By Deacon Richard Hay
“Journeying for ourselves and with others towards resurrection”
I am sure everyone here has made some type of journey in their lifetime. Whether it is a vacation or a business trip – we all have a sense of what it is like to travel somewhere.
There are also journeys of life, growing from childhood into being a teenager and adult, from being single to married, having kids and becoming parents or later grandparents, or in our work careers. The bottom line is that we are always on a journey of some sort in our lives.
Over these last five weeks we have been journeying towards Easter through this period of Lent where we focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Time is a funny thing in the way it moves, seemingly fast at some points and at other times slower but next weekend it will already be time to celebrate Palm Sunday and the Lord’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem.
As with any journey, there are often smaller journeys within them. Now, I am not talking about branches off the main path of the journey but more so the underlying parallel journeys that happen.
During Lent this year, over these last five weeks, we have been on a journey including having had our parish mission, a reconciliation service, weekly Soup Supper and Stations of the Cross right alongside another journey that we have been witnessing and participating in over these past three weeks.
I am talking about this journey alongside of our catechumens and candidates – the elect as they are now known – as they have participated in the scrutiny’s as they are preparing to receive the sacraments at Easter.
Over these three Sunday’s we have witnessed and been part of this period of purification and enlightenment the elect are undergoing. We have done this by utilizing the Year A readings from the Holy Gospel even though we are in Year C as a church. Then there is a special prayer prayed over them before they are dismissed to learn more about the Word of God.
We use these particular readings because they emphasize important elements of our faith which the elect will soon profess for the first time.
The first week we heard about the Samaritan woman at the well and her encounter with Jesus. We learned that Jesus wants to share the water of life with all of us so that we never have to be thirsty again in faith.
Last week, in the second scrutiny, we heard the gospel of the Man Born Blind. We heard the entire story of not only the physical healing and restoral of his sight but, as Fr. Marek mentioned in his homily, that gospel story was also about the opening of the eyes of the blind man’s and our hearts – our eyes of faith – our spiritual sight – sight we need so that we can testify to God’s presence in our life and proclaim him as our Lord and Savior.
Today, in this fifth week of Lent – the third scrutiny for the elect, we hear the story about the raising of Jesus’s friend Lazurus from the dead. We learned that we all receive the promise of resurrection – a new life – if we believe.
We heard Jesus ask both Mary and her sister Martha if they believed this and they professed that faith to Jesus.
Jesus used this last public miracle in his ministry on earth to show his apostles and disciples that he was sent by the Father and is the Son of God. However, he also did this knowing very well he was close to Jerusalem and that the authorities would quickly hear about it and this miracle would push them towards the fulfillment of the scriptures and the Father’s will that Jesus would suffer and die for our sins.
In the Gospel of John, we have travelled from the first miracle Jesus did – turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana – to now his last miracle – raising Lazurus from the dead.
You might remember I asked the question during that homily why not perform this last profound miracle of raising Lazurus from the dead first, instead of what seems like a minor thing of changing water into wine. We now understand it was always to do the Father’s will – to bring glory to the Father who sent Jesus to become like us in the first place.
This week, all of our readings should help us to look at death with hope because of the resurrection we have been promised. That means we should be living in a loving relationship with Jesus each and every day, because if we do then he will raise us up on the last day, just like he did with Lazurus in the gospel.
That is because there is more for us who profess Jesus as our Lord and Savior like the Blind Man, Mary, and Martha did in the gospels.
The readings bring out these assurances we are given. In Ezekiel the prophet tells the Israelites that it will be God’s breath of life that will bring them back, give them a new life and eventually resettle them in their land.
St. Paul is writing in the second reading to reassure the Romans, a Christian people whose belief in Jesus could cost them their life at any given moment. They are surrounded by death, but he tells them and us of the promised resurrection for all of us who believe that Jesus is our Savior. That promised resurrection is a reason for hope in our lives in this world and to not fear death itself. Remember – life is changed not ended at our deaths.
Then in John’s gospel, we are shown through the raising of Lazurus, the very undeserved gift we will also receive through belief when we are raised to eternal life with the Lord at the end of times. That resurrection hope truly lets us know that through our faith in Jesus, we receive the promise of the resurrection and new life with Him.
This is all reality; Not conjecture or wishful thinking – but real.
The woman at the well asking for the life-giving waters from Jesus, the blind man regaining not only his physical sight from the Lord but having his spiritual blindness taken away, and then Lazurus being raised from the dead and the profession of faith his sisters Mary and Martha make to the Lord – that they believe he is the Christ, and each of us professing our faith in the Lord – all of it real.
We might be tempted to look at these stories in scripture and think – well they had Jesus in the flesh – believing was much easier by witnessing these things in real time but let’s remember that we also have Jesus present to us in this day and age. He comes to us right here on the altar at every mass.
Through the miracle that happens when the priest says the words of consecration, Jesus becomes present to us just like he was present to the woman at the well, the man who was born blind, and Lazurus who was raised from the dead.
We affirm that belief every time we approach the Most Holy Eucharist and say Amen – which of course means “I believe”.
So as our journey continues in these final days of Lent, we should all continue to pray for the elect who will complete one of the final parts of their preparation for the Easter sacraments today with the final scrutiny.
The day is coming very soon when each of you, the elect, will be able to join as at the table of the Lord and encounter Jesus’s full presence – His body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Most Holy Eucharist – the gift and grace we are all preparing for in this season of Lent.
I encourage everyone to strengthen their Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in these final days of Lent. If something needs to be changed – then change it – don’t hesitate – and then keep moving forward towards the Easter celebration that will be here very soon because our Lenten journey is almost at an end.
