Fifth Sunday of Lent
By Rev. Joe McCloskey, S.J.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD. Ezekiel 37:13-14
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:10-11
And Jesus wept. John 11:35
Piety
Abba Father, we thank you for listening to our pleas and please. We know that you hear everything in our heart before we even give voice to our needs. As we enter the final days of this Lenten season, we will mark Jesus final days in his long loneliness on earth. Help us, no matter what needs hide us away in dark caves out of sight, to always believe in you. Help us no matter what experiences and pains tie us up and bind us to our selfish ways, to always trust in you. Help us, no matter what stones we erect to block your love, to roll away the stone and be open to love you and love our neighbors. Amen.
Study
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030908.shtml
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Piety is being alive in the love of the Lord in all the ways we let Christ call us out of the tomb we are buried in. The body is dead by sin, but alive when it lives in the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord lived in Martha and Mary even when their brother Lazarus was dead.
They believed in Christ. They knew that if Christ had been there, their brother would not have died. How often do we wonder why God lets terrible things happen to those that love Christ? The love of the Cross of Christ takes many forms in the invitation of Christ to take up our cross and follow him if we want to be his disciples. For a disciple there is no bypass of the cross of Christ. We are saved by the wood of his cross. Our splinters will never match the beams he carried.
What is amazing about the days Lazarus spent in the tomb is that the Lord saw those days as an enhancement of what he would do in the resuscitation of Lazarus. Lazarus’s return to breathing was a mixed blessing. It showed what Christ could do. But it also brought down on both their heads the wrath of the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders.
Christ’s own death was hastened by the notoriety of what he did. How often do we water down what we should be doing for the sake of Christ?
Our piety is the strength of our adherence to what Christ stood up for.
Action
What have I not done because of what others might say to me? We need to study our motivation to discover our areas of weaknesses. A saint is an update of Christ in his or hers own time and age.
Meditation is a study of the life of Christ to understand what made him tick and to try to live accordingly. Many look back at Christ and keep him in the past. Our study is directed to making Christ real in who we are. Study leads to action. Our world has many problems that are crying out for our doing something about them. If we are not working at a solution, we are the problem.
We can not play at Christ. Our choices, in what we do, need to be based on the example of Christ. Our days are numbered and each day is a gift of the time to do something to make our world a little more peaceful and joyful. We are called to do what we can today for a better world. When we live out our lives for the sake of the hurting around us, Christ lives again in who we are.
The first step in the direction of a solution gets us halfway there. When we are speaking to the problems of our world with our actions flowing out of the love of our hearts, Christ is there to call our world back from the dying that is going on when no one cares. The Spirit of Christ will give life to what we are doing in the name of Christ. Christ is contagious and others will follow in our footsteps if we but step out in his name.
Listen for the voice of Christ calling us out from the tomb of inaction.
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