Summary: Jesus tells his disciples they will briefly lose sight of him before seeing him again, leading to initial sadness but ultimately turning into joy.
Gospel Acclamation: I will not leave you orphans, says the Lord; I will come back to you, and your hearts will rejoice. (John 14:18)
Jesus said to his disciples: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”
So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks? We do not know what he means.”
Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”