MY SOUL IS LONGING FOR THE LORD

V SUNDAY OF LENT - John 11:1-45

This Sunday, we are presented with the third of the three great themes of Lent taken from the Gospel of John. With the Samaritan woman, we were invited to accept Jesus as the fountain of living water. With the blind man, we were taken to Jesus as our Light and the Light of the world. On this last Sunday of Lent, with Martha and in the company of Mary of Bethany, we proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God and that in Him we find true life because He is the resurrection and the life. Step by step, in the company of Jesus and of all his disciples, we are taken up until we reach the summit, proclaiming our faith – that is, the faith of the Church: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into this world.

Through the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:12-14), God promised to take us out of our graves, putting his spirit in us so that we may live. Most of us are walking dead, dwelling in tombs richly adorned, covered with flowers that deceive us with their soothing odour. In reality, we are rotten, soul and body, and the perfume exhaling from the flowers can’t hide the stinking rottenness of our lives. The society we live in is rotten to the core. Like Lazarus, we must hear the Lord’s word calling us: “Come out.” Come to the Light and live. By the power of Jesus, the Lord of Life, may the promise made through Ezekiel be fulfilled so that we receive his Spirit, who will lead us to Christ to be his true disciples. Indeed, as Paul told the Romans, we must possess the Spirit of Christ to belong to him. And his Spirit will guide us to put our interests in spiritual things. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, has the power to recreate us anew so that we live for God as his beloved children.

My soul is waiting for the Lord.

  I count on his word.

My soul is longing for the Lord

  more than watchman for daybreak.

(Let the watchman count on daybreak

  and Israel on the Lord.)

Psalm 130