GOD PROVIDES FOR THOSE WHOM HE SENDS

Having a family member confined in a hospital is a derailing experience. We have to see to it that there is always someone available to look after the sick family member. It is our cultural value to personally care for sick and aging family members. We adjust our work schedules to be able to do this. There is also the anxiety over expenditures for hospital bills, medicines and  doctors’ fees.

I experienced all the above when our 68-year-old mother had to be hospitalized three times in a period of a month and a half. Two things I am personally thankful for: first, that during those trying moments my youngest sister happened to be around for a vacation; and second, that the members of the various renewal communities I minister to were sensitive to my predicament. They were quick to offer help, such as offering continuous prayers, visiting my mother and handing gifts that helped us through. All these were answered prayers. On several occasions, I candidly lifted up my heart and mind to the Lord in prayer in this manner: “Lord, You have made me a minister to serve Your Church with my everything. This untoward event with my mother overtakes me at the height of many schedules for Lent and Easter. Lord, I trust in Your infinite wisdom and goodness. I know that You will take care of my mother and that You will see to it that I serve You and Your Church with uninterrupted peace. Amen.” And the Lord showed what He was capable of!

Our Gospel passage today underlines not only Jesus’ missionary mandate for the first disciples; it also declares Jesus’ promise that He will provide sustenance for us to be faithful to our ordained mission and God-given  responsibilities.We just have to trust God’s Word, and then do what we have to do. Many times, God’s power and wisdom need the backdrop of human helplessness and hopelessness so that we can easily recognize His work. Fr. Domie Guzman, SSP

 

Reflection Question:

Look back at your own personal experience of God’s timely ways to sustain you in your own life priorities and ministry.

 

Lord, help me not to doubt that You will always provide for my needs as I try to accomplish Your purpose for my life. Amen.

 

St. Ethelburga, pray for us.

UNTIE HIM AND LET HIM GO

 

On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we read from the 11th chapter of John the death and rising of Lazarus. Lazarus is no stranger to Jesus. In fact, this is the family closest to Jesus that we learn about in His ministry. He must have taken many a day’s rest in the home of Lazarus’s sisters in Bethany in His travels to Jerusalem. Bethany was very close to Jerusalem. Jesus, wearied from travel and ministry, must have found much comfort in the home of this hospitable family.

News arrives that Lazarus, the one whom Jesus loved, was dead. In the Gospel story, our heart is rent with grief and we experience the heart of Jesus break as He hears the sad news. Jesus wept! Only here in this story do we feel as Jesus feels. The Son of God weeps for His friend who has fallen asleep. He prophesies that God will be glorified in this event — the rising of Lazarus from the dead.

At the command of Jesus, the dead man rises from the dead and comes out from the tomb. Jesus calls him to be stripped of the burial cloths and let him go. Jesus, the resurrection and the life, gives life to His friend. It is a prelude to His own death. Death will have no power over Him. Whereas Lazarus would have died again, Jesus has died and risen to life eternal. He is the first fruits of the dead. He gives us life everlasting.

We are all like Lazarus, one way or another, since we have sinned. All of us are bound up in the cloth of sin. Jesus comes to strip us of sin and give us new life. In Baptism, we have died to sin; death has no power over us. By living the Christian life, we have the assurance of life eternal.

As Lazarus was untied and unbound, so we, too, are set free from the grip of sin through the powerful words of Jesus.Fr. Brian Steele, MGL

 

Reflection Question:

What area of my life is bound up? Where does Jesus need to unbind me and set me free?

 

Lord, I believe You are the resurrection and the life. Free me from my sin so that I might live again. Amen.

 

St. Palladius, pray for us.