroom in which wisdom quietly grows.
8. Poetic Verse
I spend my days trying to fence out trouble, while Christ quietly walks through storms without fear.
The sheepdog worries about wolves. The Shepherd conquers death.
