This weekend, we commemorate the 5th Sunday of Lent. We are getting closer to the end of our Lenten journey. In just a week, we will hear the Passion of our Lord on Palm Sunday as we enter into Holy Week. Today, our Lenten journey takes us face to face with Lazarus, a beloved friend of Jesus. Lazarus has been sealed away in the tomb for 4 days when Jesus arrives in Bethany. At Jesus’ command, “Come out, Lazarus!”, Lazarus comes out of the tomb, with his hands and feet all tied up with strips of material, with a cloth covering his face. “Unbind him, let him go free!” Jesus commands.
Most of us probably feel bound and tied up in the circumstances of our lives right now, in this pandemic of the Coronavirus that is spreading across the world. First, it was something that was associated with a particular province of China. Now we in the United States and communities all over the world are trying to confront this new reality. The countries of Spain, France, and Italy are currently being hit harder than we are. This past week, a friend of mine in Tupelo was out of electricity at her house for a day. She said she felt guilty bemoaning what she was going through compared to others who were sick and battling this illness, compared to the sacrifices the medical professionals were facing right now. We are asked to confine ourselves and to avoid putting ourselves and others at risk. We may feel bound by the sacrifices we make, but at different times in our life, we are called to make different kinds of sacrifices, aren’t we?
Yes, we are bound up in a lot of different ways in this new reality. Sometimes we can physically break through those boundaries. A lot of us would like to break through the physical boundaries that are isolating us. A lot of us would like to break through this physical isolation we are experiencing. May the story of Lazarus inspire us today. Yes, we will one day break free from what is keeping us bound up right now. But during this time, we still have work to do. We are called to reach out to others, to provide encouragement and inspiration. We are called to minister to each other, to be beacons of hope. We are called to continue to do the work to which we are called in the secular world. We here at our parish and our Diocese will be continuing to be there for all of you and for the community of the faithful in the midst of our surreal new reality Even though we are not able to physically have mass together, we will us to us our technology to reach out in the devotions and liturgies of our faith. We are still a community journeying in faith together in the midst of this new reality. We will have faith and hope together until this passes.
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