All of that begins with the life-giving waters of Baptism and continue to flow into us in His Precious Blood which we receive in Holy Communion. Seeing life as God sees it gives us freedom from the darkness and the blindness in which so many of our contemporaries stumble around, crashing into things, crashing into others, bringing pain and hurt to everyone because of their blindness. Today's Gospel account gives us life itself in Christ's gift to Lazarus, foreshadowing as it does the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who has passed through all that we ourselves must traverse. Christ did it in order to be with us, to lead us, to strengthen, inspire and encourage us, that we, too, might rise from the various forms of death in which we find ourselves into a newer, a better, and a higher life. Suffering, death and resurrection stamps all of life.
Caterpillars pass through it to become butterflies.
Nature passes through it in an endless cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter - only to rise again each spring into newness of life. And so it is we find ourselves living in a world stamped by that same pattern. Each one of us lives in an endless cycle of birth, growth, development, suffering, death and rebirth. Which, out of love for you, is my own personal mission and purpose in life. Sponsored by RCNet .