Friday, March 20, 2015

3/22/2015 – Fifth Sunday of Lent – Cycle A – The Raising of Lazarus – John 11: 3-7, 17, 20-27, 33B-45.

      A lot of what we are taught about our Catholic faith can appear to be a paradox, can’t it?  We are told that in order to receive the joy of our faith, we are called to take up a cross and follow Jesus.  It is order to prepare to celebrate the Easter mysteries, the salvation we have in the resurrection of the Lord, we are called to journey with Jesus for 40 days in the desert wilderness.  In order to be a leader in context of our faith, we are not called to amass power and authority, but rather we are called to be a servant.  In order to receive new life in Christ, we must first die to our old life and our old ways.  And not only are we are called to repent and convert at the time we initially called to be a disciple of Christ, we are called to a constant cycle of repentance and conversion and renewal in our life of faith.
        Perhaps in the ways of the world, all these things would be seen as a paradox, but they are the truths of our faith as well.  Today, perhaps we see a paradox in what plays out in today’s Gospel.  We all go through difficulties in our lives, don’t we?  In one way or another, we all go through moments of challenge and suffering, of anguish and pain.  And we would fool ourselves to believe that once we become a disciple of Christ, that this pain and those difficulties will go away.  In those experiences of suffering, we might not feel the presence of God.  We might feel alone and abandoned.  Martha, the sister of Lazarus who was so attentive in serving Jesus and caring for him we he visited her family on a previous occasion, runs out to meet Jesus on the road, crying out to him, “Lord, if you had only been here…”  I am sure Martha is thinking: you love my brother and my family so much, you weep at the moment you hear that my brother has died, and yet you were not here when we needed you most.  Yet, in that moment of heartache and sorrow, Martha is able to open her ears and her heart to the words of Jesus:  “Martha, I know that you believe that you will be resurrected on the last day, I know that is a part of your faith.  But it is I who am the resurrection and the life.  And whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live.  And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
        When we grieve the death of a loved one, the suffering of a sick family member or beloved friend, the death of a relationship or the death of a dream we had in life, we could be wondering in our hearts: “Lord, if you had been here…” We might have felt that Jesus was not there with us in those moments.  But Martha, the Martha that is always busy occupying herself with a task, makes one of the most profound testimonies of faith in the New Testament: “Yes, Lord, I believe.  Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.”  Martha, the one who cried out to Jesus, now realizes:  Yes, Lord, you are indeed here, yes, Lord, it is in you that we have eternal life. Those paradoxes that exist in our lives and exist in our faith can be troubling, can’t they?  We can feel grief, frustration, or pain, but at the same time, faith and understanding can exist as well.  It’s certainly a paradox.
      Wisdom can come in different forms.  Julian of Norwich was a young woman who lived in the 14th century; she was an anchoress in her community. An anchoress is a woman of faith who lived apart from society in an isolated cell.  She is recognized today in our modern world as a great Christian mystic. There were some things Julian struggled to understand about her faith.  She wondered: in the great wisdom of God, why couldn't have sin been prevented and so then we would not be in the predicament we are in in our world.  Yet she hears these comforting words from Jesus in answer to her ponderings: In God's plan of salvation, it was necessary that there should be sin, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”  In this, Julian comes to the revelation that no matter what, all things will be right in Christ.
     We place our hope in Christ.  We place our hope in our faith as we move forward through the holy season of Lent to the Easter mysteries to come. We have been approaching Lent as a special time in the cycle of our liturgical year: a time in which we examine our lives in a special way, at time in which we make special promises and commitments to God in our journey of these 40 days. Yes, there is a lot about our faith that be a paradox.  There is a lot about our faith that can be beyond our human understanding of things.  But, the Lord is indeed with us every step of the way, even during those times we don’t realize it. 

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