Father ed's sunday reading 

 Past National Clergy Consultant Father Ed Lamp
 
26 Mar 2023
5th Sunday of Lent

Ezekiel 37:12-14; 
Romans 8:8-11; 
John 11:1-45

It seems a bit strange to have this gospel on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. It seems to be clearly about the resurrection and yet we are still plodding through Lent and have to get through Good Friday before we get to Easter. What’s going on; have the Church’s liturgical engineers got it all wrong? 

Can I suggest that this text is more about death than resurrection? After all, Lazarus isn’t walking around today; he had to undergo another death. This text is more about our life and death here and now rather than about the resurrection. We will have time enough to consider the resurrection when we get to Easter Sunday and the weeks of celebration afterwards.
In his Spiritual Exercises St Ignatius Loyola suggests that when reading a particular Gospel passage we should put ourselves in the place of each character in turn and use our imagination to see how we would feel in those circumstances. 

This can be a most revealing exercise. How about putting myself in the place of Lazarus? I am dead to everything and then I hear a voice: ‘Come out, Lazarus.’ There I am, lying in a tomb swathed in bandages and surrounded by darkness. If we wonder how we would feel in this situation, the answer would be different for everyone but I think many might say: Thanks Lord, but I’d prefer to stay where I am.

While attempting to put ourselves imaginatively in Lazarus’s place we might become aware of how tomb-like our present way of life is, and rekindle a longing for freedom which has perhaps been buried for years. Putting ourselves into the place of a character from scripture can awake all kinds of thoughts within us and lead us to turn to God in prayer with new words on our lips.

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national regent's
new year Message

National Regent
Emily Guilherme

"Love Can Move Mountains"
My dear Catholic Daughters of the Americas,

We’ve all heard this phrase before. It has been ingrained in our subconscious as a platitude and has infiltrated pop culture in movies, books, and music. It’s hard to hear this phrase and not think of a young couple gripping their hands together, saying things like “You jump, I jump,” or “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” (which I think we can all agree is an outrageous sentiment). It’s a universal longing for a love that would “walk a thousand miles” or “be crazy in love” that unites all human beings together. 

St. John Paul II spoke of this phenomenon in his teachings of Theology of the Body. Songs, movies, and books reveal something about us as humans; we all desire love - to be completely known and understood. It is this longing that makes our hearts melt and why we flock to theaters to see rom-coms. When we long for that feeling of being completely known and understood we are, in fact, longing for God. We are longing for the love of the Father Who created us to know and live in His love.  

Yet our world is broken, and many have never heard of this perfect love. So musicians write ballads and authors write books to placate this great longing. It’s a great mystery that  

God is the source of infinite love and we’re constantly trying to find our way back to Him, whether we know it or not. People try to find this love through relationships, careers, social status, or addictions. St. Augustine said it best when he said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” When we surrender to God, we find the peace we need. Not only that, but God’s love is infectious; when we encounter it, we desire to share it with everyone we encounter. It’s like the best movie or book we’ve ever seen or read - we want to tell everyone we know about it because we don’t want them to miss out. This is why we evangelize and share God’s love. This is why we serve others. 
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