In those days the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick and the sickness was very grievous so that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elias: “What have I to do with you, you man of God? Are you come to me that my iniquities should be remembered, and that you should kill my son?” And Elias said to her: “Give me your son.”And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, and said: “Lord, my God, have you afflicted also the widow with whom I am after a sort maintained, so as to kill her son?” And he stretched, and measured himself on the child three times, and cried to the Lord and said: “Lord, my God. Let the soul of this child, I beseech you, return into his body.” And the Lord heard the voice of Elias, and the soul of the child returned to him, and he revived. And Elias took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber to the house below, and delivered him to his mother and said to her: “Behold your son lives.” And the woman said to Elias: “Now, by this, I know you are a man of God, and the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.”Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Again, it is a mother that comes, with tears in her eyes, praying for the resurrection of her child. This mother is the Widow of Sarephta whom we have already had as the type of the Gentile Church. She was once a sinner, and an idolatress, and the remembrance of the past afflicts her soul. But the God that has cleansed her from her sins, and called her to be his spouse, comforts her by restoring her child to life.
The charity of Elias is a figure of that of the Son of God. Observe how this great Prophet stretches himself on the body of the boy, fitting himself to his littleness, as did also Eliseus. Here again, we recognise the divine mystery of the Incarnation. Elias thrice touches the corpse: thrice also will our catechumens be immersed in the baptismal font while the minister of God invokes the Three Persons of the adorable Trinity. On the solemn night of Easter, Jesus, too, will say to the Church, His Spouse: “Behold, your son lives,” and she, transported with joy, will acknowledge the truth of God’s promises. Nay, the very pagans bore witness to this truth, for when they saw the virtuous lives of this new people which came forth regenerated from the waters of Baptism, they acknowledged that God alone could produce such virtue in man. There suddenly arose from the midst of the Roman Empire, demoralised and corrupt beyond imagination, a race of men of angelic purity, and these very men had, but a short time before their Baptism wallowed in all the abominations of paganism. From where had they derived this sublime virtue? From the Christian teaching, and from the supernatural remedies it provides for man’s spiritual miseries. Then it was that unbelievers sought for the true faith, though they knew it was at the risk of martyrdom. They ran to the Church, asking her to become their mother, and saying to her: “We know that you are of God, and the word of the Lord in your mouth is true.”Gospel – John xi. 1‒45
At that time there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, of the town of Mary and of Martha her sister. (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.) His sisters therefore sent to him, saying: “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.” And Jesus hearing it, said to them: “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God: that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When He had heard therefore that he was sick, He still remained in the same place two days. Then after that, He said to his disciples: “Let us go into Judea again.” The disciples say to Him: “Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone you, and you go there again?” Jesus answered: “Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbles not, because he sees the light of this world: But if he walk in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” These things he said, and after that He said to them: “Lazarus our friend sleeps, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.” His disciples therefore said: “Lord, if he sleeps, he will do well.” But Jesus spoke of his death, and they thought that He spoke of the repose of sleep. Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly: “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe: but let us go to him.” Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”
Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave. (Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off.) And many of the Jews were come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Martha therefore, as soon as she heard that Jesus was come, went to meet Him: but Mary sat at home. Martha therefore said to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would had not died. But now also I know that whatever you will ask of God, God will give it to 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 that believes in me, although he be dead, will live: And every one that lives, and believes in me, will not die forever. Believe you this?” She said to Him: “Yes, Lord, I have believed that you are Christ the Son of the living God, who have come into this world.” And when she had said these things, she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying: “The master has come, and calls for you.” She, as soon as she heard this, rose quickly and came to Him. For Jesus was not yet come into the town, but He was still in that place where Martha had met Him. The Jews therefore who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she rose up speedily and went out, followed her, saying: “She goes to the grave to weep there.”
When Mary therefore had come where Jesus was, seeing Him she fell down at His feet and said to Him: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would have not died.” Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews that were come with her, weeping, groaned in the spirit, and troubled Himself and said: “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him: “Lord, come and see.” And Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said: “Behold how he loved him.” But some of them said: “Could not he that opened the eyes of the man born blind, have caused that this man should not die?” Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself, came to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave, and a stone was laid over it. Jesus said: “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said to Him: “Lord, by this time he stinks, for he is now of four days.” Jesus said to her: “Did not I say to you, that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifting up His eyes said: “Father, I give you thanks that you have heard me. And I know that you hear me always, but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that you have sent me.” When He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth.” And presently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: “Loose him, and let him go.” Many therefore of the Jews who had come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in Him.Praise be to you, O Christ.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Let us meditate on this admirable history, and as we meditate, let us hope, for it not only shows us what Jesus for the souls of others, but what He had done for ours. Let us also renew our prayers for the penitents who now throughout the world are preparing far the great reconciliation. It is not a mother that is here represented as praying for the resurrection of her child. It is two sisters asking this grace for a brother. The example must not be lost on us: we must pray far one another. But let us take our Gospel in the order of its truths. First, Lazarus was sick and then he died. The sinner begins by being tepid and careless and then he receives the mortal wound. Jesus could have cured Lazarus of his sickness, but he permitted it to be fatal. He intends to work such a miracle, and that within sight of Jerusalem, that His enemies will have no excuse far refusing to receive Him as the Messiah. He would also prove that He is the sovereign Master of life, in order that he might hereby teach His Apostles and disciples not to be scandalised at the death He Himself was soon to suffer. In the moral sense, God in His wisdom sometimes leaves an ungrateful soul to itself, although He foresees that it will fall into sin. It will rise again, and the confusion it will feel for having sinned will lead it to that great preservative against a future fall ― humility.
The two sisters, Martha and Mary, are full of grief, yet full of confidence in Jesus. Let us observe how their two distinct characters are shown on this occasion. Jesus tells Martha that He is the Resurrection and the Life, and that they who believe in Him will not die, that is, will not die the death of sin. But when Mary came to him, and He saw her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and troubled Himself because he knew the greatness of her love. His divine Heart was touched with compassion as He beheld these who were so dear to Him smarting under that chastisement of death which sin had brought into the world. Having reached the sepulchre where Lazarus was buried, He wept, for He loved Lazarus. Thus did our Redeemer by his own weeping sanctify the tears which Christian affection sheds over the grave of a relative or friend. Lazarus has been in the sepulchre four days. It is the image of the sinner buried in his sin. To see him now is what even his sister shudders at, but Jesus rebukes her, and bids them take away the stone. Then with that voice which commands all nature and makes hell tremble, He cries out “Lazarus, come forth!” He that had been dead rises up in the sepulchre, but his feet and hands are tied, his face is covered with a napkin. He lives, but he can neither walk nor see. Jesus orders him to be set free, and then, by the hands of the men that are present, he recovers the use of his limbs and eyes. So is it with the sinner that receives pardon. There is no voice but that of Jesus which can call him to conversion and touch his heart, and bring him to confess his sins, but Jesus has put into the hands of priests the power to loosen, enlighten and give movement. This miracle, which was wrought by our Saviour at this very season of the year filled up the measure of His enemies’ rage, and set them thinking how they could soon put Him to death. The few days He has still to live are all to be spent at Bethany where the miracle has taken place, and which is but a short distance from Jerusalem. In nine days from this, He will make His triumphant entry into the faithless city, after which he will return to Bethany, and after three or four days, will once more enter Jerusalem, there to consummate the sacrifice whose infinite merits are to purchase resurrection for sinners.
The early Christians loved to see this history of our Lord’s raising Lazarus to life painted on the walls of the Catacombs. We also find it carved on the sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries, and later on, it was not infrequently chosen as a subject for the painted windows of our Cathedrals. This symbol of spiritual resurrection was formerly honoured by a most solemn ceremony in the great Monastery of Holy Trinity at Vendome in France. Every year, on this day, a criminal who had been sentenced to death was led to the church of the Monastery. He had a rope round his neck, and held in his hand a torch weighing thirty-three pounds, in memory of the years spent on earth by our Saviour. The Monks made a procession in which the criminal joined, after which a sermon was preached at which he also assisted. He was then taken to the foot of the altar where the Abbot after exhorting him to repentance imposed on him, as a penance, the pilgrimage to Saint Martin’s Church at Tours. The Abbot loosened the rope from his neck, and declared him to be free. The origin of this ceremony was that when Louis of Bourbon, Count of Vendome, was prisoner in England in 1426, he made a vow that if God restored him to liberty, he would establish this custom in the Church of Holy Trinity as a return of gratitude, and as a homage to Christ, who raised up Lazarus from the tomb. God accepted the vow and the prince soon recovered his freedom.
