Sunday Meditation: For the Lost Sheep

On the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus continues His Galilean ministry only for this passage He takes a side trip north.  Why does He go north?  Well, it’s hardly ever mentioned when it comes to the exegesis of this passage, but the clue is in the response to the Canaanite woman.  He tells her He came for the lost sheep of Israel.  Jesus is in the area of the lost ten tribes of Israel who were conquered by the Assyrians and then absorbed into their population.  The lost sheep are gone and only God can reconstitute them.

Matthew chooses to call the woman a “Canaanite.”  This was anachronistic for Matthew’s time.  The people of the area had long ceased to be seen as “Canaanites,” a term from First Temple times, some eight hundred years prior.  In the same corresponding passage in Mark’s Gospel, Mark calls her the Philo-Phoenician woman, and that’s how people in Jesus’ time would have called her.  So Matthew is choosing a term that heightens the enemies of Israel, which would further alienate the woman.

So grasp this.  Jesus is coming to reconstitute the twelve tribes, but ten of them are absorbed into a new, pagan culture.  Within the “Canaanite” woman are both cultures but, in a sense, alienated.  Jesus in response to her request tells her He has come for the lost Jews.  She has identified Jesus as the Mesiah, “Son of David,” and so she reveals her bi-furcated nature.  Through her humility and faith, Jesus transcends the structure of the priority that the children of Israel eat first and the “dogs” eat scraps.  The new pagan culture, through faith, contains the Jewish past. 

Thomas Aquinas in his Homily #4 identifies five aspects of the woman’s response which should serve as a model for us.

 

(1) Humility: “ Yet the dogs eat.” (2) Her patience, since she patiently endured the seeming reproaches of Our Lord. (3) Her prayer, “ Have mercy on me, O Lord.” (4) Her perseverance : she did not cease asking till she obtained what she desired. (5) Her faith: “O woman, great is thy faith.” 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,

"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!

My daughter is tormented by a demon."

But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.

Jesus' disciples came and asked him,

"Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us."

He said in reply,

"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help me."

He said in reply,

"It is not right to take the food of the children

and throw it to the dogs."

She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps

that fall from the table of their masters."

Then Jesus said to her in reply,

"O woman, great is your faith!

Let it be done for you as you wish."

And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.

~Mt: 15:21-28

 

 

 

For the exegetical homily, I’m going to turn to Fr. Mike Schmidt who I think zeros in on why this passage is so powerful.  Let’s set aside the historical context and let Fr. Mike focus on the spiritual.

 

 

Fr. Mike:

If you've ever been in a situation where there's you know some kind of like medical emergency or not even medical emergency but typically situation where the you've tried all of your options like you've exhausted all of your options whether that be you know a joint has failed and you're like man I'm in so much pain or maybe there's like a cancer diagnosis and you went through all of the treatments sometimes it's a mental health issue where you're like I I've seen a counselor I've tried medication all these things where it seems like, okay, there's and there's and there's no other option. There's no other you're desperate. You've ever been in that situation where you're just so desperate, like you've tried everything and nothing has helped, and you find yourself in the exact same place as you were before, but you're not even in the exact same place as you were before. You're in a worse place because before you tried all these other options, uh you had hope.  But after having tried everything and nothing's worked, you realize, is there room for hope?  And this is the place of desperation, right? And this again, this is the place that a lot of us can find ourselves and probably a lot of us will find, maybe all of us will find ourselves at some point in our life where we have tried everything and nothing's helped. We've tried everything and nothing has worked.

 

Now, I I've talked to some people who will see that the intercessory petitionary prayer, they will see that as kind of like a less than prayer where it's that that's for those people who don't really trust God. And you know, a couple weeks ago again, I I I mentioned this. I said that sometimes people ask me, "Hey, Father Mike, what do you need prayers for?" And my answer is often times, I don't know. I I just I know that God I know that God knows and I know that God is give me going to give me the best.  And so there that's a certain level of trust, right? a certain level of trust where we basically do say that we say, "God, I trust you that you're going to give me what I need." Petitionary prayer, intercessory prayer, we know that that's not for those who are less spiritually advanced for a couple reasons. Number one is because Jesus did do petitionary prayer. Jesus did do intercessory prayer and we are not more advanced than Jesus. That's the number that's the first thing we have to understand. The second thing is this that approaching God to again prayer is a petition where we are interceding on behalf of ourselves or someone else.  That kind of prayer asking God for what we know or what we need or what we want.  It's an exercise of what it is to be a son or daughter of God. I mean just imagine if we if we didn't approach the Lord with our with our needs or we didn't approach the Lord with our wants that could be a sign that we're not willing to open our hearts to God and and tell him and show him our hearts.

 

The third thing is this. I think there's a certain kind of trust. Again, there is a real trust that says, "God, you know best, so I won't even ask." Again, I think that's not bad. That's a certain kind of trust. God, you know best, I won't even ask. There's also a kind of trust that says, God, you know best. So, I will ask for what I want. I will ask for what I need and then I will trust that you will give me the best. And I think that's even a deeper trust. It's one thing to just be like, hands off, God, you give me whatever you you need to give me.  There's a deeper kind of trust that says, God, I'm going I know you're going to give me what's best. I'm also going to reveal my heart to you. I'm going to ask you for something and then I'm going to trust that you give me what is best because again that is a profound act of trust because we know this. We know that God can have it. God will answer. We know that God's answers are at least three things. He one of at least three things. He could say yes. He could say no. He could say wait.  We know that when we come before God like the Canaanite woman in the gospel today and we're desperate and we say God this is what I need. He can say yes. He can say no. And he can say wait. So here's the question.  When I ask when I'm desperate, when I come before God and say God, this is what I need or this is what I want. The question is this.  Can God tell me no? Can God tell me no?  The further question is, what do I do when God tells me no?  I love this. What happened in the Gospels? Well, what someone might say is that she persists. Maybe even they would say that she argues with Jesus maybe.  But the first thing that she does is Jesus tells her no.  And she stays. This is this is this is so so important.  Jesus gives his answer. Jesus tells her no.  And she stays there. Question. Can God tell me no and I won't go anywhere?  Because our temptation, my temptation, our our temptation is to be mercenaries, right? To give our to give our hearts to the high to the highest bidder, to give our faith, to give our trust, to give our allegiance to the highest bidder.

Trust is what is at the heart of the Canaanite woman’s appeal. 

 

For the pastoral homily I’m going to turn to Cardinal Blase Cupich who focuses on the differences of the in group and the out group.

 

 

Cardinal Cupich:

Established groups can very easily fall into the temptation, the trap of defining who's in and who is out, who belongs and who doesn't, a difference between us and them.  We see that so often in society and it can happen even in the life of the church. People who are veterans of the faith begin to act as though they're quite settled with their own community where they can be their own insular group, a self-referential community as Pope Francis often spoke of, and even tie themselves to a political party as though they are a political party at prayer.  But what we see in Isaiah the prophet and in Jesus words in the Gospel of Matthew today is that that is a temptation we should put aside.  And we see this in this story of this Canaanite woman. She indeed is a foreigner, speaks a different language, is a pagan.  And yet she comes to Jesus with a need.  And at first, of course, the disciples want to send her away. She's a bother to us. And Jesus even recognizes the prejudice in their heart to the point where the cruelty of that line.  The dogs in fact should not be given the master's food.  He says that to unveil and show the cruelty of categorizing people according to those who belong and those who don't.  But instead, what comes to the surface is her need as a human being, as a mother for her child, about her human dignity that cuts across all of those prejudices and categorizations we make of people.

 

Three years ago when this passage came up in the lectionary, I offered this interpretation as to why Jesus refers to her as a dog.  I want to re-emphasize it because I think Cardinal Cupich is alluding to similar.

 

Jesus and the apostles have been walking in a foreign country and come across lots of pagans.  The apostles being sinners and proud of their heritage mumbling to each other lots of what we would call racist language as they talk about people they see.  Jesus overhears them and picks up on this language not to insult the woman but to bring down the pride of his Jewish apostles.  It is the apostles who are cut to the heart. 

Cardinal Cupich:

Sometime later, Jesus would say to them, "If you have faith and do not doubt, if you say And here is this woman who shows her human dignity as someone who can love, love her daughter and she is asking Jesus to show that same love for her.  It's so very important in our lives to make sure we examine ourselves from time to time within the life of the church, but also in society that we do not create these boundaries and these walls to the point where we disregard the real human needs of others, the dignity of people, feeling as though we can cast them aside like the disciples wanted to do because they're going to make some demands on us or they're a bother to us.

Without being political, I see exactly what Cardinal Cupich is alluding to, and I agree.

 

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

 

 

How about this lovely hymn for today, “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All/”

 

Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all

How can I love Thee as I ought?

And, how revere this wondrous gift

So far surpassing hope or thought?

 

Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore

O, make us love Thee more and more

 

Had I but Mary's sinless heart

To love Thee with, my dearest King

O with what bursts of fervent praise

Thy goodness, Jesus, would I sing

 

Sound, sound His praises higher still,

And come, ye angels, to our aid,

'Tis God, 'tis God, the very God

Whose power both man and angels made

 

 

Sweet Sacrament, we Thee adore!

 

Sunday Meditation: The Spirit of Truth

The Sixth Sunday of Easter—the second to last Sunday of the season—continues with Jesus’s Last Discourse, and, if you notice, these discourses are focused on the coming of the Holy Spirit.  These Gospel readings, then, set the stage for Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus tells the disciples that after He dies and rises and stays with them for a while (forty days) the Holy Spirit will come to them. 

I’ve been impressed with the Gospel reflections of Gina Hens-Piazza who provides reflections at America magazine.  She points out this week that Jesus in this passage is defining what love is.

 

Jesus, however, is suggesting a different relationship between love and obedience. He never threatens to withhold love, even when we turn away from the commandments. Instead, he makes obedience to the commandments the means by which we love one another. The concrete nature of love in human relationships becomes the means by which we love him. After all, whether they be mandates of commission or omission, commandments such as “Honor your father and mother” or “You shall not commit adultery” aim specifically at cultivating and preserving loving relationships among people. For Jesus, love is not contingent upon obedience but is the product of obedience. Divine commandments facilitate love of one another and result in love of Jesus.

Love in the Christian sense is certainly more complex than an emotional feeling.

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will ask the Father,

and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,

the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept,

because it neither sees nor knows him.

But you know him, because he remains with you,

and will be in you.

I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

In a little while the world will no longer see me,

but you will see me, because I live and you will live.

On that day you will realize that I am in my Father

and you are in me and I in you.

Whoever has my commandments and observes them

is the one who loves me.

And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”

~Jn:14: 15-21

 

 

Today’s reflection comes from Fr. Greg Heille O.P. from St. Louis.  He is one of the Dominican friars from the St. Albert the Great Province that provides these “Know Before You Go” homilies.  Fr. Greg rightly emphasizes the foretelling of the coming of the Holy Spirit in this passage.

 

Fr. Greg:

Our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate a holiday that is called the Festival of Weeks which is held seven weeks and one day, or 50 days, after Passover…Well fifty days translates to Pentecost, and so we have in two weeks from now the solemn Feast of Pentecost, 50 days after our celebration of our Easter Sunday.  Early in our Easter season our celebration was all about “Alleluia, He is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!”  But now late in the Easter season our celebration has more of a spirit of “Veni Sancte Spiritus, Come Holy Spirit."

 

In a way the Gospel from John 14 looks ahead to the next four weeks of celebration in our liturgical cycle.  A week from now we will celebrate the Feast of the Ascension…Our Gospel today in a way gives a hint of ascension because as we think about Jesus ascending into heaven we can wonder where is He now.  And our Gospel today, John 14, says, “I will not leave you orphans.  I will come to you.”  “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always.”  The word advocate in Greek is paraclete, and its etymology is “one who is called aside to help.”  A helper.

 

So as we approach Pentecost we ae being promised by Jesus a paraclete, one who will walk along side of us to help.  We will not be left as orphans…Jesus was brought to life in the Spirit.  The Spirit walked with Jesus as His helper.  He was raised to life in the Spirit…And we begin to realize that what God has done for Jesus so too He does for us.  He raises us up in the Spirit.  He walks along side of us as a companion, an advocate, a helper.

 

That is the heart of our lives in the Spirit.  We have a “vital connection to Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit.”  Be sure to listen to the end to where Fr. Greg explains that synodality is a walking of us all together on the Way.

For the pastoral homily, Cardinal Blasé Cupich of Archdiocese of Chicago combined this Gospel passage with a link to today’s Mother’s Day holiday.

 

Archbishop Cupich:

We've seen some remarkable transformations in this group of disciples that formed the early church.  We have Philillip who now very publicly addresses the people and speaks of Jesus.  Philip was the one who wanted death to know from Jesus the way that he was going.  And Jesus said to him, "How long have you been with me and yet you do not know me?" But all of a sudden with the gift of the spirit, something changes in him dramatically.  And it occurs to me as we celebrate Mother's Day that there are many qualities that are reflected in mothers that we find in this early church that's transformed by the spirit.

 

The first thing is the way the the disciples take initiative. Jesus is no longer with them. They're on their own.  And yet they go out and they make a difference.  How often mothers are the ones in the home who have to take initiative to get things going. Maybe those times in which there are birthdays or celebrations of holidays. They're the ones who take the initiative. They're the ones who kind of learn on the spur of the moment. I remember my own mother who was married when she was uh a young 22 years old and by the time she was 30, she had six children and she had to learn how to balance her life and balance being a mother to all those children. She took initiative much like we see in that early church.  But we also see these early disciples being willing to adapt and be flexible to the point that there were new members of the community who were different. We hear about of course the formation of the deacons. When the Greek Christians felt that they were being overlooked, the disciples were able to adapt and create a whole new order within the church that of deacons.  They paid attention to the specifics of the different groups that were there.  I think my mother reflected that as well. She always said that each child was different. The being a parent is not an exact science simply because there are so many variables in each child that comes along. She was once asked, "Do you love any of your children more than the others?" And her answer was swift and clear. No, she said, but only if they need it.  I think that that's the way each one of us have experienced our mothers as well.  That they know us and they look for ways in which they're going to meet the needs of each one of us in our particular circumstances, much like the early church was able to do.

 

Mothers as well were the point of unity within a family. So often the ones who brought people together for healing, telling and encouraging us to have forgiveness, but also the kind of unity that stays with us in our life even when our man mothers pass from this life. Much like the unity that we hear about in the gospel where Jesus says, "Even though I will be away from you, I will be in you as my father is in me and I am in you." How often we are able to carry within us the voice, the image, the words of our mothers within us. In a way showing us that the unity within a family is being able to have a sensitivity to the lives of others but also a fond remembrance of each other no matter what the circumstances are in life. Even if we are separated by distance or even by death.

 

God bless our mothers.  They are the image of Jesus in our lives.

 

Sunday Meditation: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.”

 

How can we not listen to “Veni Creator Spiritus” after Christ’s foretelling of the Holy Spirit? 

 

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come

from thy bright heav'nly throne;

come, take possession of our souls,

and make them all thine own.

 

Thou who art called the Paraclete,

best gift of God above,

the living spring, the living fire,

sweet unction and true love. (...)

 

O guide our minds with thy blest light,

with love our hearts inflame;

and with thy strength, which ne'er decays,

confirm our mortal frame. (…)

 

Through thee may we the Father know,

through thee th'eternal Son,

and thee the Spirit of them both,

thrice-blessed three in One.

 

In Gregorian Chant!  Beautiful!

 

Sunday Meditation: Waiting For Jesus

Today is another long reading.  For the Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A the Gospel reading is of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  This is such a deep and profound passage that most homilies cannot do it justice.  Homilists may focus on the delay that Jesus takes to go to Bethany, or focus on Martha’s greeting when Jesus arrives, or, of course, the raising of Lazarus.  We’ll get to those in the embedded homilies.  But here are a few details that seem to go unnoticed.  John tells us that “Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair.”  That is interesting.  That happened in a different Gospel; it’s from Lk 7:36-50.  Here’s another interesting detail.  When Jesus is warned by the apostles that the Jews will be trying to kill him, the Apostle Thomas, the same so called “Doubting Thomas,” says, “Let us also go to die with him.”  He may have been skeptical but he is willing to die for Christ.

 

Here is today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

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.

~Jn:11:1-45

 

Dr. Brant Pitre provides a full explanation of the reading.

 

Dr. Pitre:

‘Martha said to him oh I know that he will rise again in the Resurrection on the last day.   Jesus said to her “I am the resurrection and the life;” he who believes in me though he die yet he shall live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.  Do you believe this?  She said to him yes Lord I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God he who is coming into the world.’  Okay pause there notice what just happened?  Lazarus is dead; he's been dead 4 days.  When Jesus comes Mary says, ‘you know if you'd have been here this wouldn't have happened,’ which the reader now knows isn't true because Jesus knew about Lazarus sickness and that he was going to die but he stayed longer and allowed it to happen.  Why does Jesus wait two days longer to go to Judea?  Well this an interesting thing. John says very specifically that Jesus did this because he loved Lazarus and Mary and Martha.  That's a very mysterious thing.  I mean can you imagine a situation where let's say I'm giving a lecture in class at the Seminary and my wife calls and says you know your daughter is very sick right, very, very sick, I think she might be dying and I would respond okay well I'm going to stay here at work a couple of days longer because I love her.  I mean that's totally counterintuitive; it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but this Jesus isn't an ordinary man.  He doesn't have an Ordinary Love for Lazarus; he allows Lazarus his friend to suffer and die because he's going to bring him back from the grave and in the living.

What Dr. Pitre calls “counterintuitive” I would call a non sequitur.  There are several what strike me as non sequiturs in this passage.  For instance, when the apostles warn Jesus that the Jews will be looking to kill Him, he gives what strikes me as a non sequitur response: “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.” 

What’s with the non sequiturs?  Dr. Pitre continues:

 

St John Chrysostom said this about this quote: “He said many are offended when they see any of those who are pleasing to God suffering anything terrible.  Those who are offended by this however do not know that those who are especially dear to God have it as their lot to endure such things, as we see in the case of Lazarus who was also one of the friends of Christ but was also sick.”  So what Chrysostom is pointing out here is there's a mysterious reality about the Christian life, that those who are called to a special Holiness, those who in a sense God loves in a special way, he often frequently allows to suffer in a special way; he allows to suffer in a great way.

I have called this a non sequitur, but that’s not quite accurate.  What strikes as a non sequitur is identifying one of the paradoxes of Christianity and of human life.  Suffering and death actually has a purpose beyond common thought.  There is a mystery behind God’s logic.

 

I found Cardinal Blasé Cupich pastoral homily unique and insightful.

 

Cardinal Cupich connects Jesus’ delay in this Gospel passage with the time of World War II, a time of great tragedy.

Cardinal Cupich:

An Irish playwright by the name of Samuel Beckett wrote a play that became very famous called Waiting for Godot.  It was a play on words.  Waiting for God was something that he took up. How is it that these terrible atrocities could happen? What was God doing in all of this? God seemed to be out on a vacation, inattentive to the needs of humanity.  Today in this gospel text, Jesus gives us an answer about what God is doing and where God is.  We first of all see that Jesus finds out that Lazarus is dying and he waits until he dies.  It is in that waiting period, that time between the sufferings that we have and knowing what the result is that can be so anguishing.  Maybe as we wait for a diagnosis or we wait to see whether or not someone hurt in an accident is going to survive. or the waiting that comes just in therapy and healing where the end result is not certain.  Jesus tells us he's there in the waiting because the life that he gives is not just a matter of continuation of our existence but rather it's the word, “Zoe,” which is the breathing of God's life in us, that God wants to reveal in the waiting that he's present to us, that God is revealing himself in those moments and then we begin to see.

In those moments of waiting, hanging on the point of a needle to see how some tragedy turns out, God is breathing into us, revealing Himself.  “He's there with us in that moment in which the human frailty is so very present.”  Cardinal Cupich continues:

 

So today Jesus answers Beckett, Waiting for Godot, waiting for God is in fact exactly what we should be looking for in life. That God is present in the inbetweens of life. God is present in the smelliness, the stinkiness of life, the things that we would otherwise want to avoid. When everyone abandons us, God is present there.  And finally, God is present and has to be present in the community that does its best to make sure that the bonds of oppression injustice are untied.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Untie him and let him go.”

 

Here is a wonderful hymn in the mode of a country song on this topic, “Jesus Raised Lazarus from the Tomb.”

 

When he's four days

And All hope is gone

Lord we don’t understand

Why you waited so long.

 

But His way is God’s way,

Not yours or mine.

And isn’t it great,

When He’s four days late

But He’s still on time.

 

Performed by the Frank Brownstead Choir.