Hi everyone, and welcome to Weekly Homilies with Father Mark Suslenko, Pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We are part of the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. I'm Carol Vassar, parish director of communications, and this is Episode 15 of Season 6 for the Fifth Sunday of Lent: March 26, 2023. Our Gospel reading is from John Chapter 11, verses 3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45.
The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, 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.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 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, “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.”
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.
The Gospel of the Lord
“Fear, Faith, and the Gospel,’” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut
In reflecting upon modern day understandings of freedom, liberties, and even entitlement, C.K. Chesterton said this: "Modern freedom is at (its) root fear." Modern freedom is at its root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules. It is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. It is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities. And so, therefore, an increase in freedom is found only with an increase in responsibility.
Using that analogy, we can enlighten our understanding of faith as well because, quite often, our faith is reduced solely to the negotiation of our fears, our fears.
If we truly believe, as I suspect all of us do here today on some level, that Jesus Christ is, in fact, God, and that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the Universe, and that Jesus Christ was serious and on point when he said that he is the resurrection and the life, then it is our task to then take responsibility for that faith. In short, to take responsibility for the Gospel. But as it turns out, our biggest fear does not have anything to do with our personal agendas but with living the Gospel. We are afraid to do so, and we allow our other fears to get in the way and turn us away from doing so.
So, in addition to living the Gospel in all of its fullness, what are we afraid of?
Well, we're afraid of having to turn the other cheek. We're afraid of dealing with uncertainty. We're afraid of not knowing what tomorrow will bring. We're afraid of failing. We're afraid of not being popular or having a popular place in life. We're afraid of rejection. We're afraid of giving some of what we have to someone in need. We're afraid of having to put others first before ourselves. We're afraid of getting old. We're afraid that heaven may not be what we think it will be. We're afraid that when we die, we lose, and we're afraid of death itself.
You see, all of our lesser fears, those ones that keep us up at night, prevent us from investing ourselves wholly and fully into the Gospel and believing Jesus when he says, "I am the resurrection and the life." I am, says he. And so when we begin to internalize that faith and own it and take responsibility for it, then , of lesser importance, is the agenda of our lives and our smaller fears, and what gains greater importance is putting ourselves out there in service of the Gospel.
And so we find ourselves living a bit differently. We can, when we believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, that this is not just some future reality that believers will one day inherit, but it is something that is present now because when Jesus says I am, it takes it from the future and brings it to the present, and he says, "I stand before. As the resurrection and the life," which means that he gives us the power to put our fears in second place and work in service of the Gospel and take responsibility not only for who we are but for who God is. Because we are not resurrection people of the future solely. We are resurrection people of today, and the amount that we take responsibility for that resurrection faith today is going to then determine what people see in our thoughts, in our words, and in our actions.
And so we will walk more confidently in hope because we will know that the one who believes in the resurrection and the life never loses and always gains. That we are on a road and a journey to becoming our true self, eternally and magnificently, eternally with God. We can, then, walk with faith, knowing that not only is all well today, but all will be well tomorrow. And we can walk with love knowing that God not only holds us today, but will hold us tomorrow and well into eternity, too.
So the person who begins to internalize and take responsibility for their faith begins to truly live the Gospel in thought, word, and deed. And so then, It becomes incredibly important for us to honestly look at ourselves, not only at what we have done but also then at what we have failed to do because of our fears.
Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Learn more about our parish community at www.isidoreandmaria.org. And follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Our music comes free of charge from Blue Dot Sessions in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’m Carol Vassar. Thanks for joining us.