(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Mass-Blog-for-the-5th-Sunday-of-Lent-2026.mp3)
“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.” (Ezekiel 37:12-14)
This is how the prophet Ezekiel quoted God 600 years before Jesus lived with us. And here’s what St. Paul said a few years AFTER Jesus lived with us:
“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.” (Romans 8:8-11)
This is the sentiment of a free man, writing to the Romans a few years before he would write the following to the Philippians from a jail cell:
“If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. … I long to depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better. Yet that I remain [in] the flesh is more necessary for your benefit.” (Philippians 1:22-24)
Once imprisoned, didn’t Paul continue to feel the freedom of God’s eternal spirit dwelling in him? Here’s what Jesus has to say about that in this Sunday’s gospel reading, as told to Martha after she fretted about her brother Lazarus’s untimely death:
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:1-45)
Jesus then proceeded to resurrect Lazarus from the grave so the risen Lazarus could do the fruitful labor of spreading the truth of Jesus’s mastery over death—as presumably, so would Jairus’s little girl and a widow’s young son, both of whose resurrections, thanks to Jesus, are reported in Luke’s gospel. (Luke 7:11–17and Luke 8:40–56).
All three of these people rose from the dead before Jesus would do the same. The difference? They died again. But like Paul, they had fruitful labor to accomplish for the sake of all souls living with them in this prison of a world. Jesus was with all three before their resurrections. But after they died again—at various times AFTER Jesus’s resurrection, they AND WE were saved by the assurance of being one with Christ after his ascension above this world’s captivity.
Through the Father, with His Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit—all glory and honor is God’s forever and ever.
Ezekiel, St. Paul, and Jesus were united in revealing the life we will always share with them.
–Tom Andel
Few of us today experience the hardships endured by Paul the Apostle, and yet few show the joy he maintained through them. God’s Spirit gives a life stronger than physical death and frees us from the fear of death—even though overcoming that fear is often difficult. Believers are called to use their earthly lives to serve others while trusting in the promise of eternal life.
George, I like to ponder the fact that God is “Being” not just “a being.” God is beyond compare because he just IS–or as he and Jesus say in Scripture, “I AM.” God is our Universe, so let’s be content as stars reflecting His light so others can find their way to be with Him.
So comforting to know that our futures are secure in Christ Jesus.
The examples are too numerous to ignore, and all supported in holy scripture through prophetic revelation as illustrated by Ezekiel.
Jesus used bringing people back to life as his profound example that he has power over life and death, and we can completely trust what he tells us.
Yes, we will die once, but we live forever if we live in Christ!
The most amazing powers Christ exerted over his own life and death are ones we don’t have to wait to inherit. As we relive his courage and faith during his passion in The Garden and while facing his betrayer during his arrest, we can call on those powers while facing our own moments of truth. Those opportunities can come many times before we leave this earth.
So often Jesus is seen as a victim on the cross, that death overtakes him before his resurrection but the truth is so much greater. To quote Fr. John Ricardo, Jesus is the ultimate ambush predator. He laid in wait for death before springing his trap and destroying it, opening up the gates of Heaven to the faithful.
How blessed we are to be a people whose faith and hope can carry us to eternity with our Lord and God!
I also feel in my heart a reminder that while we are called to do good in this world, it begins with our faith. Having our hearts align to the Father and letting his will flow through us is how we accomplish this. We can’t do it in our own, even with the best of intentions, we need Jesus.
Right, Mike. As Jesus told the disciples before his Ascencion, they would do the works he did, maybe even greater. That’s because we are TO BE Christ for others.