Vol. 35 No. 19                                                                                 (Cycle A) 5th SUNDAY OF LENT Jesus – Resurrection and Life ENTRANCE ANTIPHON Give me justice, O God, and defend my cause against the wicked; rescue me from deceitful and unjust men. You, O God, are my refuge (Ps 42:1-2). INTRODUCTION Jesus is our life and our resurrection. The voice of Jesus calls us out from the tomb of our bad habits and sins to greater freedom and life in him. He invites us to this celebration in order to breathe into us his life-giving Spirit to make us fully alive and fully free. In addition, he challenges us to join in his mission of giving life and setting those in bondage free. PENITENTIAL RITE Dear friends, let us prepare ourselves for the celebration of our life in and through Jesus, by becoming aware of his presence in our midst now, and of our need for healing and forgiveness. (Pause) You wipe away our tears and fill us with hope. Lord, have mercy. You come into our sinful world and offer us forgiveness. Christ, have mercy. You conquer death and call us to an abundant life. Lord, have mercy. OPENING PRAYER Let us pray. Father, help us to be like Christ your Son, who loved the world and died for our salvation. Inspire us by his love, guide us by his example, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. FIRST READING (In this reading, prophet Ezekiel encourages the exiled Israelites in Babylon about God’s plan and his power to free them from slavery through his life-giving Spirit.) A reading from the Book of Ezekiel (37:12-14) Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land; Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, says the Lord.” This is the Word of the Lord PSALM 129 Response : With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice! O let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleading. If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive? But with you is found forgiveness; for this we revere you. My soul is waiting for the Lord, I count on his word. My soul is longing for the Lord more than a watchman for daybreak. (Let the watchman count on daybreak and Israel on the Lord.) Because with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. Israel indeed he will redeem from all its iniquity. SECOND READING (St Paul exhorts us to live in the Spirit of the One who freed us from the slavery of sin and death, and tells us to possess the life in the Spirit.) A reading from the Letter of St Paul to the Romans (8:8-11) Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.  This is the Word of the Lord ACCLAMATION (Jn 11:25) I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord; whoever believes in me shall never die. GOSPEL (By raising Lazarus from death, Jesus gives us the guarantee that whoever believes in him will never die but will live.) A reading from the Holy Gospel according to St John  (11:3-7,17,20-27,33-45) Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. The sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary sat in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb; it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. I knew that thou hearest me always, but I have said this on account of the people standing by, that they may believe that thou didst send me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him. This the Gospel of the Lord I believe in God, / the Father Almighty, / Creator of heaven and earth. / I believe in Jesus Christ, / his only Son, our Lord. / He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit / and born of the Virgin Mary. /He suffered under Pontius Pilate, /was crucified, died, and was buried. /He descended to the dead. / On the third day he rose again. / He ascended into Heaven, / and is seated at the right hand of the Father. / He will come again to judge the living and the dead. / I believe in the Holy Spirit, /the Holy Catholic Church, / the communion of saints, / the forgive-ness of sins, / the resurrection of the body, / and the life everlasting. / Amen. PRAYER OF THE FAITHFUL Dear brothers and sisters, God’s greatest gift to us is life, the life that keeps us in being and life that comes through the indwelling of his Spirit in us. Let us ask God that through the life of his Spirit in us we may live and give his life and power to others, as we pray, Response : Lord, hear our prayer. 1. That at this time of Lent, the Church may be led to a renewal of life and faith in the Spirit and experience the freedom of the children of God. 2. That those who do not believe in the eternal life may come to believe in Jesus and accept the Father’s gift of eternal life to us his children. 3. That all of us may accept and appreciate death as the final act of self-surrender to inherit eternal life that Jesus has won for us. 4. That all those who are recently bereaved and are suffering the loss of their loved ones, may experience comfort and strength through their faith in Jesus. (Pray for personal/local needs) Cel: Father, we thank you for planting in our hearts the desire for eternal life. Bring us all to the new life of grace here on earth and lead us to eternal life in heaven. We ask this…. PRAYER OVER THE GIFTS Almighty God, may the sacrifice we offer take away the sins of those whom you enlighten with the Christian faith. We ask this... PREFACE (P 16) Father, all-powerful and ever-living God, we do well always and everywhere to give you thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord. As a man like us, Jesus wept for Lazarus his friend. As the eternal God, he raised Lazarus from the dead. Christ gives us the sacraments to lift us up to everlasting life. Through him the angels of heaven offer their prayer of adoration as they rejoice in your presence forever. May our voices be one with theirs in their triumphant hymn of praise: All: Holy, holy, holy.... COMMUNION ANTIPHON He who lives and believes in me will not die for ever, says the Lord (Jn 11:26). PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION Almighty Father, by this sacrifice may we always remain one with your Son, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood we share, for he is Lord for ever and ever. LITURGY AND LIFE There is one thing without which we would not be what we are and that is life. In our humdrum life, we rarely reflect about this most precious gift of God until we experience the death of someone dear. God gives us this gift of life not merely for a vegetable style of existence, just for eating, working and sleeping. He wants us to live into fuller human beings as children of God. “God’s glory is human being fully alive.” Without this exuberant and exhilarating life and freedom through the presence of God’s Spirit in us, we would be like dry bones in the valley of death which Ezekiel saw in his vision. The celebration of the gift of life is fully illustrated in the Gospel of today. Jesus gives vent to his human emotions as he wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. In his love and empathy for Martha and Mary, he restores Lazarus to life, because he alone is the Lord of life and the resurrection. Thus he glorifies his Father who is not a God of the dead, but God of the living. Jesus, however points out that our earthly life is only a shadow of the real and greater life in heaven. In John’s Gospel, images and symbols are very important. Lazarus is bound. When he comes forth, Jesus commands, “Unbind him and let him go free.” Jesus wants to do for all of us, for all humanity, for the whole world what he did for Lazarus, for the blind man, for the Samaritan woman. He wants to slake our thirst, to open our eyes, and to give us life. He wants to set us free to live the new life that he has infact already given, to live it with joy and with enthusiasm, knowing that we have been called by God to something splendid beyond words. So let’s step out of the tomb. Let’s take the bonds from our arms and legs. Let’s remove the stone from our eyes, take the cotton out of our ears and mouth, and live – live with him and with one another. March 2008 READINGS OF THE WEEK (Psalter Week 1) 10 Mon (V) Dn 13:1-9.15-17.19-30.33-62; Ps 22:1-3a.3b-4.5.6; Jn 8:1-11 11 Tue (V) Nm 21:4-9; Ps 101:2-3.16-18.19-21; Jn 8:21-30 12 Wed (V) Dn 3:14-20.91-92.95; Dn 3:52.53.54.55.56; Jn 8:31-42 13 Thu (V) Gn 17:3-9; Ps 104:4-5.6-7.8-9; Jn 8:51-59 14 Fri (V) Jer 20:10-13; Ps 17:2-3a.3bc-4.5-6.7; Jn 10:31-42 15 Sat (W) st joseph, (Sol.) 2 Sam 7:4-5, 12-14.16; Ps 88:2-3,4-5,27-29; Rom 4:13,16-18,22; Mt 1:16,18-21,24