Living With Trust Not Trouble

 

Deacon Dave · Living With Trust Not Toruble

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter, May 3, 2026. Gospel of St. John 14:1-12. Theme: Living With Trust Not Trouble 

 There’s a heck of a lot in today’s Gospel that could provide us with countless hours of reflection but I am going to limit myself to Jesus’ opening words that begin with, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Notice the timing of when He said this. It was at the Last Supper when He was well aware that He was about to undergo His cruel Passion. And He knew the terrible havoc this would wreak on his companions. On their part, the disciples saw the seriousness on the Lord’s face and heard it in His voice. They sensed that something terribly upsetting was coming their way. It’s important to realize that it was within this setting that Jesus was inviting them to focus on faith and keep their hearts untroubled. 

 I think what He was counseling was to not let the stress and worry that so easily fill our minds descend into our inner selves where it can rob us of peace. He knows we obviously can’t control what goes on around us so He is telling us to take charge of what happens within us. The many external disturbances of life can only settle in our hearts if we stubbornly hold onto the idea that we are in control of everything. In other words, the stress in our heads becomes stress in our hearts when we persist in the idea that we can fix any situation and solve any problem based on our own merits. And the reason this stresses us out is because deep down in the very recesses of our being we know that this isn’t true! A simple reality check should remind us that there are things we struggle with that are not of our own doing and so they also cannot be of our own undoing. We may be powerless in the face of these sufferings but we are definitely not helpless. 

 And this brings us to Jesus' next few words in today’s Gospel, “Have faith in God; have faith also in me.” Here is where we find the help we need to prevent head-stress from becoming heart-stress. He is inviting us to trust in God (He means the Father) and to likewise trust in Him (because, as we say, “like Father, like Son”). In the Bible, the word “faith” can also be translated as “trust” because the original Greek word means both things. In our American slang we have the same double-meaning for these words. When we tell someone “I believe in you” we are saying in effect, “I trust in your ability”. And so we turn to Jesus and tell Him, “I believe in You…I trust in your ability to help me.” This attitude isn’t a kind of placebo to get through a tough time; nor is it a kind of mind-game to help us transcend the issue at hand. Quite the opposite, faith means dealing with our reality head-on, but confident that God will enable us to face it and get through it in a constructive positive way. The first step in embarking upon this challenge of faith is to mindfully and intentionally surrender ourselves to the power and the care of God. In other words, to trust in Him. 

 But we need to be patient and realize that learning to trust isn’t something that happens overnight or without effort. We know that this is true from our own everyday human experiences. The people in our lives whom we have learned to trust have earned that level of confidence from us not simply by their words, but by their actions. They have shown us in times of difficulty and vulnerability that they were trustworthy by being with us, being there for us and loving us no matter what. Jesus was (and still is) exactly like that. He freely gave up the glory of Heaven and became a man precisely to be with us, to share the kind of life we live with its joys as well as its struggles, and then even more so to die for us. And beyond that, He has promised to remain with us until the end of time and to send the Holy Spirit, whom He called “power from on high”, to dwell within us so that we would never feel helpless and abandoned by God! What more could He do to earn our trust? 

 Upon hearing all this we might be tempted to respond, "easier said than done!” And we’d be right because learning to let go and trust in God IS easier said than done. But the fact is that it CAN be done. But it’s not going to happen overnight. We also say, “anything worth having is worth working for” and this is surely true about a vibrant trust-based relationship with Jesus Christ. We need to work on deepening our personal relationship with Him through daily prayer from the heart, through becoming familiar with His word and deeds in the Gospels, and through the Eucharist in which He comes to abide within us. And as we work on this relationship we will gradually see that we ARE becoming more trustful, we ARE becoming more calm, and we ARE becoming more peaceful inside. We will grow in our experience of that “power from on high” which strengthens us to deal with all these many ups and downs of daily life. 

 But the thing to remember in all this is that Christ never ever pushes Himself into our lives against our will. He desires a relationship that is rooted in love and love demands freedom. So He waits to be freely asked and then once we invite Him in, His care and concern for even the smallest things in our lives become manifest in clearly discernible ways. This doesn’t mean that our issues and struggles will suddenly just disappear. Nor does it mean that our health or financial situation will change for the better overnight. But it does mean that God will see to it that our needs are met in one way or another because, believe it or not, He wants nothing more than to see us happy, both in this world and in the next.

Hearing the Voice of Jesus in a Noisy World

 

Deacon Dave · Hearing the Voice of Jesus in a Noisy World

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter, April 26, 2026. Gospel of St. John 10:1-10. Theme: Hearing the Voice of Jesus in a Noisy World 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that He calls out to His sheep and they follow him because they recognize his voice. That paints such a serene and easy picture of how to live as a Christian, doesn’t it? The Shepherd speaks and we the sheep listen and follow. Sounds so simple! But we all know that our world is anything but quiet. And that life is anything but easy. We live in a very busy noise-filled age with the constant hum of daily chatter, with the ever-present distraction of social media, and with countless demands made upon our time. There are so many voices shouting out at us and competing for our attention all day long telling us who we should be, what we should want, why we should fear and how we should live. 

 The bottom line is that we sheep follow our Good Shepherd in a very noisy distracting world. But if we have a hard time hearing Him, it’s not because He has stopped talking. Rather, it’s because we aren’t giving ourselves the time and the space to listen and hear Him. You see, sheep learn to recognize their shepherd's voice by spending a lot of time with him out in the fields. They learn through repeated daily experience what his voice sounds like. It becomes a familiar and trusted voice and so, for their own good they simply listen, obey and follow. By using this metaphor in today’s Gospel, Jesus is telling us that we need to be like that. We need to spend time with Him so that we can become familiar with His voice, recognize it. and then listen, obey and follow. 

The Bible and the saints tell us that the surest way to do this, to develop the skill of recognizing the voice of Jesus, is by spending quiet time with Him in prayer on a regular basis. By “prayer” I don't mean reciting memorized words and favorite devotions, as helpful as these might be at times. What I’m talking about is prayer in its simplest and purest form which means a person-to-person conversation with God from the heart and in one’s own words. The easiest way to describe this is to compare it with a visit between friends who have decided to step away from the busyness of their daily routine in order to make time for one another. 

 And this type of prayer, like any meaningful conversation, is not a matter of one person doing all the talking! In addition to sharing our thoughts and concerns with Christ, we also need to be silent and in that quiet time listen for His reply deep within us. And as we grow in the practice of this type of prayer, we will learn to recognize His voice and distinguish it from all others. Not by its audible tone, of course, because He communicates by unspoken words, but by the impression it makes upon our hearts. We will become familiar with it for we will have tuned the ears of our soul to the frequency of His way of speaking. We will learn that the voice of our Good Shepherd has certain qualities. For example, it doesn’t shout and demand but it whispers with gentleness and peace. It doesn’t accuse and condemn, but forgives and heals and encourages. 

But in order to hear His voice, we must be willing to turn down the volume on everything else around us during our prayertime. This means intentionally making space in our daily schedule for this time alone with Him in silence and solitude. And experience shows that if we don’t plan it, it simply won't happen because life makes so many demands on our day. But the good news is that this doesn’t have to take up a huge block of our time so anyone can really do it. As a matter of fact, one of the Church’s official teachers on prayer, the great St. Teresa of Avila, used to say that even just 15 minutes a day of this kind of prayer will bring us deep into the Kingdom of God. 

 She was so confident about this that she even promised Heaven itself to those who make this daily commitment! That’s a bold statement but she could make it because she knew from experience the transforming power of this kind of daily personal prayer from the heart and in our own words. And you know what she said really makes sense to me because it shows the depth of our desire for God and the sincerity of our intention to grow in our relationship with Him. And I am sure that God certainly will bless and reward such a decision and such a person! 

Now, when it comes to actually planning our daily prayer-time it's helpful to know that it can be done anytime and anywhere. While Eucharistic Adoration is, of course, an excellent time and place for it, not everyone can get to a church and besides, in some places a church is not even open. But you know, we don’t have to be physically before the Blessed Sacrament to be truly present with Christ because the doors of a tabernacle and the walls of a parish church cannot restrain the Living Powerful Presence of our Risen Lord. He transcends those material barriers and radiates far beyond those physical confines. And besides, the Bible affirms that Christ dwells by grace through faith within those who are baptized, so we can always be in His Divine Presence for our prayertime, no matter where we are. 

So, you see, Jesus really makes it quite easy for us to be with Him, to get to recognize His voice and follow Him. He doesn’t demand our time and attention but simply invites it. He wants a real and meaningful personal relationship with each one of us that flows from the freedom of our love and not simply out of the duty of obligation. And we will see that as we gradually grow in becoming people of prayer, something beautiful begins to happen within us. We discover that we are no longer wandering about like lost sheep in a noisy world, but that we are being led. Led through confusion to peace. Led through chaos to serenity. Led through fear to trust. Led even through suffering to confidence in our compassionate Good Shepherd who holds each one of us in His arms close to His Sacred Heart.

The Unseen But Very Present Jesus

 

Deacon Dave · The Unseen But Very Present Jesus

Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, April 19, 2026. The Gospel of St. Luke 24:35-48. Theme: The Unseen But Very Present Jesus 

 The story of the disciples on a 7-mile walk to the village of Emmaus from Jerusalem took place on the first Easter Sunday. The two of them were heartbroken and confused because they didn't understand how the One whom they believed to be the glorious Messiah could have been overcome by his enemies and put to death. It was supposed to be the other way around. At least that’s how everyone imagined it would be once the Messiah arrived. In addition they were utterly bewildered by early morning reports from some women in their group who claimed that this Messiah had risen from the dead. We know that they were having a highly animated exchange because the Greek word in this Gospel that our reading translates as “debating” actually means “bickering and arguing". And that’s not at all surprising in times of confusion and trauma. 

 But Emmaus isn’t just about disciples wandering about in a state of depression and disappointment. The deeper lesson in the story is about how Jesus doesn’t abandon us when we go through tough times of spiritual and emotional suffering. It has something to say to those who have become disillusioned and struggle with questions or even doubts about Christ and Christianity. It assures us that Jesus wishes to accompany us on these painful parts of our faith journey just as He does in the happier times. And it teaches us that in doing so Christ doesn’t force Himself into our lives. Notice how He didn’t push his way into the disciples’ company whether it was about joining them on their walk or spending the night with them once they reached their destination. He gave them the space they needed to make a free personal choice. He waited for them to ask and invite. And the same is true as to how He acts with us today. 

 This reminds me of a popular painting of Jesus that shows Him knocking at the front door of a home. There are actually many versions of it around today. But in all of them, if you look closely, you’ll see that there is no doorknob on the outside. It can only be opened from the inside by the one who lives there. It’s a great visualization about how Jesus respects our freedom. He truly wants to be with us as we go through difficulty and suffering, but He waits for us to open the door and allow Him to step into our lives. And while He awaits our decision, He makes Himself available to us, just as He did for those disciples on the road, so that like them we too can ask questions, express our frustrations, and unburden ourselves. And of course He wants to stay with us just as He did with them, bringing comfort and consolation simply by His Presence. But Jesus allows all of this to happen in our own timeframe and on our own terms, so to speak, so that our response to Him will be genuine and free because freedom is really the only way that true relationships can exist and grow, including our relationship with Him. 

 When the disciples reached the end of their journey they still had no idea as to the true identity of their traveling Companion. But there was something about Him that was so appealing and comforting that they didn't want to part company. The way He had explained the Scriptures to them made the smoldering flame of faith begin to burn once again in their hearts. Through Him they were regaining a sense of hope and their disillusionment was diminishing. And so they asked Him to stay and spend the night. And once they freely extended this invitation Christ most wonderfully responded to their need, enabling them to open wide the doors of their hearts to Him. 

 When they sat down together for their evening meal, the Stranger unexpectedly did what they knew Jesus had done at His last supper with His apostles. He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. And suddenly… BAM! They recognized the Man. It was Jesus! And they were once again filled with firm faith and spiritual joy! And then just as suddenly…BAM! He disappeared! But notice most importantly that the Gospel does not say that Jesus left them, only that He was no longer visible to their eyes. That's because the Risen Lord was indeed still there, still truly present to them, but now hidden under the appearance of the Eucharistic Bread. 

 And that brings us to an all-important closing highlight of the Emmaus experience. Through the recounting of this story in his edition of the Gospel, St. Luke wants us to realize that though Jesus is risen and ascended to Heaven, He still abides with us. He still remains among us. He makes His Presence known to those who take time to seek Him through prayer and meditation on the Word of God. And He reveals Himself in a mystical way to those who mindfully receive Him with faith in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. And most of all, the Emmaus experience gives us great hope that even when things seem to be going wrong in daily life, Jesus is right there walking beside us even if we don’t see Him with our eyes. We may not recognize His presence but He is there, knocking on the door of our heart, awaiting our permission to enter and remain with us.

Jesus, I Trust in You!

 

Deacon Dave · Jesus, I Trust in You!

Homily for the Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, April 12, 2026. The Gospel of St. John 20:19-31. Theme: Jesus, I Trust in You! 

 Today’s Gospel opens with ten Apostles (minus Thomas who was absent and Judas who had killed himself) huddled together in a securely locked room. They were filled with fear, convinced that they were next on the Jewish authorities' hit-list. They were terrified that what happened to Jesus was going to happen to them. But I’m sure they were also trapped in their own remorse over how they had treated Jesus. That band of brothers needed to be set free, not only physically from that locked room, but also spiritually from their guilty consciences. 

 Suddenly, the Risen Lord appeared in their midst. It was the first time that they saw Him since the gut-wrenching events of His Passion when they had fled and abandoned Him when He needed them most. But just as nothing stopped Jesus from entering into the locked room, so nothing - not even our worst sins - can prevent the Risen Lord from stepping into our lives. He comes to each one of us just as He came to those downcast disciples, speaking words of pardon and peace to them. But what strikes even more deeply about this story isn't what Jesus said to the Apostles but what He didn’t say. He didn’t speak so much as even one word about how they had treated him. No mention and not even the slightest reference to their infidelity, their denial and their abandonment of Him. Instead, He reached out to them with gentleness and affection. Jesus was showing by actions more than by words that He is our Merciful Savior and Brother who doesn’t keep count of our sins, the way we do. He doesn’t allow them to become an obstacle in our relationship with Him. He doesn’t hold our failings against us for He knows well our human weaknesses and woundedness. 

And this tender reaching out by Christ to heal and forgive becomes even more apparent as our Gospel moves fast forward a week to the Sunday after Easter, to what we now call Divine Mercy Sunday. The disciples were again huddled together but this time Thomas was with them. He rejected the news of Resurrection by reminding his companions that their Master suffered a tortuous execution that ripped open His hands, His feet and His heart. Suddenly, the Risen Lord was once more among them and He called Thomas to draw near to Him. He showed Him the marks of the nails and the spear and invited the doubting disciple to examine those sacred wounds. Why? Because they were proof of His great love for us, a love that poured itself out to the very end. They were like trophies from His victorious battle with death and signs that the impossible has indeed become possible. The power of these sacred wounds transformed Thomas into a firm believer. They enabled him to let go of his guilt and accept mercy. These same glorious wounds, still present and radiating power from the Risen Christ, can do the same for us if we allow their reality and what they stand for to sink into our hearts. 

 Today’s Gospel closes with an invitation to trust in Jesus. When Christ said to Thomas, “do not be unbelieving, but believe”, He was basically saying, “stop wavering and put your confidence in Me.” You see, in the Bible the words “believe” and “trust” are interchangeable and so what Jesus was asking of Thomas, and what he is asking of us, is to trust in Him. This invitation to draw close to Jesus and have confidence in Him is at the very heart of the message of Divine Mercy, which is why the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in You”, is printed on every copy of the image. But we know from the experience of our human relationships that trust in a person is only possible if we have a meaningful bond with them. We simply cannot trust someone whom we do not personally know! 

 Jesus was well aware of this human need and so He called Thomas out from among the group to engage in a meaningful one-to-one encounter with Him. He spoke to Thomas’ personal doubts and needs, dispelling the darkness and enlightening his mind. And our Risen Lord does the same for each one of us if we have the spiritual eyes to see it and the ears of soul to hear it. These spiritual experiences of the Lord may not be as dramatic as that of Thomas but they can be just as real and transformational. It all depends upon how we respond to this grace. Perhaps we will have this personal encounter during prayer or after Holy Communion or while serving the Needy Christ in the sick or the poor. He might also choose to surprise us and make himself truly known when we least expect it, such as when we are out for a walk or in the midst of exercising. But in one way or another He will indeed extend this opportunity to those who need it and seek it and ask for it. 

 One way to seek the grace of a personal encounter with Christ is through the image of Divine Mercy that He gave us. This was actually the main reason why Jesus wanted this picture of Himself to be made and distributed. Look at it and see that Jesus is in motion. He is stepping towards you with one foot slightly behind the other and his hand raised in blessing. He comes to uplift and console you, not to punish or condemn! Notice that the marks of crucifixion that He suffered for you are present on His hands as perpetual signs of the depth of His love for you. Let go of any guilt you carry and welcome His healing mercy into your soul. Ponder the beams of light emanating from within Him that symbolize the blood and water poured out for you when His Sacred Heart was pierced on the cross. Let those red and crystal beams remind you that He has chosen to become one with you by Baptism and Eucharist. But most of all look at the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in You” and let it be engraved in your heart, because as Jesus told St. Faustina: “Those words say it all.”

The Mystery of the Empty Tomb & the Missing Body

 

Deacon Dave · Mystery of the Missing Body & Empty Tomb

EASTER SUNDAY HOMILY The Mystery of the Empty Tomb & the Missing Body 

 As we just heard, two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, early in the morning of the first Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalen was making her way to the tomb of Jesus. When she saw that it had been opened and was empty, her first thought was that the Lord’s body had been stolen. And many people today have jumped to the same conclusion when they hear the Easter story. Unable to wrap their minds around the possibility of Resurrection, thievery seems like the most obvious explanation for the Missing Body and the Empty Tomb. But if this was so, then we must ask…who did it and why? According to the documented facts, there are only three possible culprits: the Romans, the Jewish leadership or the Disciples of Jesus. 

 Could it have been the Romans? Highly unlikely since they were the ones who carried out the bloody crucifixion and they had no vested interest in staging a fake resurrection. Then, how about the Jewish leaders? If so, they could have then produced the corpse for all to see and put an end to Christianity with its myth of Resurrection right at its beginning. So, that leaves us with the Disciples. Perhaps they robbed the grave and then spread the fake news of the Resurrection? Hardly so. They were locked away in hiding out of fear for their lives and there’s no way they could have overcome the heavily armed Roman guards at the tomb. Besides, their future destinies showed them to be honest men of integrity who even under gruesome torture did not recant their belief in the Resurrection nor admit to a lie. 

 Once we rule out the possibility of grave robbery, there are only a few possible reasons left to try and explain the mystery of the Missing Body and the Empty Tomb. But none of these stand up to intelligent investigation. However, it’s important that we look into them, because like any evidence presented for consideration, the testimony of the Gospels needs to be examined. So, let’s take a quick look at three other objections besides thievery that skeptics have made to the Good News of the Resurrection. 

 The first one attempts to discredit the authenticity of the Gospels themselves. It holds that the Easter stories are really just fabricated myths or religious fables but not actual historical events witnessed by real people. Well, the majority of historians and archaeologists who have carefully studied the Gospels in the same way that they do all ancient writings, have consistently disagreed with that position. They declare that the Gospels meet all the strict criteria for historical authenticity. And while these scholars can’t tell us what the stories mean from the point of faith, they can and do assure us that they document personal eye-witness evidence that is credible and historically reliable. 

 The second objection asserts that the appearances of the Risen Christ were simply a matter of hallucinations caused by extreme emotional trauma. This could be possible on an individual level but we know that on at least one occasion about 500 people saw the Risen Lord at the same time and in the same place. Psychologists tell us that it’s utterly impossible for everyone in that crowd to have had the same hallucination. Besides, many of those eye-witnesses testified that the One whom they saw and touched was flesh and bone, mysteriously transformed and awesomely glorious, but still the same Jesus of Nazareth whom they had known and loved. 

 The remaining reason given for the Missing Body and the Empty Tomb is that Jesus wasn’t really dead when He was placed in the cave. He was simply unconscious with undetectable signs of life. And then He revived revived and somehow got out of the cave before Sunday morning. This proposal doesn’t consider how a man who had been horribly tortured and crucified the day before could somehow move a 1-ton stone door that usually required at least 2 men with a lever. And it completely glosses over the fact that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers who were experts in death by crucifixion and who speared the Lord’s heart to make double-sure that He was dead. 

 So, when all is said and done, we can see that none of these objections have any real merit. And so we are left with the only explanation that is consistent with the hard cold facts and it is the one that the Gospels proclaim: Jesus of Nazareth, once crucified and buried, has truly and bodily risen from the dead, proving that He is indeed the Divine Son of God and the Savior of the world. Furthermore, the Resurrection affirms that everything Jesus taught was not just the wisdom of a holy man but in actuality the Truth of God that sets us free: free from darkness, free from fear and free from the finality of death. And so the question that Easter poses to each one of us is this: Am I willing to believe it or not? 

 And if not, then how come? Am I afraid of what a relationship with Jesus might cost me, of what changes it might bring to my life? Well, many with that same concern ended up being happily surprised to discover that Christ made their lives much better, not worse. Do I hesitate to believe because I know I’m a sinner and think I’m not good enough for Christ? If so, then simply read the Gospels and see just what kind of people Jesus preferred to hang around with. 

 The Risen Lord invites anyone and everyone to come to Him and believe in Him, anytime and anywhere. Even right here and right now. All it takes is your permission to enter and He will begin changing your life from the inside out. He will give you real hope for the future. He will bring you the peace of heart and mind that comes from knowing that even your deepest darkest sins can be forgiven and their guilt removed from your personal history. By abandoning doubt and embracing faith, you will come to discover that the real happiness that you've been seeking, the kind of happiness that you have a right to enjoy, has a name and a face: and it is Jesus of Nazareth, our Living Lord and Savior.

Tonight We Leave Fear and Darkness Behind Us Forever!

 

Deacon Dave · Tonight We Leave Fear and Darkness Behind Us Forever!

Easter Vigil Homily: Tonight We Leave Fear and Darkness Behind Us Forever! 

 Tonight’s Liturgy began in darkness. But then the light of the Paschal Candle, symbol of our Risen Lord, led us into this church. And from that single holy flame of Easter Fire our candles were lit and the Light of the Risen Christ began to increasingly dispel the darkness around us. 

 Now, this wasn’t just an annual Easter ritual. It's a sign, a prophecy, of what Christ the Light does for those who believe in Him, who trust in Him. It brings a bright message of hope into our lives because the truth is, we all experience and often live in darkness. Not just the darkness of outside, but the darkness inside us, the darkness caused by uncertainty and anxiety, by grief and insecurities. But most of all the Bright Light of Easter deals with the deepest darkest universal human fear within each of us which is the fear of death. 

 We don’t like to talk about death. We try to push it aside when the thought arises. We try to distract ourselves from its inevitability by filling up our lives with noise, plans, and busyness. We do all in our power to try to deny it, to avoid it or, at best, to delay it. But every so often, it catches up with us and when it does, it haunts us. Even the strongest of believers has to deal with this fear. 

 The apostles experienced it. By sunset on that first Good Friday, their hope that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah bringing them a whole new life of joy and freedom was crushed. Like their Master, that hope was now dead and gone, buried in a tomb. Frozen by the fear of death, for they figured that they were next on the Jewish authorities' hit-list, they were locked away in hiding and the room in which they were huddled together was like a dark corporate tomb. 

 But then suddenly, as the night began to give way to light on that first Easter Sunday, everything changed. As we just heard, Mary Magdalen and her companion arrived at the tomb of Jesus and discovered that His body was gone! An angel appeared proclaiming that He was risen and then sent the two women off to share this Good News with the others! But Christ intercepted them on their way, manifesting Himself before them in a real and solid bodily form! And what did He say to them? “Do not be afraid!” 

 The very first words from the Risen Christ were not instruction, nor correction, nor even an explanation of what had happened. They were words of reassurance: “Do not be afraid.” He was comforting them with the truth that death no longer has the final word and so fear of it no longer needs to have a place in their hearts. Why? Because He has gone ahead of us through the darkness of death and conquered it finality. It’s now the doorway into a new, glorious and resurrected existence for us who trust in Him and have been baptized into His Body. 

 Think of it this way. If we had to walk through a dark and unfamiliar tunnel alone in the pitch blackness of the night, we would be terribly afraid. But if someone whom we know well walked just ahead of us, and kept calling back, “I’ve made it through—it’s safe—just keep going, follow me,” our fear would begin to lessen. And soon enough it would disappear altogether because we were given reassurance by someone whom we trust that everything was going to be ok. 

 Well, this is precisely what the Lord Jesus has done for us and our fear of death. This is why we celebrate this Holy Night with such great solemnity and jubilation! This is the Night that changes everything for this is the Night when Jesus burst out of the tomb! This is the Night when darkness began to dissipate as the Light of Christ began to radiate throughout the world! This is the Night when the glory of the Risen Lord shines up on us, assuring us that death does not win. That sin does not win. That darkness does not win. 

 Easter proclaims that Christ wins! And as St. Paul told us in our Epistle tonight, we also win because by Baptism we are made one with Him and so His victory is also our victory. This is why we baptize catechumens on this Night and this is why we who are already Christians renew our Baptism on this Night. And so tonight is a time of rejoicing! Tonight, Christ goes before us so that, enlightened by His Resurrection, we can leave the fear and the darkness of death behind us forever!

Come Forth! Be Unbound!

 

Deacon Dave · Come Forth! Be Unbound!

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent, March 22, 2026. Gospel of John 11:1-45. Theme: Come Forth! Be Unbound! 

 When St. John’s Gospel tells us about Jesus’ miracles, such as today’s Raising of Lazarus from the dead, it's important to realize that the story carries two layers of meaning. The first is a recounting of an actual event in history. In other words, it’s passing on to us what Jesus said and did on a particular occasion. The second layer is the story’s deeper spiritual meaning. It has a lesson for us that is symbolized by the events of the story and verbalized by Jesus. The message it delivers is intended for all people everywhere, and so we believe that through the Holy Gospel Jesus is truly speaking to us today. And, by the way, this profound reverence we have for Christ’s word is why the Book of the Gospels is held up for all to venerate at Mass; it’s why we stand out of respect to hear Jesus speaking to us from it; and it’s why the Book of the Gospels is kissed upon finishing the proclamation. 

 And in today’s Gospel Jesus has a very encouraging two-part message for us. The first is that physical death is not an end to our existence. It is a kind of “sleep” from which our bodies will awaken in the resurrection of the dead and be reunited with our immortal souls to live a glorious eternal life as we profess every Sunday in the Creed. And the second is that He has the power to set us free to live a new life here and now, so that we can be reasonably happy in this life and then supremely happy forever in the next. He desires to raise us up from spiritual death; to call us out of our spiritual tombs and unbind us from whatever holds us back from living a truly free and happy life. 

 To understand what He is talking about, we need to remember that there is more to us than just our mortal bodies and our physical life. We also possess immortal souls that can experience illness and death but in a totally different way than that of the body. This spiritual disease can be a kind of “silent killer” in that we can look and feel great on the outside but be spiritually sick and dying on the inside. Without truly realizing it, we can walk this earth as part of the “living dead”, so to speak, as people who are enclosed in tombs, not made of stone like that of Lazarus, but built of our own making. We can be spiritually bound up like a mummy, consigned to a spiritual grave that we have dug for ourselves because of our addictions, or persistent grudges, rampant consumerism or many other avenues of spiritual destruction. 

 And Jesus is deeply distressed and weeps over our condition just as he did for Lazarus. He doesn’t want to leave us there so He speaks to us the same powerful words that He spoke in the Gospel today, “Come forth! Be unbound!” He calls us to come forth from the tomb of materialism and be unbound from the lies that tell us we’re only worth what we look like and what we possess. To come forth from the tomb of isolation and be unbound from loneliness. To come forth from the tomb of resentment and be unbound from broken relationships. To come forth from the tomb of anxiety and panic and be unbound from fear and worry. To come forth from the tomb of addiction and codependency and be unbound from chaos and self- destruction. And just as He had people roll back the stone from Lazarus’ burial site so that he could walk out a new man, so He will likewise send people into our lives who can help us remove whatever is preventing us from leaving our spiritual tombs behind. But we have to trust and believe. 

 Now, if we don’t think we have the faith it takes for us to come forth from our tombs and be unbound, then we can draw hope from the example of Lazarus’ sister, Martha. Did you notice that the Gospel tells us that she had to “come to believe” that Christ was Who He said He was? Those three words “come to believe '' should give us great encouragement! They tell us that, though Martha had some faith, she was still growing, open to Jesus and willing to trust Him, but yet not quite there. And I am sure the same can be said of us. Perhaps we too believe but are “not quite there.” Perhaps we too, have something more to absorb, something more to experience about Christ so that we can “come to believe” more fully as Martha did. But be that as it may, even if our faith is weak or little we can still come humbly before him as she did and tell Him what we need. I’m pretty sure her faith didn’t reach perfection until she was once again hugging her brother Lazarus in her arms! 

 Martha shows us that we can begin to trust in Jesus’ power even before understanding fully who He is; even before really grasping the extent of what He can and wishes to do for us. She demonstrates that our faith grows as our experience of Jesus grows. She shows us that our relationship with Christ, like all relationships, is a dynamic ever-deepening reality. And now through this Holy Gospel she invites each one of us to come to believe as well. She invites each one of us to reach out to Jesus and trust in Him. She invites each one of us to listen with confidence to Christ when he tells us to come forth from our tombs and be unbound. As Easter draws near, let’s ask the Lord to grant us the liberating grace of hearing His voice in our hearts. Let’s ask Him for the confidence and trust in Him that we need to take those all-important first steps out of our self-made tombs to step forward to receive a new lease on life!