Fifth Sunday Lent 3 22 2026 Deacon Louis Zemlick Baptism Death Life Transformation

Ezekiel 37:12-14 CCC = Catechism Catholic Church reference teaching. CCC715 Expectation of the Messiah. Look what you did to us. Read Psalm 137

Psalm 130:1-8 Dead to Sin. CCC2559 Pray

Romans 8:8-11 CCC695,989,990 Believe in the resurrection.

Gospel John 11:1-45 CCC439 Messiah,472 true God true man,640 resurrection empty tomb,627 will not see corruption 993&994 Resurrection 1001 how do we rise 2604 Jesus Prays.

Read what the Church leaves out in the short version of the Gospel to see the sickness in the Church and in the world, and in Us. We MUST fight against evil.

DeaconLouisZemlick.com

Pray the Rosary it is the greatest weapon we have against evil, and the greatest medicine to heal a dying world.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Pray for us, Thank you Blessed Mother Mary for Saying YES

Transcript

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Hello, everybody. This is Deacon Louis Zemlik in the Diocese of Kalamazoo. We're glad you're with us here today for this fifth Sunday of Lent, our podcast this Lent. And of course, we uh talk about things that are going on in the church. Things have been kind of quiet, which is which is okay. I know that uh Pope Leo has moved into the papal uh uh they call it the palace, but it's not much of a palace, but uh kind of going doing it old school, which is which is cool, and I think a lot of people are happy to see that. You know, people want to uh you know, not just for things to be more balanced and not so political, right? I mean, dear Jesus help us and all of that, you know. But people's struggle for power, right? The struggle for power. But uh got some interesting statistics to talk about today, too, you know, uh sad statistics with uh, you know, especially um um abortion in the world. It's it's devastating, my brothers and sisters. And I'm just gonna mention this number at the beginning and mention it at the end and talk about it a little bit. But I asked somebody if they knew how many um babies died every year in the world. And uh this person actually knew seventy-three million, seventy-three million a year babies die that we voluntarily kill in the world. Seventy-three million. That's so to to granulize it down a little bit, it's two hundred thousand a day. It's two hundred thousand a day. I mean, I was thinking to myself, I was like, this just seems catastrophic. The uh the numbers are just catastrophic. Um, but let us pray. So today is about the resurrection, right? So and death, right? And that's why I bring this up, because we don't really think about it. We don't think about our own death, we don't think about the resurrection. And we need to think about these things. Do I believe in these things? And a lot of today's readings, of course, this is about Lazarus being raised from the dead, these readings today, but they're really about the profession of faith, which us as Catholics, you know, we say the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, whichever one creed you're do a creed at the beginning of Mass. Then halfway through the Mass before the liturgy of the Eucharist, we do the um profession of faith. And uh before we receive the Holy Eucharist. So uh yeah, and these numbers are just staggering. And I've I've really I've looked at them and you know, but uh every single day, every single day, uh when you include, there's 175,000 natural deaths that happen, 175 to 200, they say, and about 350,000 births or so. It's all very the numbers are very close, my brothers and sisters, on whether we are going into reduction mode. That uh, yeah, we're going we're going the other direction. You know, a lot of people say, well, you know, we still are adding people. I don't know. I don't know. And I think it's better for us to say I don't know than to say I do know. Well, we're we'll be fine. We're not fine. We're not fine. We even think about you know the wars that go on, and and and God help our troops and God help everyone who's uh the Americans that are involved and the Israelis are involved, you know, that they're doing the right thing. They're minimizing the amount of of casualties of innocent people. Um but you know, as the old saying says, you know, war is hell, and yes, it is, but terrorism is hell too, right? And you know, 45 years have gone by and now we're finally doing something about it, I guess. So it's still sad. But pray, pray for our leaders. These are very difficult decisions, bigger decisions than I've ever had to make. And um, so I pray for them, whether they're Democrat or Republican or uh socialist or whatever you got, anarchist. Pray for all of them. So here we go. Here's our readings for the day. Think about life and death, think about the resurrection, think about the profession of faith. Do you have a profession of faith? Do you espouse faith in Jesus Christ? It's a good question, right? We're heading towards Easter. And it's a long gospel reading today, but let's go right into our first reading from the book of Ezekiel, chapter 37, verses 12 through 14. Thus says the Lord God, O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them. O my people, I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land. Thus you shall know that I am the Lord. I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our psalm reading today is from Psalm 130, verses 1 through 8. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Excuse me. If you, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand? But with you is forgiveness that you may be revered. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. I trust in the Lord, my soul trusts in his word. More than sentinels wait for the dawn. Let Israel wait for the Lord. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. For with the Lord there is kindness, and with him there is a plenty plentious redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all their iniquities. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Our second reading is from the book of Romans, chapter eight, verses eight through eleven. Brothers and sisters, those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh. On the contrary, you are in the spirit. If only the spirit of God dwells in you, whoever does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give you, will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his spirit dwelling in you. The word of the Lord, thanks be to God. And our gospel reading today for this fifth Sunday of Lent, March 22nd, 2026. And also to remember, the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is this Wednesday, 325. The annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, where Gabriel comes. I just saw that note, so I had to mention it. Alright, so here we go. The Gospel of John, reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord. 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, The 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, but he sees the light of this world. But if he 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 every one 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 he 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 with Martha, had were still where Martha had met him. So when the Jews who were with with her in the house comforting her, saw Mary get up and go out. Saw Mary 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 laid 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. It has 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 the stone away, and Jesus raised his eyes and said, Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me, but because the crowd here and I said this, that they may believe that you sent me. And when he had said this, he cried out in a 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. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. May the words of this gospel wipe away our sins. Well, welcome, my brothers and sisters. My name is Deacon Louis Zemlick here in the Diocese of Kalmazou. We're glad you're with us here today for our podcast on the fifth Sunday of Lent. It's kind of a recap of the scriptures. And you're gonna, you know, might go to Mass, and you know, we've had that for the last three weeks, you know, long version, short version, long version. I love the long version. Why? It's the word of God. And another reason why is because of editing. And you know how much I hate editing. So this is this just to give you a little update. This the one that's added, this gospel that gets edited, edits out some really interesting stuff. I didn't highlight all of it. I will before Sunday. Um, but this is really all about the profession of faith, what we believe, believing in the resurrection, believing in baptism, right? Believing in the prophecy of baptism, which is this expectation of the Messiah, profession of faith that we have here with Ezekiel, that this um it is this prophecy of baptism, right? That God is going to come, God is going to, you know, and the resurrection and life. Uh, so beautiful. And then our psalm reading today that we are dead to sin, and we must have this profound reverence. And we see this as a prayer of a contrite, contrite heart. So we've got about 10 things pointing towards profession of faith, which is in the second section of the of the uh of the um uh catechism, the Catholic Church. And then we have a couple on two or three on prayer. So it's very interesting. So um, you know, there's a reason why we as Catholics uh read these professions of faith, why we read these creeds, is to prepare ourselves to hear the word of God, to hear hopefully we hear some some halfway decent preaching, you know. But if we don't, that's okay too. You know, we have the word of God, which is the most powerful, right? Of course, you know, people the Holy Eucharist is also very powerful, right? All the sacraments are very powerful. But we must look at the word of God because when this editing happens, and I'm just gonna tell you, so it's John one, John 11, 1 through 45, and then the edited version is John 11, 3 through 7, and then verse 17, and then they skip a bunch and they go to 20 through 27, and then they skip and then they go to 33b through 45. And it's quite sad, but the one thing that really, really stood out to me was this was this uh Thomas uh crying out saying, let us go and die with him. My brothers and sisters, that's what I am asking you today. That's what I'm asking you today. And many people get upset with me, you know. Deacon Louis, this is not a Baptist church, this is a Catholic church. We like things to be nice and subtle, settle down. We don't we don't want anybody yelling at us, we don't want anybody banging on the pulpit, we don't we don't want any noise, we don't want any, we don't want anyone to get upset. But you know who loves it the most of all? The kids love it. Because it's passion, my brothers and sisters. We need to have passion when we talk about Jesus. We need to have passion when we talk about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When we talk about the blessed mother, talk about her with love and courage and to defend her. And when people say things nasty about her, we say, How dare you say such a blasphemous thing about the mother of Jesus? To have that courage. And then you'll know that you are a Christian, that you are his brother, that you are in God's family, that you are alive, and that yes, hopefully, you do believe in the resurrection. But Thomas says, let us go and die with him, because the rest of them are terrified that Jesus is gonna go back here. It's only two miles away from Jerusalem, he's gonna go back there for his friend, but just like last week's gospel, where this healing takes place, where the person doesn't even ask to be healed, doesn't it? Sitting on the stairs of the temple, right? Blind from birth, but totally blind. God creates the eyeballs, Jesus creates the eyeballs for the blind man. And they always have the naysayers. All say, oh gee, he could have done this. But Martha and Mary, same thing. And many people think that this that Martha and Mary, this Mary is Mary Magdalene, the woman who anointed his feet, right? Is Mary Magdalene, the great saint who was at the foot of the cross. Right? But this difference today, my brothers and sisters, is when we rise, we rise with Jesus to believe in the resurrection of the dead. To believe in, you know, you're gonna have your your initial judgment, and then you'll have your final judgment. Of course, we're all finally judged when we die. First time we die, you know, we're gonna get judged, right? But the resurrection of the body, that comes later. That's at the very end, the end of ends. And that's another thing, you know, to talk about that just a little bit. The end of ends, right? But I want to go back to uh this profession of faith. Okay, Romans 8. The third day, Jesus rose, this anointing. Believe in the resurrection. 695 of the catechism, 989 of the catechism, 990 of the catechism. To look those up, you can see all those numbers up. On our podcast, but read those. They're so fascinating. Listen to this. So we got Thomas, and now we'll go into the gospel. Okay, here we go. The resurrection. How do we rise? And then Jesus prays. That's that's how this goes. This whole thing is how that how this goes. And it's so amazing when we read this. I heard another people talking about Jesus weeping, right? These tears that Jesus weeps. Um because we're all so we're sheep without a shepherd, so to speak, right? And so many few, so few people want to um even go to mass today. You know, what do we have? 20% church attendance, something like that. 20% of the people who actually give a uh heck about anything, right? And the other 80% walk around. And you see it, and you even see it in the world, you know, you see the the worldly oligarchs, and and they would love this. They would love this for us 80% to just be quiet. So one thing I love about the Catholic Church, I know that there's politics and things like that, but the Catholic Church preaches freedom, faith and reason. You hear that? Faith and reason. Not just blind faith, no, but faith and reason. And if you need to stand up to the government, you need to stand up. Right? If they're doing something wrong, they're doing something wrong. But the church in Rome needs to do the same thing. The bishops need to do the same thing. That we need to stand up, right? Stand up for authority because authority is good, my brothers and sisters. You don't have authority, you have chaos. And then the devil wins. And in a certain sense, we look at this, we we look at these numbers, we look at these death numbers, right? 375,000 deaths a day, and only 350,000 births. Now, to me, and I guess the math could go either way on any given year, but look at how close it is. Look at how close it is, my brothers and sisters. Look at how close the tipping point is. And I believe this is real. And of those, of those births, of those births, or excuse me, of those deaths, 200,000 is abortion. Only 175,000, 200,000 are dying from natural causes. But 200,000 a day,000 a day are children, our babies, and we're willingly taking their lives. And some people are getting paid for it. Think about that. Think about that. Now, whenever I talk about this, I always talk about healing, right? And we must talk about healing, and I offer that up. You know, there's Rachel's Vineyard for women who have who have had abortion, men and women who have had abortions, have lost children, have listened to the lie of the world, listened to the Prince of Darkness. And that's what he's all about is death. God didn't create death. The devil created death. Create. What is it? Create in? He destroys. He's the destroyer, doesn't create anything. See. So I tell you, my brothers and sisters, we must pray. We must pray and we must treasure our lives. We must believe in the resurrection. We must preach life. That life is fragile. And when you meet someone today, the one thing I've noticed in the scriptures this last two or three weeks, and you know, maybe it's my heart changing too, but all Jesus wants is to be our friend. The people may say, oh my gosh, Louie, you've gone totally liberal. Jesus wants to be my friend. Jesus wants you to be someone's friend and tell them about him. That's what it is. Jesus will do the healing, Jesus will do the heavy work, God and the Holy Spirit, the Blessed Virgin Mary, this team of teens, this team of superheroes will show us how to participate in the life of God Almighty. We can do this. You know, it's it's just like Lazarus. You know? So there's no need to be in a big hurry about some of these things. No need to fix it in a big hurry. No. But it's so that the glory of God shines through. And just as we see with St. Thomas, our our my friend Thomas, because my confirmation name is Thomas, let us go and die for him. Let us be willing to think about that. Am I willing to die for Jesus? Am I willing to die for God? And God bless these brave men and women who serve our country, the brave men and women who are police officers and firefighters who put their lives on the line, border security, all the security workers, right? People who work in harm's way, those who are in the military. God bless them. God keep them safe. See? And if you, you know, wow, I have this, that, the other thing, they're all corrupt. Become a police officer. If you think you're you're in your area is not good, change it. Work on changing it. Work on changing it. Be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. But law and order is necessary, my brothers and sisters. Law and order is about God. None of those bad people in every job, every area. We know that. We've seen that in the church, right? See that everywhere. See that with multimillionaires and oligarchs in New York City. People make mistakes, sometimes horrible mistakes. But my brothers and sisters, let us all rise this day. As Lazarus, as Thomas, as Martha and Mary. Let us rise. Let us rise for peace, for justice in our country, be a people of prayer, a people of God, a people of freedom that lets you practice whatever religion you want or not. Because that's the same freedom that God gives us. We're not robots where everything's done and done. No. Maybe you get that in China. It's no good. They want to be free. Let the world be free. May Almighty God bless you. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you all. We love you.