Verily, verily, I say unto you, That you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
Read Chapter 16
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and Lamentations , but the world shall rejoice: ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Understand by this that the joy of the world will be changed into sorrow, says Rupertus. But (1.) S. Chrysostom, Cyril, Leontius, Theophylact, and others, explain this of our Lord"s sufferings and death, which will cause just sorrow to you, and rejoicing to the Jews, and of His Resurrection on the third day, at which the Jews will be sorrowful, and full of indignation at My victory over them. But in a secondary sense He intended to signify the like sufferings they would have to endure for His sake. Whence (2.) S. Augustine, Bede, and Maldonatus explain of the sufferings which the Apostles would have to undergo in preaching the faith (at which the world will rejoice), and of the eternal blessedness they would afterwards enjoy with Him.
Morally. Holy Scripture frequently teaches that the righteous suffer adversities in this l...
So many persecutions the soul suffers daily, with so many risks is the heart wearied, and yet it delights to abide here long among the devil's weapons, although it should rather be our craving and wish to hasten to Christ by the aid of a quicker death; as He Himself instructs us, and says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.".
And again: "Verily, verily, I say unto yon, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy."
As then they were thirsting for information and sought to know more exactly the meaning of His words, He gives a clearer exposition of His Passion, and vouchsafes them the foreknowledge of the sufferings that He was about to undergo to their great profit. It was not in order that He might engender in them premature alarm that He deemed it meet to give them this explanation beforehand, but in order that, forearmed by their knowledge, they might perchance be found more courageous to withstand the terror that would assail them. For that of which the advent is expected is milder in its approach than that which is wholly unlooked for. When then you who are truly Mine and united to Me by your love towards Me shall behold your Guide and Master undergoing the brunt of the madness of the Jews, their insults and outrages, and all that their mad frenzy will prompt, then, indeed, ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; that is, those who are not minded to follow God's Will, but are,...
Because by reason of their not desiring His death, they quickly ran into the belief that He would not die, and then when they heard that He would die, cast about, not knowing what that little meant, He says, You shall mourn and lament.
But your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Then having shown that after grief comes joy, and that grief genders joy, and that grief is short, but the pleasure endless, He passes to a common example; and what says He?
A time to weep, when it is the time of suffering; as when the Lord also says, "Verily I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament.".
But to laugh, as concerns the resurrection: "For your sorrow "He says, "shall be turned into joy."
Between life and death or else we rescind what is written, "The world shall rejoice, but ye shall grieve."
Now they have gladness and we are troubled. "The world "says Jesus, "shall rejoice; ye shall be sorrowful."
You have your own registers, your own calendar; you have nothing to do with the joys of the world; nay, you are called to the very opposite, for "the world shall rejoice, but ye shall mourn."
