In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessed be God forever.

We gather together as a family to celebrate the Lord's Day.  One with our sisters and brothers and with the entire Church, let us now listen to God's Word and join in prayer.

Amen.

Reading 1EZ 37:12-14

Thus says the Lord GOD:
O my people, I will open your graves
and have you rise from them,
and bring you back to the land of Israel.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
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,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.

Responsorial Psalm  PS 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8.

R. (7) With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
LORD, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn,
let Israel wait for the LORD.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. 

Reading 2  ROM 8:8-11

Brothers and sisters:
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.
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
the one who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit dwelling in you.

The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying,
“Master, the one you love is ill.”
When Jesus heard this he said,
“This illness is not to end in death,
but is for the glory of God,
that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that he was ill,
he remained for two days in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to his disciples,
+Let us go back to Judea.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus
had already been in the tomb for four days.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
Jesus said to her,
Your brother will rise.”
Martha said,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus told her,
“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.
Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”

He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,
“Where have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
But some of them said,
“Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man
have done something so that this man would not have died?”

So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.
It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him,
“Lord, by now there will be a stench;
he has been dead for four days.”
Jesus said to her,
“Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone.
And Jesus raised his eyes and said,
“Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me;
but because of the crowd here I have said this,
that they may believe that you sent me.”
And when he had said this,
He cried out in a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out,
tied hand and foot with burial bands,
and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
So Jesus said to them,
“Untie him and let him go.”

Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what he had done began to believe in him.

As her conversation with Jesus begins, Martha believes Lazarus would not have died if Jesus had been there. To her, Jesus is someone who cures illness and has a special closeness to God that will get him whatever he asks. She believes in a wonder worker.

When Jesus says, “Your brother will rise again,” Martha thinks he is talking about resurrection on the last day. This is faith that Jesus is the apocalyptic figure who will bring good to triumph on the last day. Early Christians expected this day in their lifetimes.

The community that gives us John’s gospel believes Jesus is more than a wonder worker or an apocalyptic figure. In Sunday’s gospel Jesus calls Martha to this deeper faith. “I am the resurrection and the life,” he says. Jesus’ words say that he is I Am. This is the name of God in the Old Testament. Martha affirms one of the ten I Am statements in John’s gospel, identifying Jesus as the pre-existent Word who was with God from the beginning and was God.

John’s community also sees Jesus as the messiah, the king greater than David that the prophets expected. Martha affirms in her confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, the messiah. “Yes, Lord,” she says, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world.”

Martha confesses the faith of later disciples who have reflected on all the scriptures say about Jesus and who have faced the death of their loved ones. The raising of Lazarus manifests God’s same life-giving power that raises Jesus himself from the dead and makes the grave a threshold of divine promise for every Christian.
The time above all to make Martha’s confession is at the graves of our loved ones. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. The gospel calls us to find the ultimate meaning of our lives in the mystery of Jesus’ story, in the light he gives to life, in the hope he gives in death.

For the Church: May we enter the coming holy days in peace and open ourselves to an outpouring of God’s grace, we pray to the Lord.

For government leaders: May they work to release those trapped in tombs of fear and alienation, may they keep the safety and well being of their citizens top of mind, we pray to the Lord. 

For the elect who are preparing for their initiation into the church, especially our family of four elect and candidates, that the coming of the Holy Spirit into their lives may lead them to see the world around them through the eyes of faith, we pray to the Lord.

For those who grieve: May they be comforted by the words proclaimed by our Lord in today’s Gospel, we pray to the Lord.

For all who are unable to stay home during this crisis, may God protect them in their serving the public, protect their family and friends and keep them healthy, We pray to the Lord.

For this assembly, our four parish family and our greater community, through persistent prayer we may grow in faith, in patience, and in gratitude during this time of crisis and separation, we pray to the Lord.

For our sick; our poor, our homeless, our lonely and all who are abandoned by society, and for all the prayers we hold in our hearts, we pray to the Lord.

A spiritual communion is a desire to receive the Holy Eucharist at a time when a person can’t actually receive the body and blood of Christ. St. Thomas Aquinas defined a spiritual communion as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Holy Sacrament and a loving embrace as though we had already received him.”

A spiritual communion can be a formal, informal or even nonverbal prayer, that expresses a person’s hunger for the Eucharist, desire to be united to the Eucharistic life of Christ and profound love for the sacrament. Recommendations:

My Jesus, I believe that you are in the Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I long for you in my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though you have already come, I embrace you and unite myself entirely to you; never permit me to be separated from you. Amen.

St. Catherine of Siena imagined Christ holding two chalices: ‘In this golden chalice I put your sacramental communions. In this silver chalice I put your Spiritual Communions. Both chalices are quite pleasing to me.”

St. John Vianney: “If we are deprived of Sacramental Communion, let us replace it, as far as we can, by Spiritual Communion, which we can make every moment; for we ought to have always a burning desire to receive the good God. Communion is to the soul like blowing a fire that is beginning to go out, but that has still plenty of hot embers; we blow, and the fire burns again…. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.”

St. Jose Maria Escriva: “Do not neglect to say, “Jesus, I love you”, and make one Spiritual Communion, at least, each day, in atonement for all the profanations and sacrileges he suffers because he wants to be with us.”

St. Leonard of Port Maurice: “If you practice the holy exercise of Spiritual Communion several times each day, within a month you will see your heart completely changed.”

St. Teresa of Jesus: “When you do not receive communion and you do not attend Mass, you can make a Spiritual Communion, which is a most beneficial practice; by it the love of God will be greatly impressed

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

May the Lord bless us protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.

Go in the peace of Christ and thanks be to God.