Dear Friends in Christ,
I invite you to prayerfully read again the moving and amazing story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead we’ve heard this Sunday. Read it again on your own, with your family, your spouse, with a friend – in person or over the phone. Just read it! I believe encountering Jesus in this passage will increase our faith, hope, and love for who He is for us.
Along with hearing this gospel passage, we celebrate the third and final Scrutiny (10am at St. Jane). As I mentioned last week, the scrutinies prepare our catechumens for baptism (and all of us for renewing our baptismal promises at Easter.) The Scrutinies instruct catechumens and the Church to ask the Lord for a spirit of repentance, a deeper sense of sin, and for the true freedom given to God’s children through the waters of baptism.
The raising of Lazarus not only gives us hope for eternal life and the resurrection of our bodies, but it also directs us to adore a more immediate and marvelous miracle. We have been given a new and supernatural life through baptism. That’s a big deal, a game-changer, a life-changer.
The good teachers at the St. Paul Center write, “when Jesus commands Lazarus to be ‘loosed’ and ‘let go,’ he employs the Greek verbs luô—elsewhere used of being loosed from Satan’s power (Luke 13:16; 1 John 3:8), from sin (Rev 1:5), and death (Acts 2:24)—and aphiêmi, which usually means ‘forgiven of sin’ in the Gospels. This resurrection, then, is also a ‘release’ and ‘remission’ of sin, death, and Satan, a further typification of Baptism.”
While we marvel at the physical miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead, we should also ask the Lord to help us experience in a new way the joy of being like Lazarus – raised to new life in Christ, untied and let go.
Lord, help me to be thankful for my baptism that makes me your child. Help me to avoid anything that would lessen or rob me of this supernatural life. Give me childlike trust and humble confidence in your presence and your love for me wherever I am, whatever I’m doing.
This Wednesday March 25, the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel declared unto Mary and she conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Celebrate this important day! There are traditions that also mark this day as the date of the crucifixion of Jesus. While claiming these are the same date are small ‘t’ traditions, it benefits us to think about the important connections between these things. 03/25 is also the feast of the good thief St. Dismas and, for Lord of the Rings fans, it is the date of the destruction of the One Ring.
May Mary intercede for our Pastorate that we always have hearts always open to the will of God, especially as we draw closer to Holy Week and as we carry our crosses daily.
In Christ,
Father John
