A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour has come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.
All Commentaries on John 16:21 Go To John 16
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. As hoping that the child will be a support and credit to her in this life, and will succeed her after her death. For since men cannot themselves live for ever, they hope in a sense to live in their children. A queen rejoices in her first-born as having borne a king. This illustration is most apposite. For Christ compares His death to child-birth, and His resurrection to the joy after child-birth. For Christ suffered anguish and tortures like a woman in child-birth, but when He saw Himself rising again through the merit of His death, and knew that we should in like manner rise again, He greatly rejoiced Himself, and inspired the Apostles and all the faithful with great joy. For He brought them forth as His children, by dying for them on the Cross. So S. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius. You may apply this also to the persecutions and sufferings of the Apostles and faithful in this life, and to their joy and exultation at the Resurrection.
A Prayer of Manasseh -child. "Because," as says S. Augustine (in loc.), "the joy is wont to be greater when a boy is born, to signify mystically that the faithful ought to be of a masculine mind both in doing and suffering, for they are called to the contemplation of heavenly things, and even to take heaven by storm, not to the softness of this world," as says Gloss. inter. Moreover, this Prayer of Manasseh -child is afterwards called "a man" to signify the Resurrection of Christ, for by His resurrection Christ, as it were, is born again, not as a child, but as a perfect man. So S. Chrysostom says: By saying a man He simply suggests His own Resurrection, and our own blessedness after death; further, says Alcuin, "we shall be born into eternal life." Whence Bede says, "It ought not to seem a strange thing, if he who departs out of this life is said to be "born." For as he who comes forth from his mother"s womb into this light, so is he who is freed from the bonds of the flesh raised up to eternal life. Hence the solemnities of the Saints are said to be their birthdays, not their burials."
Moreover, the sorrow of the disciples is rightly compared to that of a woman in travail: (1.) Because both are painful, and the pain is greater at the birth of a boy. (2.) Because they are short. (3.) And perilous. (4.) Both turned into joy, the one by the birth of a child, the other by the Resurrection of Christ and His followers. So S. Cyril. (5.) As the same child is the cause of pain in being born, and of joy afterwards, so Christ also caused great pain to the disciples by His death, and great joy by His Resurrection. (6.) The joy in either case is surpassing and very great, and swallows up all the preceding pain.
