5th Sunday of lent 2014

Homilies :: Latin Rite

HOMILIES - THE FIFTH WEEK OF LENT - SUNDAY Download This Homily

April 6, 2014

Fifth Sunday of Lent- Year A

Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130:1-8; Romans 8:8-11
John 11:1-45 or John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33-45

Daily Mass Reading - Audio

Lazarus, Come Out!

 In a village dispensary, Sr. Mary looked at the face of a man, sitting in front of her. He was under severe pain. But he tried not to show it. The wound on his leg had rotten and puss was seeping through the old clothes he had wrapped over that. Sister started to remove the bandage he had tied. He objected, “Sister, don’t remove the bandage. The smell will be unbearable.” The bad odour had already filled the room as he entered. Sister told him, “Unless I clean the wound and apply medicine the wound won’t be healed.”

When Jesus came near the tomb of Lazarus and asked to take away the stone, Martha protested, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” 

The name Lazarus means “helpless”. In the tomb he is completely bound up: his hands and feet bound with strips of linen, his mouth gagged, a cloth around his head – lifeless in the tomb with a stone in front and the smell of decay inside.

Does Lazarus remind us of our condition and he condition of the society we live in? We are like that man Lazarus- helpless, frustrated, bound up, smelly, decaying and dead

.

We have our hurts and wounds which we don’t want to show others. We have our guilt feelings, frustrations, sinfulness which we want to hide from others.

We also protest- “Don’t roll the stone away. Leave things as they are. Smell will be unbearable. Let us not discuss this issue.” We want to bury them under the stone.

But he says- “take away the stone” He calls out, “Lazarus, come out” And the dead man came out. The grave clothes are taken off and he started to live.

Jesus wants to do to us, to our society what he did to Lazarus.

About Lazarus Jesus had said, “Our friend Lazarus” Reaching to the tomb of Lazarus Jesus wept and the people said, “See, how much he loved him.”

About his love Jesus had said- there is no greater love than laying down one’s live for the friend and he did what he has told. 

We often sing this popular song,

‘What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear.

What a privilege to carry, everything to God in prayer.

O what peace we often forfeit: O what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer’

This song reminds us to carry all our wounds, worries and sorrows to him.

Next week, on Good Friday we will hear the thief on the right side of the cross pleading to Jesus, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power” Jesus gave him the promise of paradise, forgiving all his past deeds. 

Let us remember that it is a privilege to carry everything to him than to be buried in the tomb of our sinfulness and frustrations.

Fr James M L CMI