First reading: Ez. 37: 12-14
“Thus says the Lord God:
O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and
bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have
you rise from them, O my people! I will
put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the Lord.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.”
Second reading: Rom. 8-11
“Brothers and sisters:
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the
contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ
does not belong to him. But if Christ is
in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because
of righteousness. If the Spirit of the
One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ
from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit
dwelling in you.”
Gospel reading: Jn. 11: 3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45
“The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, ‘Master,
the one you love is ill.’ When Jesus
heard this he said, ‘This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory
of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and
Lazarus. So when he heard that he was
ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples,
‘Let us go back to Judea.’
“When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been
on the tomb for four days. When Martha
heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been
here, my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give
you.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother
will rise.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will
rise, in the resurrection on the last day.’
Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in
me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will
never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, Yes, Lord.’ I have come to believe that you are the
Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.
“He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, ‘Where
have you laid him?’ They said to him,
‘Sir, come and see.’ And Jesus
wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he
loved him.’ But some of them said,
‘Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so
that this man would not have died?’
“So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across
it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the
stone.’ Martha, the dead man’s sister,
said to him, ‘Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four
days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not
tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, ‘Father,
I thank you for hearing me. I know that
you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they
may believe that you sent me.’ And when
he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, tied hand and foot
with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, ‘Untie him and let him
go.’
“Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he
had done began to believe in him.”
Introductory theme summary:
The common theme from today’s readings addresses the life
that comes to us through the indwelling presence of God. The first reading is God’s testimony that He
was going to give us life as we now understand it from the Lord’s
resurrection. The second reading gives
us a clearer understanding of the conditions for entering into that promise of
life, while the gospel gives us a compelling story of how Jesus taught this to
His contemporaries.
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me,
even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will
never die.” Very compelling words from
our Lord that makes completely clear the absolute necessity of belief in Jesus
Christ for obtaining eternal life.
Hidden within these words, however, are actually two separate
teachings. Rather than saying the same
thing twice in two different ways, Jesus is actually addressing two different
groups of believers with an instruction relevant to their respective states of
belief.
As expressed, believing in Jesus as the resurrection and the life
is a common condition for all who hope to enter into eternal life. Now, beginning with the second group of His
believers, they receive the instruction, “Everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die.” Clearly everyone since
the resurrection of our Lord has died at the end of his/her life so a literal
understand of this passage would imply NO ONE has fulfilled that condition,
which is simply not true. The question
then becomes what do these words actually mean?
To answer that we need to examine our Lord’s words by which He
instituted the Eucharist.
Jesus said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man,
and drink His blood, you do not have life within you.” (Jn. 6: 53) These words indicate there is only one means
to receive that life, and that is through the Eucharist. To help us understand what “the life” we
receive through the Eucharist actually is we have the second reading, which
stipulates for us to not be in the flesh. This too cannot be taken literally, because we
spend our life here on earth in physical bodies. Rather, we need to understand what is meant
by the expression “in the flesh.”
Paul gives us a good outline as to what being in the flesh
is, and more importantly, what actually qualifies as being in the spirit. “Live by the
spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the spirit,
and the spirit has desires against the flesh; these are opposed to each other,
so that you may not do what you want.”
(Gal. 5: 16-17) He continues: “Now
the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of
selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies,
and the like. (Gal. 5: 19-21) He concludes; “In contrast, the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control.” (Gal. 5:
22-23) According to Paul, following our
physical impulses and emotions is living according to the flesh, whether those
impulses or emotions result in the specific works
of sin mentioned above or not; whereas being spiritual, i.e. living
according to the spirit, requires a mastery over our physical impulses and
emotions so as to be able to make them subject to our will; thereby enabling us
to go against our desires for the purpose of avoiding sin.
Therefore, those who convert to the life received through
the Eucharist become able by that reception and conversion to not sin, and
those who discover this life will actually live in a manner that will not be
interrupted by death; thus, they will never die. Without receiving and converting to that
life, however, such a manner of living is not possible and as a consequence the
life they live will end; thus, they will die.
This does not preclude all those who will die from entering into eternal
life, however.
This brings us to the first group of His believers, who receive
the instruction, “Even if he dies, will live.”
There are many faithful Christians in our world who do not believe as we
Catholics do, and as a consequence of their disbelief do not receive the
Eucharist, or do receive an erring manifestation of it, which results in their
not receiving His life. There are also
many Catholics who do receive our Eucharist, but fail to make the necessary
conversion to manifest the life that is eternal in their own lives. As a result, they too will have to die despite
visiting and drawing from the well of eternal life. But for all who possess a genuine faith in
the divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ are assured they will live.
It seems the challenge is coming to believe that a mere
human being could also be divine. Those
who struggle with this presume that the man Jesus Christ made himself out to be
God, but the truth of the matter is quite the opposite. Jesus existed as God before becoming man, and
that is precisely how the belief is taught.
It is because God loved humanity so much that He chose to become human
in order to take upon Himself our
burden of sin and thereby save us from that condition. There is no more profound a love than to
subject Himself to the entirety of our condition in order to save us from it. When you contrast this with our human
unwillingness to humble ourselves, it becomes clear we have a truly loving God!!!
Come, let us receive His embrace and enter into an intimate
union with the author of life, eternally!
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