Today’s section of John’s Gospel reminds me of a poignant story a woman told me.
Her mother, up in years, lived in Philadelphia, in the family home where my friend had grown up. One night, the phone call came. My friend’s mother had suffered a massive stroke. She was gone. When my friend arrived home, her only sister hugged her. “We’re orphans!” she wept. Here they were, mature women with families of their own, yet the word orphan came to mind as they characterized their new state in life.
Competent, functioning adults feel vulnerable and abandoned when the protective canopy of an older generation is torn from them. The orphan is plunged into an experience of greater responsibility with fewer resources, compelled to provide for self without the luxury of being provided for. At whatever age, the orphan yearns for the intimacy which now seems irreplaceable – an intimacy of relationship where identity is derived from belonging rather than achievement. From the perspective of the bereaved, the one enduring personal loss, death is never timely. As adults, however, we are not comfortable admitting our own adult perception of having been abandoned.
Likewise, as people of faith, we suffer the acute absence of God or meaning in our lives. Somehow, we have been shaken loose – maybe because we went off to college, lost a loved one or experienced a crisis like this pandemic. We can’t seem to put our life into a larger context. Maybe we feel we have no life story at all that means anything to anyone.
Even if we search for meaning somewhere other than the Christian community, we might nonetheless hear a small voice nudging us to Sunday worship. We might get as far as a back pew, well away from others who clearly have a sense of belonging, but relax. There will be no thunderbolts.
Going back to today’s Gospel, Jesus assures us “the Father will give you another Advocate to be with you always…who remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (John 14.16 -18).
If we let the poetic, mystical message of this Gospel seep into us, it can make us realize that we, well and truly, are never orphans. God’s promise has been given to us. The Spirit has come to us and will continue to abide with us.
We are not orphans.
We are never alone.
We are always in the company of the Spirit of God. That’s God’s promise to us.
Belonging is the door of our own eternity. We have only to cross the threshold.
~Sister Joan Sobala
