Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year A Scrutiny - 3/17/2024)

Good morning. These past weeks of Lent, we have been walking with Jesus as he moves closer to Jerusalem - the place of his persecution, Passion, and death on the Cross at the hands of his own people whom he loves. As we approach the end of our own Lenten journeys, Thomas extends to us this invitation in today’s Gospel: “Let us also go to die with him.” The apostle is encouraging us to continue to die to our old self, take up our crosses, and come and follow Christ daily - through the end of Lent, the joy of Easter, and beyond. Even if the path leads us somewhere that we are uncomfortable going, we trust that everything will be okay because Jesus is with us. And so let us go to die with Jesus so that we may rise with him to new life.

To our Elects and Candidates, I ask you this: “Are you prepared to go to die with Jesus?” I was in your shoes 16 years ago, preparing for the Sacraments of Initiation and to come into full Communion with the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. I yearned for the Eucharist - to receive the Body of Christ given up for us and to drink from the cup of salvation the Blood of Christ poured out for us for the forgiveness of our sins. My heart ached to come to the Altar of the Lord, where “spiritual and matter ‘kiss;’ [where] heaven and earth embrace. . .” (Christopher West). That is what awaits you all at the Easter Vigil when you come home to Rome. However, before you can taste the sweetness of heaven on earth, you must complete your preparation.

This weekend is the third and final scrutiny. And while the scrutinies are for the Elects and Candidates, these special rites should remind the rest of us of God’s desires for us to go from sin to repentance, from thirst to satisfaction, from illness to health, from darkness to light, from death to new life. As I reflected on the Scrutiny Year A Readings, the Holy Spirit put in my heart the virtues of FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY that I believe are interwoven into the Gospel stories of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well (John 4:5-42), his healing of the man blind from birth (9:1-41), and Christ raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:1-45).

FAITH helps us believe in God, in all that he has said and revealed to us, and that the Holy Church proposes for our belief, because [God] is truth (CCC 1814). We respond to God with FAITH (CCC 142). The woman at the well did not know who Jesus was but she yearned for the “living water” that he had to offer. She responded to Christ with FAITH, saying, “Sir, give me this water. . .” And when Jesus revealed that he is the “Messiah. . . the Christ,” she responded with FAITH that moved her to invite others to come see Jesus. We hear that “[many] Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified” about him. We learn from the woman at the well how we should respond to God’s revelation with FAITH that leads others to encounter Jesus so that they too may come to believe in him.

HOPE helps us to place our trust in Christ’s promises because he is the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6). Saint Theophilus of Antioch wrote that "God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him. . .  All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun. . . If [we]. . . live in purity and holiness and justice, [we] may see God. But, before all, FAITH and the fear of God must take the first place in [our hearts]. . .” Before Jesus healed the man blind from birth, he told his disciples that he is the “light of the world.” He then made clay with saliva, anointed the man’s eyes and, after the man washed, his eyes were opened. He was able to see “the light of the world.” Jesus not only healed the man’s physical blindness, he opened the man’s eyes to FAITH so that he may have HOPE. He becomes God’s witness, testifying to others, “I was blind and now I see.” Like him, may HOPE move us to tell Jesus that we believe in the Son of Man and worship him as Lord and God.

CHARITY helps us to “LOVE God above all things. . . and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC 1822). There is no greater love than God’s love for us and no better friend than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Saint John wrote that “we love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who BELIEVES in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells Martha: “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?” (11:25-26) Martha responds, saying: “Yes, Lord, I have come to BELIEVE that you are the Christ, the Son of God. . .” Jesus desires this of us; it is his prayer to his Father: “. . .because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may BELIEVE that you sent me.”

This is our Lenten journey, to repent (and turn away from temptation and sin) and (turn to God and) BELIEVE in the Gospel. Jesus is the “living water” that washes away our sins and renews and strengthens us in FAITH. The waters of Baptism from which we were all baptized is a “spring of water welling up to eternal life” that we can come back to as often as we need to die to our old self (our bad habits and addictions), take up our crosses daily, and come and follow Christ. Jesus is “the light of the world” that dispels the darkness and brings us HOPE. We should not be afraid to let Christ shine his light into the deepest recesses of our burdened hearts or the darkest places of our messy lives. Jesus is the only Way for us to escape the snares of the Devil and be healed and reconciled with the Father. Jesus is “the resurrection and the life”. If we are dead spiritually because of sin, then Jesus can transform our sins and help us to live lives of virtue. In doing so, Christ resurrects our spiritual life and breathes his Spirit into our lives so that what was once dead in us is renewed in Christ. Jesus came to free us from slavery to sin and temptation so that we can LOVE God above all and see each other with eyes of CHARITY.

My sisters and brothers in Christ, to BELIEVE in God is to have faith in God. To have FAITH in God is to hope in God. To HOPE in God is to love God. And when we LOVE God, Jesus promises that we will live, we will never die. Let us believe with faith so that we have hope to love as we should, as God intended us to love. These are not only lessons that we learn from Jesus when we open our mind's eyes to the richness and beauty of our Catholic FAITH, but truths that we embrace in our hearts because God is LOVE, Christ is our HOPE, and the Holy Spirit strengthens our FAITH. And so let us accept Thomas’ invitation with gratitude and praise in our hearts and go to die with Jesus so that we may rise with him to new life.

. . .

Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany, 

the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil 

and dried his feet with her hair; 

it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.

So the sisters sent word to him 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.”

The disciples said to him, 

“Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, 

and you want to go back there?”

Jesus answered,

“Are there not twelve hours in a day?

If one walks during the day, he does not stumble, 

because he sees the light of this world.

But if one walks at night, he stumbles, 

because the light is not in him.” 

He said this, and then told them,

“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,

but I am going to awaken him.”

So the disciples said to him,

“Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.”

But Jesus was talking about his death, 

while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep. 

So then Jesus said to them clearly,

“Lazarus has died.

And I am glad for you that I was not there,

that you may believe. 

Let us go to him.”

So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, 

“Let us also go to die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus 

had already been in the tomb for four days.

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.

And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary 

to comfort them about their brother.

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 to him,

“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.”

When she had said this, 

she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, 

“The teacher is here and is asking for you.”

As soon as she heard this,

she rose quickly and went to him.

For Jesus had not yet come into the village, 

but was still where Martha had met him.

So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her 

saw Mary get up quickly and go out,

they followed her, 

presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, 

she fell at his feet and said to him, 

“Lord, if you had been here,

my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping, 

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.