I still have a baby in my belly if that’s what you were wondering. Hopefully I will have a different report next time I post. Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent and the third time our teens from Dirty Vagabond have undergone the “scrutinies”. They are the kids coming into the church on Easter and they stand before the congregation after the homily each Sunday. We pray for them and encourage them as a family. There is such an expectant, pulsing hope in the moment. It’s an incredible sight to witness–the body of Christ.
I’m not sure why the readings I heard at mass today weren’t the ones listed for the fifth Sunday of Lent in my Sunday Missal. Maybe it has to do with the scrutinies. In any case, they spoke to my heart in a way that made me want to write. The gospel was the story of Lazarus when Jesus proclaims Himself as the resurrection and the life.
I had a string of simple thoughts that made everything seem so clear. It is so fitting that the Eucharist is called the source and summit of our faith because it’s like everything really does rest right there on the table. Everything we are, have been, and hope to be is wrapped up in this mystery: the Eucharist; the celebration of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, our Savior. That Jesus is the resurrection is the only thing that matters. Every other thing in this world pales in comparison to who He is and what He can do. He promises to raise us up on the last day and it almost makes me feel in a strange way like nothing here even matters. The things we worry and want for are as nothing in light of the truth of redemption. I am reminded of His bigness and of the fact that what seems impossible to me is completely possible for Him. He has the power to resurrect the parts of us that are broken and the people dead in their sin.
I don’t really know how to flesh out the beauty of it and I guess that’s what all who believe have been trying to do for the past 2,000 years. I just know that I am so safe in the reality of Jesus as the resurrection and the life, and so so so grateful that my son will be born into this all-encompassing truth. He is everything.
Pray for me, for my husband and the baby! More news to come…~KPL