The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
“I just want it to get started!”, I practically shouted.
I was sitting with my husband in our comfortable living room talking about something terrible. Something that meant pain and uncertainty, helplessness and vulnerability. Yet I couldn’t wait for this event to occur. I was nine months and two long, long days pregnant. I had already had one natural birth. I knew what I was in for. But here I was wishing for another. When would this labor begin?
The readings today bring us to a similar place of anxious expectation. They can feel ominous and even scary. But when I bring them to prayer, they take me right back to this moment exactly a decade ago this month.
Childbirth in many ways feels like the experience of Christ’s second coming as described in our Gospel today. First, the most obvious and unavoidable truth: it is painful. The agony of labor is as old as Eve after the Fall, and Jesus warns us that the end times will be no different. Wars and insurrections, famines and earthquakes, persecutions and betrayals. These are the signs we are to look for in anticipation of that day.
It sounds terrifying.
Yet, just like the empty tomb three days after the crucifixion, that’s not the end of the story. It wasn’t the suffering that spurred my wish for labor that November day ten years ago. No, I couldn’t wait because once it was over I would be holding my baby in my arms. I would be sleeping on my back again and eating lunchmeat without fear. I would be watching my oldest become a big brother, and my husband become a girl-dad. What was some temporary pain compared to all that? It would fade away as an event that happened and that passed, but the joy of my daughter would last forever.
We must never forget that as Christians, we look forward to Christ’s second coming. Not because of the suffering, but because of what it will bring once it is all over. When those pangs of labor are through, Christ will reign as king, ruling the Earth with justice as our Psalm proclaims. For those who love Him and trust in Him, it will be a glorious day, when all of nature shouts for joy.
So hold on to hope! Even as we prepare to persevere, let us also prepare to rejoice.
Paula Golbabai is a wife and mother raising four kids and a flock of chickens with her husband in College Station, Texas. She loves accounting, good books, and watching the adventure of her life unfold as she keeps doing her best to say “yes” to God. You can find her discussing holiness in the mom life on the podcast she co-hosts, Everyday Fiat.
