The one who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies (Rom 8, 11)<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Jesus guarantees life to believers.\u00a0 His love to the end vivifies.\u00a0 Loving as he does, we live through his Spirit.<\/p>\n
Jesus loves Mary, Martha and Lazarus.\u00a0 That is why he is saddened by Lazarus\u2019 death and by his sister\u2019s tears.\u00a0 Just the thought of the tomb makes him weep, and he is even more perturbed when he gets there.\u00a0 The one who is like us in all things, but sin, expresses his love as we do, we who prove ourselves human, according to St. Vincent de Paul, through our ability to weep with those who weep (Coste XII 270-271).<\/p>\n
But even so, Jesus\u2019 love is different.\u00a0 He loves to death.\u00a0 Hence, he decides to go back to Judea in spite of the danger that lurks there.<\/p>\n
The disciples, concerned surely for his safety, remind him of the danger.\u00a0 But their concern comes hand in hand perhaps with lack of understanding.\u00a0 They show repeatedly that they do not understand him.\u00a0 Besides, they still have not heard the teaching, \u201cNo one has greater love that this, to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends.\u201d\u00a0 They do not grasp deeply yet the love that breaks the mold, the love of the one who is concerned about saving Lazarus first and not about saving himself.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 behavior indicates that life is not possible without death, that glory means shame.\u00a0 Just a bit later he will teach:\u00a0 \u201cThe hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.\u00a0 Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teaching, just like the invitation to return to Judea, seeks basically to enkindle within us the faith that impels us to say, \u201cLet us also go to die with him.\u201d\u00a0 And to go and die with Jesus, a friend to sinners and the excluded especially, means, among other things:\u00a0 neither to retreat to our own security nor to opt for rigid defensiveness; to find troubling that so many of our brothers and sisters have become living dead, without either hope or dreams; to open, not close, the door to grace (cf EG<\/i> 45, 49, 94).\u00a0 In Vincentian language, instead of enclosing ourselves in our secure shell, we will go out to assist the poor in every way (Coste XII 87, 92-93), though they may smell bad and even emit the stench of death.<\/p>\n
The sooner we love as Jesus, the sooner we will live and see the dead rise\u2014one more proof of the presence and the death too of the Messiah.\u00a0 Perhaps we do not see the dead rise nowadays because we, the Church, are not conformed to Christ\u2019s death.\u00a0 Now that we have silver and gold, we cannot command in his name, \u201cArise!\u201d\u00a0 And if we hardly get in the Eucharist a foretaste of future glory, could it be because we do not really call to mind Christ\u2019s passion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"