Today's Gospel

Guard Your Joy

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we are exploring the genius of the gospel, the genius of Jesus, the genius of Catholicism, and each day looking for a word or a phrase or an idea from today's gospel to anchor our lives so that we can take it out, we can live it, we can try and place it at the center of the situation and circumstances that emerge for us throughout the day today. Today's reading comes from the Gospel of John 16:20-23.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is in travail, she has sorrow, but her hour has come. But when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that the child is born into the world. So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day, you will ask nothing of Me. Truly, truly I say to you, 'If you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name.'"

Did a word or a phrase or an idea jump out at you? What jumped out at me today was this phrase, "No one will take your joy from you." It's like every day there's probably somebody, maybe even many people, try and take your joy from you, right? And often we surrender our joy with disturbing ease, shall we say. We let the tiniest things that people do rob us of our joy or take our joy from us.

As you make your way through the day today, don't let people take your joy from you. Your joy comes from God. Hold on to it. Protect it. Guard it. Don't let people take your joy from you, especially for the tiniest little things of inconvenience or personal preference or things like that. Guard your joy. Protect your joy. It comes from God. Don't let people take your joy from you today. Be bold, be Catholic. We'll see you tomorrow.