Homily @ Lent: A Faith Strengthened

 

Year C / Ordinary Time  / 31st Week / RCIA Rite of Scrutiny (3rd Scrutiny)

Readings: Wisdom 11.22-12.2/ Psalm 144.1-2, 8-9,10-11, 13c-14 (R/v 7a) / 2 Thessalonians 1.11-2.2 / John 11.1-45


Winter in Boston is a good time. It is especially so for long meditative walks. With my Jesuit brothers, I’d often walk through the undulating snow-covered lawns of Mount Auburn, America’s first landscaped cemetery. Leafless trees and stubborn shrubs dot the winter white. Tombs and memorials of all shapes and stones poignantly complete the silent scene. 

Those walks were sobering; they reminded us of life amidst death. We’d glimpsed it in the stick-like trees harbouring buds waiting for spring to burst forth. We’d see family and friends at the gravesides of their beloved. You could say here are signs that give faith and signs of faith alive.

 
Faith is at the heart of today’s gospel reading. We might struggle to see it because we’re more focused on the miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus to life from the dead. For some, this miracle is the culmination of Jesus’ ministry. For others, it points to the promise of eternal life. When we are too fixated on this miracle, we’ll miss this richer message the gospel reading offers. That a faith challenged is a faith strengthened. Martha experiences this truth when her faith is tested by Lazarus’ death. 

Lazarus’ death pains Martha and Mary. They mourn his death. They also lament Jesus’ absence. “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” 

But Martha has faith in Jesus. She believes He is the Christ who saves. She professes this when Jesus asks if she believes he is the resurrection and the life for everyone. She needs no miraculous deeds to believe in Jesus; she simply believes.

Let’s reflect on Martha’s faith in Jesus. What can we learn for us to grow in faith and follow Jesus? 

This is the same question the three RCIA Scrutinies invite our 16 catechumens to meditate on. It is also meant for you and me, the baptized. This question invites all of us to consider the stages of faith in our Christian life. 

The gospel reading of the 1st Scrutiny focuses on the Samaritan woman meeting Jesus at the well. Here we meditate on how we first come to the faith. In the 2nd Scrutiny, we read about Jesus healing the man born blind. Here we consider how our faith takes root and grows. In today’s 3rd Scrutiny, we reflect on how this faith deepens when it is tested by the difficult and challenging in our lives, like death.

Let us return to Martha whose encounter with Jesus strengthens her faith as she mourns Lazarus’ death. We know she acknowledges that Lazarus will rise again at the resurrection on the last day. We hear her belief that Jesus is the Christ whose resurrection will save all from death. Yet her very first very words to Jesus are: “If you have been here, my brother would not have died.”  

I wonder if we would say similar words when we our lives are tough and difficult, and we cannot see and feel Jesus’ presence. Might we cry out, like Martha, “Lord, where are you?” 

If we do, might our faith be lacking, lukewarm, incomplete? I know we don’t want to have like that. We want our faith in Jesus to go deep, be strong and mature. We might want this kind of faith to live happily.  God, I believe, would want us too for another reason. This one: that our love for God and neighbor can grow as wide as Jesus’ love is – always bighearted. 

Many will tell us, “Look for signs like miracles if you want to deepen your faith.” In today’s gospel reading, St John will say this instead: stay focus on Jesus and not on the signs. Wise are we then to meditate more on Martha’s profession of faith in Jesus than on the miracle of Lazarus’ resuscitation. She shows us how true faith in the resurrection must be centered on Jesus; He alone is the source of unending life. This is why she believes in Him, the Christ.

Even more, Martha shows us that it is not enough to just accept Jesus. We must live out our faith in Jesus fully. By living each moment—whether good or bad, happy or sad, sinful or holy — confidently in Jesus in and through whom God saves. When we can do this, we’re practicing, Christian hope.

This is how Martha and Mary also lived when Lazarus died. Their friendship with Jesus enabled them to do this. Nothing else did. Knowing Jesus intimately enabled them to have faith in Him and His promise of resurrection life. 

The RCIA team and sponsors have prepared our catechumens to know Jesus and to have hope that He saves everyone. This is the most fundamental lesson the RCIA offers them for Christian discipleship.

If such preparation is important to living as Christians, I wonder about you and me, the baptized. “What have we done with the catechism we learned to know Jesus, love Jesus and follow Jesus? Even more, “How have we helped others to know and hope in Jesus?”  Our answers have much to say about us. They will reveal the depth of our faith in Jesus – either it is still the child-like faith of a beginning Christian, or it has taken root and is growing, or that it has deepened and matured. What’s your answer?

Only we know this depth personally. Only we know how deep, strong and ready it is to face life’s challenges. Yet, however deep it is, or not, the good news is that faith, our faith, is always a gift from God. And it is good enough to help us grow in Christian faith, even more to share it with everyone and help them know and hope in Jesus. 

This is why I cherish my winter walks in Mount Auburn. Not so much for the snow or the quiet, nor even the wonderful winter view of Boston from its highest point. Rather, for the reminder that faith is present in the dead of winter as those family and friends praying at the beloved’s graveside expressed.

Their act of faith offered me then, as it now offers all of us here, the glory of this Christian truth: that in the face of death, it is not nothingness or emptiness before us, but the fullness of God’s life fully alive. And it is to be found in no better place than in the faith each of us has in Jesus Christ.

Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart

photo © adrian danker, 2010, charles river, boston, USA