High-Wire of Mercy, Life and Faith

Dear Friend,

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus breaks through a moment clouded by grief and calls Lazarus to come out of the tomb. We see that Christian faith denies nothing of our pain in moments of loss. Jesus himself weeps. Yet faith does not negate the flood of tears that marks our human condition from Santa Barbara, to Mexico City, to Ukraine.

Thinking of this, it was strange that while the rain and wind disrupted things this week and shook all of us out of our routines, I found myself feeling in my heart a strong connection to a YES to life, a hope, a faith. I was on a walkway behind the Mission watching a little girl named “Isla” completely delight in the miracle of rain. She was thrilled, breaking away from her parents and dashing across the soggy grass, looking for puddles to jump in. 

When the thread of burial cloths around Lazarus - stained by sweat and blood - were peeled from his body another thread was revealed. In a poetic phrase I learned years ago I would name it a “cobweb-thin high-wire” of mercy, life and faith. I think Isla on her tottering feet was walking that tight rope. It is inside all of us, highly charged with hope, innocence, renewal.  

Lazarus out from the tomb will experience death again and succumb to it, as we all will. In that moment of death - not recounted in the Gospel - I have to believe the heart of Lazarus could feel and recall the sound and energy to which he responded years before. It was/is Jesus Christ, the risen one, who calls us to become like little children, the one who himself embodies life in its fullness, in its abundance, and offers it to us each Sunday.

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor