The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
My mom was a pediatric nurse at the local hospital, which meant our family dinners were heavy with creamy casseroles and tragic stories of childhood illness. An anxious kid with a robust imagination, I quickly diagnosed myself with each new condition I learned about. The tendrils of my hypochondriasis reached out toward seizures one week and muscular dystrophy the next. Though the diagnoses shifted over those harrowing years, I was certain of one thing: Death was out to get me. Eventually my mother moved to the labor and delivery department with the thought that her fretful son would finally stop catching what her patients had. Still, every twitch and twinge reminded me that life and health were tenuous and fragile things.
Today's Gospel exhorts us to consider the meaning of death in a Christian life. When Jesus receives word that Lazarus is sick, He declares that "this illness is not to end in death" — a paradoxical proclamation, since Lazarus does indeed die. Yet his death is neither permanent nor senseless: It is "for the glory of God." Notably, it is in response to Mary's faith that Jesus performs the miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, inspiring the belief of those who witness his divinity. Christ receives her faith in mourning — "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" — and renders it more perfect. So too does Christ perfect our own deaths: We offer Him our lives, broken as they are, and He bequeaths us eternal life in heaven.
God does not pretend that life is free of sorrow. Indeed, he walked among us to see firsthand the agony of our experience — and bear witness to the purpose of our suffering. When Christ encounters Lazarus's tomb, He weeps. In this moment, the problem of evil is washed away by God's tears. He reveals to us that from imperfection arises a greater good, and that which we fear most — death — is the vessel that may carry us toward perfection.
Though he is sadly remembered only for his doubt, the apostle Thomas is seen in this Gospel faithfully walking toward death alongside Christ: "Let us also go to die with him." We need not fear the stench of the tomb or illness or affliction. May we instead have the fortitude and faith to walk nobly toward the life that comes only from death.
Daniel Gray is a teacher and writer living in Central Texas. An adult convert to Catholicism, he loves his faith-filled and inspiring wife, Regina, and his squishy son, Ezra. He writes short reflections on the Catholic life at Backward Progress.