March 29, 2020: 5th Sunday of Lent A
March 29, 2020: 5th Sunday Lent A
What would you do if you found a $20 bill in our church parking lot? Myles, an 8-year-old boy, discovered a $20 bill in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel as his family was going into the restaurant for lunch. He was thrilled with the idea of buying a video game with the money. Once inside the restaurant, however, Myles changed his mind when he saw a soldier eating lunch. Myles wrote a little note, “Dear soldier, My dad was a soldier. He’s in heaven now. I found this 20 dollar bill in the parking lot when we got here. We like to pay it forward in my family. It’s your lucky day! Thank you for your service.” After lunch, Myles asked his mom if they could drop by his dad’s grave. Myles lingered a long time in front of his dad’s grave; his dad died in Afghanistan only weeks after Myles was born. Perhaps that soldier in the restaurant reminded Myles of his own father whom he never met. In a way the little boy was following in his father’s footsteps, by making a gift of himself to others. Making a gift of oneself helps us grasp the meaning of suffering and death. Jesus spoke about the paradox of life and death, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25)
In this current climate of sickness and suffering from coronavirus, we may be inclined to lose sight of the joy and the glory that await us in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In many ways, we can sympathize with the reaction of Martha and Mary for their brother Lazarus’ illness and death. Who of us have not experienced sickness, suffering, and death in our own families? We too have struggled to understand God’s providence when our dear friends or family members die. Martha’s complaint to Jesus mirrors our own lament, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In our own suffering, we may have argued that if God is all good, loving, and merciful, then surely He would have spared the life of my dearly beloved, loss of my job, or broken marriage.
Just a couple of days ago in Vatican City, Pope Francis gave an extraordinary blessing to the world's humanity as more than half of the world’s population is confined to their home to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He walked alone in St. Peter’s Square, symbolically representing all of humanity shrouded in the darkness of anxiety. He spoke these words, “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying ‘We are perishing’, so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.”
Behind the Pope were the icon of Our Lady and the miraculous crucifix from the church of San Marcello. Our Lord and Blessed Mother are present with us on this journey through darkness. This dark storm of suffering and death exposes “our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules” and lays bare “all those attempts to anesthetize ourselves,” the Pope said. This storm has stripped all of us of self-sufficiency. As much as we pride ourselves in constructing a Tower of Babel using scientific and technological advances, we are left powerless by this virus and left with a stark truth--that we are in need of salvation and are not self-sufficient.
This is the time when Jesus is calling us to be converted, calling us to faith. Now is the time of choosing; “a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not,” the Pope said.
We struggle to understand the meaning and purpose of suffering--loss of livelihood, loss of freedom and during this virus threat, the loss of our mass and Eucharist. At times, we struggle with our fear of death. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a foretaste of new life Jesus offers those who sincerely believe that he is the resurrection and the life. No matter what we suffer in life, we must remember that suffering is not the end of life but the beginning of a spiritual awakening of the transforming power of God’s life and love within us. Jesus does not deny the fact that Lazarus is dead or that we, like Lazarus, will one day die. Yet Jesus includes us in revealing God’s glory in that while our earthly body will die, our soul will be with God in eternity. We profess belief in resurrection, and thus our life in Christ here on earth is a preparation for our eternal life with the Father.
By His cross we have been healed and redeemed so that nothing and no one can separate us from His love. Whether it is a $20 gift in appreciation of a military serviceman, sewing homemade masks for healthcare workers who are taking care of virus victims, or praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the dying, we embrace the Cross of Christ when we make a small gift of ourselves as we row together in this fragile boat called humanity.
In this current climate of sickness and suffering from coronavirus, we may be inclined to lose sight of the joy and the glory that await us in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In many ways, we can sympathize with the reaction of Martha and Mary for their brother Lazarus’ illness and death. Who of us have not experienced sickness, suffering, and death in our own families? We too have struggled to understand God’s providence when our dear friends or family members die. Martha’s complaint to Jesus mirrors our own lament, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” In our own suffering, we may have argued that if God is all good, loving, and merciful, then surely He would have spared the life of my dearly beloved, loss of my job, or broken marriage.
Just a couple of days ago in Vatican City, Pope Francis gave an extraordinary blessing to the world's humanity as more than half of the world’s population is confined to their home to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He walked alone in St. Peter’s Square, symbolically representing all of humanity shrouded in the darkness of anxiety. He spoke these words, “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying ‘We are perishing’, so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.”
Behind the Pope were the icon of Our Lady and the miraculous crucifix from the church of San Marcello. Our Lord and Blessed Mother are present with us on this journey through darkness. This dark storm of suffering and death exposes “our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules” and lays bare “all those attempts to anesthetize ourselves,” the Pope said. This storm has stripped all of us of self-sufficiency. As much as we pride ourselves in constructing a Tower of Babel using scientific and technological advances, we are left powerless by this virus and left with a stark truth--that we are in need of salvation and are not self-sufficient.
This is the time when Jesus is calling us to be converted, calling us to faith. Now is the time of choosing; “a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not,” the Pope said.
We struggle to understand the meaning and purpose of suffering--loss of livelihood, loss of freedom and during this virus threat, the loss of our mass and Eucharist. At times, we struggle with our fear of death. The story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is a foretaste of new life Jesus offers those who sincerely believe that he is the resurrection and the life. No matter what we suffer in life, we must remember that suffering is not the end of life but the beginning of a spiritual awakening of the transforming power of God’s life and love within us. Jesus does not deny the fact that Lazarus is dead or that we, like Lazarus, will one day die. Yet Jesus includes us in revealing God’s glory in that while our earthly body will die, our soul will be with God in eternity. We profess belief in resurrection, and thus our life in Christ here on earth is a preparation for our eternal life with the Father.
By His cross we have been healed and redeemed so that nothing and no one can separate us from His love. Whether it is a $20 gift in appreciation of a military serviceman, sewing homemade masks for healthcare workers who are taking care of virus victims, or praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the dying, we embrace the Cross of Christ when we make a small gift of ourselves as we row together in this fragile boat called humanity.
