In this period of the COVID-19 Pandemic, more than ever, many people are paying attention to their, physical health, mental health, social health currently known as social distancing and also to their spiritual health. This pandemic has also brought us face to face with our mortality. We have seen that no one is off limits. Consequently, the predominant sentiment is in this pandemic is uncertainty. In an instant people no longer know what they control and that which they cannot control. For men and women of faith, this Sunday’s responsorial Psalm might be the perfect expression of their feelings: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” (PS 130:1}. Why? Because if the “Lord… had been here, {on our side} our brothers, our sisters would not have died.”
Our anger, our confusion, our loss and our powerlessness are real. God feels with us because he has always been on the side. Therefore, he wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. But in the gospel of today, Jesus is saying to us: my voice is so loud that it will make you rise to new life. One of the miracles Jesus performed, was to restore sight, speech and hearing. These senses are essential to our salvation. This pandemic has the potential to make us deaf, to make us speechless and to blind us to God’s saving presence in our midst. Secondly, when Jesus calls us by name, he asks us to come out towards him and to go towards the world. We are being sent to a world that is in pain, in fear and confused. I know that some of us have heard Jesus calling us to come out of situations that have killed us spiritually, morally and in some cases even sacramentally. He wants us to start a fresh. Not even death can put us beyond redemption, the life-giving mercy of God. During this time, we cannot gather as a faith family to break bread in worship. But we have been graced with opportunities to deepen our personal prayer and our family prayer and even to deepen our spousal prayer moment.
Thirdly, he asks us to unbind one another. To remove from our brothers and sisters the symbols of death that we may have imposed on them. We must do this because today is the day that God has made. We must remove the blindfold, so that our brothers and sisters can see again. We must unbind the hands of our brothers and sisters, so that they can perform and work again. We must unbind the feet of our brothers and sisters so that they can walk again on the path that leads to life. We are fellow pilgrims. It is interesting to see that the tomb is the rendezvous, the place of encounter with our God, the giver of life. Like the Prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah let us proclaim to the world held captive by fear that what dominates our minds and hearts in this moment of uncertainty is the firm commitment God has made to us: “I will put my spirit in you that you may live…I have promised, and I will do it.” {Ez. 37:1} “I have made you; you are My servant; O Israel, I will never forget you. {Isaiah 49:14}. May God in his wisdom and mercy bless, protect us from all evil and lead us on a mission to love Him and serve one another.
Fr. Lucas Kazimiro Simango