26 March 2023 – 5th Sunday of Lent (Year A)

by Fr Joachim Robert

Dear friends,

For the past five weeks, we have been journeying in coming to this realisation of what this whole meaning of Lent is about.

And the Second Reading of today gives us the glimpse of what this whole Lent season is about. And it says:-

Your interests, however, are not in unspiritual things, but in spiritual things since the spirit of God has made His home in you.

During this whole season of Lent, dear friends, the awareness of how God has made a home in our hearts brings us towards a greater awareness of what we can do with Him, of the love He has expressed to each and every one of us. It is a moment where we become aware so that we are able to respond in love, with gratitude, with thanksgiving and restoring our hope in this God who loves us.

And even though our experiences of live may be challenging, faced with obstacles, faced with circumstances perhaps which is beyond our control, we know that the Lord invites us to a deeper realisation of that love.

In the First Reading of today from the Prophet Ezekiel, he says:-

The Lord says this, I am now going to open your graves. I mean to raise you from your graves my people and lead you back to the soil of Israel.

And sometimes, dear friends, in our own experiences of the journey of life, we may be like Lazarus, perhaps in the tomb, or like Israelites in the First Reading where we live our lives without a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning, a sense of where we are heading towards. Yes, we are alive but are we filled with the mercy and the love of God? Being alive in the spirit that God has made His dwelling in our lives?

And as we look at the Gospel of today, where Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Mary was quiet perhaps not sure what to do, and Martha with all her busyness trying to grapple on how to respond to the situation that was around her. And like Lazarus perhaps in the tomb, totally lost, totally bewildered of what was happening.

But it is in those moments, dear friends, the Lord reaches out to us and extends His hand in love so that we are able to be raised from the dead. To unbind perhaps the cloth that is around us so that we are liberated, so that we can experience truly the mercy and the love of God.

And this whole journey that we take, dear friends, as we see our Elect preparing themselves towards baptism. It is some sort of unbinding, some sort of liberation, some sort of drawing you out from where you are to enter into that love and the mercy of God, to truly acknowledge how God has made His dwelling in your life.

So today as we take a look at the video in a while, it is also a reminder of how people who are in the peripheries of society have been called, have been liberated by the love that people in the church have expressed to them. Because for those who are in the peripheries, for those who are bound, or perhaps who are living in the grave are not sure in what to do. That sense of love, that outreach perhaps that you reach out with love to them, that voice which whispers the sense of encouragement and perhaps lifting their spirit gives us the sense of hope that God is truly alive in this world today.

And let us pray, dear friends, together with all our Elect today that as they make their preparation towards baptism, that we too may enter into that preparation of heart so that we can renew our baptismal vows, that we can truly acknowledge the Risen Christ during this time of Easter. Because the Holy Week is an intense moment where we prepare our hearts to truly experience the love and the mercy of God, inviting us to respond in love and to reach out to others in love.

So, dear friends, as we look at the video and the awareness of the plight of migrant workers and perhaps refugees around us, we come to this deeper realisation that people who have been bound sometimes experience a deeper the love of God.

And can we be agents of how we are able to ease that burden and become Jesus towards them? To unbind what they have been bound with and to liberate them to a greater realisation of God’s love in their life and to experience that they too are a blessing towards the community in building the nation, in building community and giving the heart for humanity.

Click below to listen to the homily and watch the video:-

Click to live-stream Mass on 26 March 2023