SUMMARY OF SUNDAY MESSAGE

If I were to give today`s celebration a theme, without mincing words, it would be: “He is the God of the living, and not of the dead” (Matt. 22:32). From the dry bones in the grave that would come to life in the First Reading and become a large army because the words of life were spoken to them (Eze. 37:14ff), through the Spirit of God that gives life to our mortal bodies in the Second Reading (Rom. 8:10-11), to the raising of Lazarus to life in the Gospel where this promise was fulfilled (John 11:1-43), all the Readings are united in speaking to this theme. The Gospel passage is long, and at some points, gets us very emotional as we identify with the characters in the passage: the believing Martha, the crying Mary, the dead Lazarus, the concerned sympathizers, and Christ himself who wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Besides the emotions that the passage elicits in us, however, it also calls us to sober reflection on the mysteries of life and death, and to appropriate the message therefrom.

There is this unresolvable restriction that makes everything written on death tentative and unscientific, no matter how brilliant – lack of experience, that anyone who discusses death must do so without having experienced or experimented with it. In any case, by the second law of thermodynamics, death is a complement of organic life, and man is an organic living being. Hence, for every man, the time comes when the body becomes so weak (by old age) or damaged (by sickness or accident) that it can no longer respond to the life-giving energy that the soul pours into it; - this is the time of death when man succumbs to disintegration and decay. Biology technically summarizes the characteristics of living organisms with the acronym “MR NIGER D”: Movement, Respiration, Nutrition, Irritability, Growth, Excretion, Reproduction, and Death. So, death is, for man, a biological necessity; it is defined as the separation of the soul from the body; we had better come to terms with the fact.

Bio-medically, death is categorized into three levels: the somatic, necrosis, and the molecular. “Somatic death” is the death of the whole body as an organic system; the death of some parts of the organism is known as “necrosis”, while “molecular death” is the death of the cells of the body. “When somatic death occurs, not all the cells or tissues of the body undergo necrosis or molecular death at the same time. That is why tissues or organs can be harvested from dead bodies, transplanted and used in living individuals. In the case of Lazarus in today`s Gospel passage, he had undergone molecular death, for, according to Martha, the body was already smelling after four days (John 11:39).

But life, no less than death, is also a mystery. Nick Lane, the London Microchemist and Science Award Winner, begins his celebrated book “The Vital Question’ with an honest admission of ignorance on the mysterious nature of the living cell: “There is a black hole at the heart of biology. Bluntly put, we do not know why life is the way it is”. If death is a biological necessity, life is the overriding fact of existence, which relativises death to “a passage” between two dimensions of life: mortal life and eternal life. Jesus assures us in the Gospel Reading that he is the resurrection and the life; so, anyone who believes in him, even though he dies, yet shall he live, and anyone who lives and believes in him shall never die (John 11:25-26) – an assurance that is concretely reinforced by his own death and resurrection. He is our true “Kokumo” who died, resurrected, and dies no more. 

But, to share in the resurrection of Christ and life eternal, we must adequately prepare for death. Spiritually, the illness and death of Lazarus can be likened to venial and mortal sins, as distinguished by St John: “There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly” (1John 5:16-17). If we grant that no one is perfect and so, cannot but commit sin at one point or the other in life, then, we should be content with venial sin which sickens the soul, and not with mortal sin which kills the soul. And, since with each passing day, we move closer to our grave, we should constantly ask and answer the questions: How am I preparing to answer the final call? And when that day comes, what legacy of good works and achievements am I leaving behind? 

May Christ himself, through his Spirit, give life to our mortal bodies; heal every dead cell and organ in the sick; and revive our drooping spirit by the grace of the sacraments. Amen. 

Wishing you a Happy Sunday of Divine Restoration!!!

                  (Rev. Fr. David-Mary Odunsi)