Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • Saturday of the Second Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Second Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    There are a lot of what are called “clickbait” articles out there on the internet.  Those are headlines that make you curious to click on the link and read the story.  Often they are enormously disappointing in terms of their content.  They are headlines like “I drank nothing but seltzer water for a year and this is what happened.” Or, “This is what happens to your brain when you think positive thoughts for a month.” Things like that.

    If there were a clickbait story about today’s readings it might be, “This is what happens when you choose to trust in God.”  Only the content wouldn’t be disappointing!

    In the first reading from Acts this morning, we see the Christian community growing and thriving, so much so that they have some little growing pains.  Their worship included a distribution of food to those in need, people like widows.  In order to make sure that there was equality in the distribution, the Apostles realized they needed to appoint people to help with that detail so they could focus on preaching the word.  The result was discernment and ordination of the first group of what we would call deacons, including Saint Stephen.  And overcoming that growing pain, the community continued to thrive.

    In the Gospel today, the Apostles are being called to greater trust.  They’re out on the sea in the midst of a storm when it was getting dark, and they begin to be afraid.  They see someone out walking on the water, which is, admittedly, pretty scary, but the figure tells them not to be afraid, because it is the Lord.  The boat immediately arrives at the shore and they are delivered from their fear.

    We too are called to greater trust.  The storms in our lives and the growing pains of our families or communities threaten to derail our faith.  But when we trust in the Lord, we are delivered from our fear and we grow and thrive.  May we pray wit the Psalmist today: “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.”

    Because Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

  • The Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)

    The Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday)

    Today’s readings

    I often wonder what brings people to Mass on the Second Sunday of Easter.  We had crowds of people here last Sunday, as you know, but things this Sunday are, perhaps a bit unfortunately, back to normal.  The Easter duty is done, and most people go back to their normal Sunday routines, whatever they may be.  But many of us still gather for worship this morning.  What is it that brings us here today?

    Maybe our motives are grand ones.  We can’t get enough of the Word of God and his Real Presence in the Eucharist.  Or maybe we need to be together with the community in order for our faith to make sense and our life to be on track.  Maybe we know that our presence in the worshipping community isn’t just about us, but rather about all of us being together, that there would be no community without all of us present. 

    But maybe our motives aren’t quite so lofty.  Maybe, at some level, we’re here because of fear.  Fear that our lives aren’t going the way we’d like them to.  Fear that family problems are not getting resolved.  Fear that our jobs are unfulfilling or our relationships are in disarray.  Fear that our lives are empty spiritually, and we don’t know where to find our Lord.  Fear that missing Mass will lead us to hell.  Fear that if we don’t get out we’ll be lonely.  I think if we’re honest, there’s a little fear in all of us, and at some level, that fear leads us here.

    And if you find that’s the case for you, you have ten patron saints locked up in that upper room.  They too had a great deal of fear.  Fear that they too might be led to the cross by the same people who took Jesus there.  There was certainly some reality to that fear, and I think we can all understand it.  But I also think it’s significant to realize that the Eleven, all of whom lived closely with Jesus for three years, were not yet able to overcome their fears and pursue the mission of Jesus.  Instead, they gather in a locked room, mourning their friend, confused about the empty tomb and stories of his appearances, and fearful for their own lives.  We whose lives are filled with fear at times definitely have the Apostles as our kindred spirits.

    The truth is that, like the Apostles, it doesn’t really matter what has gathered us here.  The important thing is that at least we are here.  At least in our fear we did not hide away and refuse to be brought into the light.  Because there are many who have left us, aren’t there?  Many have had enough of church scandals and have decided to take their spiritual business elsewhere.  Many have been hurt in all kinds of ways and have not found immediate healing in the Church.  Many have been influenced by the allurements of the world and the false comforts of pop psychology and have given up on a religion that makes demands of them.  Many have left us, and at some level we can understand their frustration. But at least we are here, at least we have gathered, albeit in fear, albeit locked up in our own little rooms, but definitely in the path of our Lord who longs to be among us in our fear and to say, “Peace be with you.”

    The peace that Jesus imparts is not just the absence conflict in our lives.  It is instead a real peace, a peace from the inside of us out.  A peace that affects our body, mind and spirit.  A peace that brings us into communion with one another and most especially with God for whom we were created and redeemed.  The peace that the Ten had upon seeing their Risen Lord, the peace that Thomas had just one week later, is the same peace that our Risen Lord offers to all of us fearful disciples who gather together as a refuge against the storms and uncertainties of our own lives.  That peace is a peace that invites us to reach out like Thomas did and touch our Lord as we receive his very Body and Blood in all his Divine Mercy.

    That peace is not some passive greeting that rests upon us and goes no further.  Whenever we are gifted with any blessing, it is never intended only for us.  We who have been gifted and healed and transformed by the peace of our Risen Lord are called just like the Eleven to continue to write the story of Jesus so that others may see and believe.  We now become the peace of Christ to reach out to a world that appears to be hopelessly un-peaceful.  We must extend that peace by reaching out to touch those who are sick, or poor, or lonely, or despairing, or doubtful, or fearful, or grieving, or marginalized, or fallen away.  Our own presence in and among our loved ones and in and among the world must be a presence that is rooted in the Risen Lord and steeped in his peace.  We must be the ones who help a doubting world to no longer be unbelieving but believe.

    We have come here today for all kinds of reasons.  We may have come here in doubt and fear, but as we approach the Eucharist and receive the very Body and Blood of our Lord who invites us to reach out and touch him, as we go forth to glorify the Lord this day, may we leave not in doubt and fear but instead in belief and peace.  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

    Peace be with you.

  • Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    There’s certainly a flurry of activity in today’s readings, isn’t there?  Especially in the Gospel, we see Mary Magdalene run from the empty tomb to get the Apostles.  And then Peter and the “disciple whom Jesus loved” ran to the tomb.  This flurry of activity centers around a crisis in their faith, a time of confusion that will ultimately lead to stronger faith.

    So Mary comes to the tomb, early in the morning, while it is still dark.  In Saint John’s Gospel, the idea of light or dark always means something more than whether or not you can see outside without a flashlight.  Often he is talking about light and darkness in terms of good and evil.  That’s the way it was when we heard of Judas in Friday’s Passion reading: when he went out to do what he had to do, the Gospel says “and it was night.”  That wasn’t just to record the time of day, it meant that we had come to the hour of darkness.  But here when Mary comes to the tomb, I think the darkness refers to something else.  Here, I think it means that the disciples were still in the dark about what was happening and what was going to happen.

    Obviously, their confusion gives that away. Jesus had tried to tell them what was going to happen, but to be fair, what was going to happen was so far outside their realm of experience, that really, how could they have understood this before it ever happened?  All they know is what Mary told them: the tomb is empty and she has no idea of where they have taken the Lord.  And after all that had just happened with his arrest, farce of a trial, and execution, their heads had to be spinning.  How could they ever know this was all part of God’s plan?

    And even us – we who know that this was part of God’s plan – could we explain what was going on?  Could we give a step-by-step picture of what happened when, and why?  I know I couldn’t.  But, like you, I take it on faith that, after Jesus died, the Father raised him up in glory.  It’s a leap of faith that I delight in, because it is that leap of faith that gives me hope and promises me a future.  How could we ever get through our lives without the grace of that hope?  How could we ever endure the bad news that appears on our TV screens, in newspapers, and even closer to home, in our own lives – how could we endure that kind of news without the hope of the Resurrection?

    And so, even though there is this flurry of kind of confused activity among the Apostles this Easter morning, at least this day finds them running toward something, rather than running away as they had the night of the Passover meal.  They are running toward their Lord – or at least where they had seen him last, hoping for something better, and beginning with the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” coming to understand at last.  It’s not night anymore for them.  The day is dawning, the hope of the Resurrection is becoming apparent, the promise of new life is on the horizon.

    And may this morning find us running too.  Running toward our God in new and deeper ways.  Running back to the Church if this has been the first visit you’ve made in a long while.  Running back to families if you have been estranged.  Running to others to witness to our faith both in word and in acts of service.  We Christians have to be that flurry of activity in the world that helps the hope of the Resurrection to dawn on a world groaning in darkness.  It’s not night anymore.  The stone has been rolled away.  This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes when I’m preaching to children about a reading with light and darkness themes, I’ll ask them who is, or ever has been, afraid of the dark.  As you can well imagine, most of the hands go up, and probably all of them should go up.  And I don’t think that experience is limited to children.  How many of us, when we are driving along an unfamiliar road late at night, or during a storm, are more than a little nervous when looking for our next turn?  Or how many of us are more than a little wary about being in certain areas after dark?  And even closer to home, how many of us have our hearts pound a little faster when we hear a strange noise in the middle of the night?

    A couple of years ago now, I woke up what sounded like an explosion in the middle of the night.  I looked out all the windows, and couldn’t see anything unusual.  Nobody lives above me so it wasn’t like someone fell out of bed.  It took me a while to calm down and I finally went back to sleep.  I found out the next day a car had exploded in a parking lot over at the high school.  It certainly got my blood pumping in the early hours.

    We’ve all heard the warning: nothing good ever happens after dark.  Watching the news bears that out.  You hear about people being shot, carjacked, robbed at all hours of the night, and you wonder why anyone is out and about at that hour.  Sure, sometimes they work at that time of night, but not nearly all of them.  Why would anyone else be out messing around at that hour?  Being out in the wee hours often leads to trouble.  Nothing good ever happens after dark.

    Except on this night.

    On this night, the best thing ever happened.  On this night, the debt of our ancient sinfulness was canceled.  On this night, our Lord triumphed over sin and death.  On this night, everything changed, for the better, on this night the best thing ever happened after dark!  “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld!”  The Exsultet, sung at the beginning of our time together this night, tells us just how glorious this night actually is:

    The sanctifying power of this night
    dispels wickedness, washes faults away,
    restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners,
    drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. 

    That’s how much power this night actually has.  Whereas so many nights have brought, and continue to bring, sadness to so many, this night brings joy to mourners.  Whereas so many nights have brought fear and anguish and hatred, this night restores innocence, drives out hatred, and fosters concord.  This night obliterates evil, gives new luster to souls that have been tarnished by sin, and destroys the power of the mighty to bring misery to the humble.  This one night turns everything upside-down and introduces a new reign of glory.

    Tonight we have heard in reading after reading, that God will absolutely not ever abandon his loved and chosen ones to sin and death.  We have heard that God initiated the covenant and pursues it forever, never forcing us to accept his will, but willing that we should follow him and accept his mercy.  God has provided the lamb of salvation, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world.  God has gone to the cross and been in the tomb and descended to hell – there is nowhere that is beyond the reach of God’s mercy, there is no place, no depth to which God will not go to redeem his beloved creation.  God’s mercy endures forever!

    God delights in the freedom of will that we possess as a natural part of who we are, because it gives us the opportunity to freely choose to love him, as he freely chooses to love us.  But he knows that same free will can and will also lead us astray, into sin, into evil.  The free choice to love God is a greater good than the absence of evil, so not imbuing us with free will was never an option.  Instead, evil and sin and our fallenness are redeemed on this most holy of all nights.

    We have been praying and waiting and remembering and entering in to the events of our Lord’s passion and death for three days now.  On Thursday evening, Father Ramon invited us to imagine being part of the first community of believers after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We imagined coming to Jerusalem and looking for someone to tell us about Jesus.  Then we were invited to fall on our knees in worship and adoration as we celebrated the Eucharist in memory of him.  On Friday afternoon, Father John encouraged us to not just see what we did to Jesus, but also what Jesus did for us.  He invited us to find Jesus on the cross, uniting our own passions with his, and glorying in the grace of what Our Lord did for us.  And tonight we get to see that glory, as we sing our Alleluias and know that death no longer has power over us.

    Now we get to focus on salvation that is our in the sacraments.  Especially tonight, we remember our own baptisms, and we look forward to the baptism of our eight Elect who have been preparing for this night for two years.  Everything is in place: the waters of the Red Sea are parted, the pillar of fire glows to the honor of God, we are led to grace and joined to God’s holy ones of every time and place, Christ emerges triumphant from the underworld and the sin of Adam is redeemed forever.  And so these eight Elect, in a few moments will enter the waters of Baptism, renouncing the prince of darkness, professing faith in God, dying with Christ in the waters, emerging to new life, triumphant with Christ, and encountering the bright morning star whose light blazes for all eternity.  We will hold our breath as the waters flow over them, and sing Alleluia when they are reborn, crying out the praise of God with all the joy the Church can muster!

    Our joy will continue to overflow as they are Confirmed in the Holy Spirit and fed for the very first time with the Eucharistic Bread of Life.  God’s mercy has once again triumphed and brought these wonderful young people into the family of the Church and the community of our parish.  God’s goodness shows forth all its splendor in so many wonderful ways on this most holy of all nights!

    This is the night that redeems all of our days and nights.  This is the night when sin and death are rendered impotent by the plunging of the Paschal candle, the Light of Christ, into the waters of Baptism.  On this night, everything is turned upside-down; sin and death no longer define who we are as human beings; the forces of evil search in vain for darkness in which to cower, because the bright morning star has washed the darkness away.  On this night, the waters of Baptism put death to death, wash away faults and wickedness, give refreshment to those who are parched for holiness, and bring life to all who have withered in the desert of brokenness.

    And so, may the flame of our joy, blazing against the darkness of the world’s night, be found still burning by the Morning Star:  the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ our Lord, God’s only Son, who coming back from even from the depths of death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever!  Amen!

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Tuesday of Holy Week

    Tuesday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    I always get a chill in my spine and a lump in my throat from the four words that stand out to me in today’s Gospel reading: “And it was night.”  Those narrative words come just after Judas takes the morsel and leaves the gathering.  But John, the Beloved Disciple didn’t include those words to tell us the time of day.  In John’s Gospel, there is an overriding theme of light and darkness.  The light and darkness, of course, refer to the evil of the world that is opposed by the light of Christ.

    That John tells us it was night meant that this was the hour of darkness, the hour when evil would come to an apparent climax.  This is the time when all of the sins of the world have converged upon our Lord and he will take them to the Cross.  This was “the hour” that Jesus had often spoken of in the gospel, “the hour” that often had not yet come, but here it is.  The darkness of our sinfulness has made it a very dark night indeed.

    But we know the end of the story.  This hour of darkness will certainly see Jesus die for our sins.  But the climax of evil will be nothing compared to the outpouring of grace and Divine Mercy.  The darkness of evil is always overcome by the light of Christ.  Always.  But for now, it is night.

    In these holy days, we see the darkness that our Savior had to endure for our salvation. May we find courage in the way he triumphed over this fearful night.  May we, in these holy days, console the sorrowful heart of our Lord who endured so much for us.

  • Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    Palm Sunday is a Liturgy that can be a little puzzling. We start out on a seemingly triumphant note.  Jesus enters Jerusalem, the Holy City, and the center of the Jewish religion; the city he has been journeying toward throughout the gospel narrative, and he enters it to the adulation of crowds of people assembled for the feast.  Cloaks are thrown down in the street, the people wave palms and chant “Hosanna.”  This is it, isn’t it?  It seems like Jesus’ message has finally been accepted, at least by the crowds who have long been yearning for a Messiah, an anointed one, to deliver them from foreign oppression.

    Only that wasn’t the kind of salvation Jesus came to offer.  Instead, he preached forgiveness and mercy and real justice and healed people from the inside out.  He called people to repentance, to change their lives, to hear the gospel and to live it every day.  He denounced hypocrisy, and demanded that those who would call themselves religious reach out in love to the poor and those on the margins.  It wasn’t a welcome message; it wasn’t the message they thought the messiah would bring.

    I think it’s instructive to reflect on the groups of people reacting to Jesus and turning their backs on him just five days after the triumph they offered.  First there are the Jewish leaders who were jealous and suspicious and angry about the way Our Lord called them out for abandoning the people and instead insisting on the rigorous and mindless observance of the law.  There are the Romans, those foreign occupiers who wanted the people to be quiet, obedient, and paying taxes, and who often sided with the Sanhedrin in order to keep the people docile.  There are the crowds, Jews and Gentiles, who were happy enough to be fed with miracles but disappointed that Jesus wasn’t the same kind of Messiah they were praying for, and instead was one who called them to repentance, a change in their lives.  There were the apostles, who you would think would trust Jesus by now, but instead fled in fear.  There was Peter who abandoned his friend, and Judas who gave in to despair.  There was Herod and Pilate who were manipulating the event trying to maintain their own pathetic little piece of history.  It’s almost a perfect storm.

    Who are we going to blame for this?  Whose fault is it that they crucified my Lord?  Well, we know none of those groups and people are really to blame.  They certainly did Jesus wrong, but that wasn’t ever the reason he went to the Cross.  Jesus was crucified for me.  For you.  For our sins.  For those sins that have kept us from being friends of God for far too long.  For those sins that have abandoned God and rejected his grace time and time again.  Jesus came, and lived, and bled, and died to take away my sins.  And yours.  He willingly gave his life so that we might live. 

    He gave himself for us.

    We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.  Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the school.

    Sometimes it seems like everyone is against us.  Maybe you’ve felt that way sometimes.  Maybe someone was telling lies about you and trying to get others to work against you, or maybe they were looking for any time you did the slightest thing wrong, or messed up in any way, so they could act all superior.  That happens sometimes, and it’s frustrating.  If that has ever happened to you, or if it ever does, I think you might understand a little of how the prophet Jeremiah, King David, and Jesus may have felt in today’s readings and psalm.

    A prophet’s job is never easy; nobody wants to hear what they don’t want to hear.  The prophets had to tell the people what God wanted and how God wanted them to live, and lots of people just don’t like that.  And so it can be difficult to stand up for what’s right.  So for Jeremiah, things are getting dangerous: people disliked what he was saying so much that they wanted him dead.  The same is true for Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.  Jesus now is rapidly approaching the cross; it’s almost the hour for him to give his life. 

    And so the psalm today is kind of the prayer of both of them, and really all of those who are suffering at the hands of an enemy.  King David in the psalm finds that his enemies are pursuing him to the point of death, like the waters of the deep overwhelming a drowning man.

    But all of them find their refuge in God: God never leaves us alone in our troubles.  Jeremiah writes, “For he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”  King David takes consolation in the fact that “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”  And for Jesus, well, his time was coming close, but it had not yet come.

    When we are provoked like they were, how do we respond?  Is our first thought to take refuge in God, or do we try to solve the problem on our own?  It’s probably the second thing, but honestly, that never ever works.  If we don’t turn to God, we will sooner or later find those waves overwhelming us, because there is always a limit to our own power, a limit to what we ourselves can do.  But God never expects us to do the right thing all by ourselves.  He knows that it’s hard for us to stand up for what’s right, to do the right thing when everyone seems to be doing something else, to speak up for those who are struggling when everyone else is making fun of them.  God always expects us to do the right thing, of course: that’s what he made us for.  But he doesn’t expect us to do the right thing on our own.  He will give us the power to stand strong in the midst of trouble.  If we do things on our own, we have no one to turn to when things go wrong or when things get tough.  But if we turn to God, even if things don’t improve on our own timetable, we will always find refuge and safety in our God: there will be strength to get through, and we will never be alone.

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word helps us to reflect on God’s promises. Ever since God made the first covenant with Abraham, he has been renewing that covenant in ever stronger ways with all of the people he created and loves. Abraham was able to see the land God promised him, but could not have appreciated in his own lifetime the great nation that was to come from him. Even though we as a people have strayed from God, he never has stopped reaching out to us. The covenant now is complete with the new and everlasting covenant we have in Jesus Christ.

    Jesus’ contemporaries may not have been prepared to welcome this new covenant, but it cannot be that way for us disciples. We cannot resist the covenant in favor of hanging on to our own ideas, or of clinging to some kind of late night TV infomercial pop psychology, or anything that comes from Oprah and Joel Osteen. We need to be a people who cling only to the hope that we have in Christ, giving him our lives in faith as he pours out his love for all of us.

    The psalmist tells us today that “The Lord remembers his covenant forever.” Let us remember it too, and give thanks for it as we celebrate the Eucharist today.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Just as the saraph serpent was lifted up on a pole in the desert for the people to see, and thus live, so the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, was lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world.  In these late Lenten days, the Church is looking to the Cross, looking toward Jerusalem, knowing that the hour of the Lord, in which he would pay the dear price of our salvation, is near at hand.

    With hearts filled with gratitude, we come to this Eucharist, with our eyes fixed on our Lord lifted up for us, who pours himself out for us again and still.  When we see him lifted up, we remember that he is “I AM,” our crucified and risen Lord, and whenever we look to him, we are saved from all that ails us, from our sins and brokenness, and we ourselves are lifted up to eternal life.

    Our challenge in these late Lenten days is to be that icon of the Cross, like the saraph serpent, to whom people can look and find healing and salvation. We have to be the image of Christ crucified so that the world can become whole.

  • The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    “Lord, by now there will be a stench.”

    That’s one of my favorite lines in scripture.  It begs the question I want you to pray about this week, which is, “What in your life really stinks?”  Because we have to have that stench washed away in order to really live.

    If you know my preaching, you’re not going to be at all surprised about this, but I have to tell you honestly, our Gospel reading isn’t about Lazarus.  Yes, he got raised from the dead, so good for him, but he isn’t the center of action in the story.  In fact, he’s dead for most of the reading, so he doesn’t play a major part.   Our Gospel today is about Jesus, who through baptism and grace is the remedy for all that stinks in our life.

    So Jesus hears that his friend Lazarus is ill.  He knows that Lazarus will die, and he knows that he will raise Lazarus up, so very much like the rest of John’s Gospel, Jesus is in full control.  He delays going to see Lazarus because it will give him the opportunity that will increase faith in the other players in the story.  So when he arrives, Lazarus has been dead four days.  That’s an important detail because it tells us that Lazarus is really, really dead.  The Jews believed that the soul of a person hung around for about three days, but after that, well, he or she was gone forever.  So if Jesus had raised Lazarus on the second day, no big deal.  If on the third day, that would have been a foreshadowing of himself.  But on the fourth day, he raises up someone who is really, really dead: you know, someone just like us.

    So just like the man who was born blind last week, we are born dead, in a way.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but stay with me.  We are born dead in our sins, and there is nothing we can do to raise ourselves up out of it except for the grace of God.  So the movement in our Gospel today is from life that is so mired in sin that it stinks, to life that is so free of death that burial bands and tombs cannot contain it.

    During Lent, we have been journeying with our catechumens, who are now called the Elect, as they prepare to be baptized, confirmed, and receive first Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil.  Much like them, there are three groups of catechumens in today’s Gospel.  The first group is Mary and Martha, those friends of Jesus that are part of John’s Gospel a few times.  Here, the rubber meets the road in their faith.  Here, like so many of us, they have something tragic happen in their lives, and now they have to grapple with whether their faith helps them with that or not.  Mary is so troubled that she doesn’t even go out to meet the Lord until her sister tells her a white lie that Jesus was asking for her.  Both she and Martha, when they first see Jesus, complain that he should have come sooner so that he could have saved Lazarus.  But Martha has a little faith.  She says very importantly that “Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”  That’s the beginning profession of faith.  She knows that Jesus has power over life and death.  So then they have a little catechetical dialogue about life and death and eternity, and at the end of it, Martha professes that Jesus is the Son of God who was coming into the world.  The sisters move from their grief, to faith in Jesus, even before he accomplishes the miracle.

    The second group of catechumens is the Apostles.  God bless them, they’re still trying to make sense of Jesus.  We can’t be too hard on them, because they’re a lot like many of us who are trying to be men and women of faith, but don’t really have all the facts right now.  “Let us also go to die with him,” Thomas says.  And they will, of course: they have to go through the cross before they see and understand Jesus fully.  We too will have to take up our own crosses before we can fully understand the salvation that Christ has won for us.

    The third group of catechumens is the Jews.  A bunch of them are weeping with Mary, and they go with her to see Jesus.  Along the way, they complain that if he could heal the man born blind like he did in last week’s Gospel, why couldn’t he have healed Lazarus?  But seeing the miracle, they come to believe, in the very last verse of this long reading.  They are a lot like those of us who are skeptical for a long time, but see something wonderful materialize in the life of another and finally decide there’s something to this Jesus that’s worth believing in.

    Key to all of these catechumens is that, in order to move to belief, they had to have some kind of stench in their lives washed away.  For Martha and Mary, they had to see past their grief.  For the Apostles, they had to get over themselves and realize that Jesus was in charge.  For the Jews, they had to get past their skepticism and let him perform miracles among them.  For all of us, on the journey of faith, some kind of stench has to be washed away, in order to come to full faith in Jesus.  And that stench, of course, is sin.  The way it gets washed away is in baptism.

    So if you take away anything from today’s Liturgy, let it be this: this reading is really all about baptism, brothers and sisters in Christ.  Is it a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection?  Sure.  But it is more about baptism.  Because baptism is a kind of death.  As Saint Paul says in our second reading today, baptism is the kind of death that gives life to our mortal bodies.  It’s hard for us to imagine that kind of thing when the baptisms we’ve seen are just a mere pouring of water over a baby’s head.  But baptism in the early church was full submerging in water while the formula was pronounced, after which they came up out of the water gasping for air.  Believe me, they got the connection of baptism with death and resurrection!

    Baptism is what washes away the stench in our lives.  It does that with original sin, and if we live our baptism by participating in the sacraments, it does that with the sins of our daily life.  The sacrament of Penance is an extension in a way of the sacrament of Baptism, in which the sins of our lives are completely washed away, leaving us made new and alive in ways we couldn’t imagine.

    So today, Jesus sees us dead in the flesh, stinking of our sins.  But he calls us forth in baptism, rolling away the stone of sin that keeps us from relationship with him, releasing us from the burial-bands that bind us, and calling us to new life.

    So maybe in these closing days of Lent, we still have to respond to our Lord’s call to live.  Maybe you haven’t yet been to confession before Easter.  We have confessions (tomorrow/today) at 1:30pm, with thirteen priests to hear your confession.  We invite you to come and have the stone rolled away and to be untied from your burial cloths.  Wherever you find yourself at this point of Lent, I urge you, don’t let Easter pass with you all bound up and sealed in the grave.  Lent ends just before Evening Prayer on Holy Thursday.  That gives us around ten and a half days to take up our Lenten resolutions anew, or even make new ones, so that we can receive new life in Christ.  Don’t spend these days in the grave.  Come out, be untied, and be let go.