Daily Mass Readings — The Fifth Sunday of Lent
"I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live." — John 11:25
Liturgical Context
Today is the Fifth Sunday of Lent, the last Sunday before Holy Week, and the liturgy places before us the greatest of all the signs in Saint John's Gospel: the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The Church has always understood this day as the supreme preparation for Easter — not merely a foretaste of the Resurrection, but an unveiling of who Christ truly is. Ezechiel's vision of the valley of dry bones promises what God alone can do: open the graves, breathe His Spirit into the dead, and restore His people to life. Saint Paul reveals that this same Spirit now dwells within the baptised. And Christ, standing before the sealed tomb of His friend, declares with sovereign authority that He is Himself the cause and source of all life. For those preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil, this Sunday is the third and final scrutiny. For all the faithful, it is the last call to strip away whatever remains of the old death, and stand ready for the Passover of the Lord.
✠ First Reading — Ezechiel 37:12–14
¹² Therefore prophesy, and say to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will open your graves, and will bring you out of your sepulchres, O my people: and will bring you into the land of Israel. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have opened your sepulchres, and shall have brought you out of your graves, O my people: ¹⁴ And shall have put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall make you rest upon your own land: and you shall know that I the Lord have spoken, and done it, saith the Lord God.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
These three verses are the divine interpretation of Ezechiel's great vision of the valley of bones — a vision so immense that the lectionary can only offer us its conclusion. God has commanded the prophet to breathe upon the slain, and the spirit came into them, and they lived (37:10). The word for spirit and breath in the Hebrew is the same: ruach — the same breath that moved over the waters at creation. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon reads this passage as a prophecy of the resurrection of the body: "The Lord will raise us up by His own power... for the Spirit of God will give life to our mortal bodies" (Against Heresies, Book V, ch. 13). The typological movement is clear and beautiful: the dry bones of Israel in Babylon are the type; the dead in Christ are the antitype; and the Spirit poured out at Easter is the fulfilment. Lent has been a season of recognising our own dryness — our bones scattered and desiccated by sin. Today the Lord speaks over them: I will open your graves.
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 129 (130):1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.
¹ Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord: ² Lord, hear my voice. Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.
³ If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it. ⁴ For with thee there is merciful forgiveness: and by reason of thy law, I have waited for thee, O Lord.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.
⁵ My soul hath relied on his word: ⁶ My soul hath hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.
⁷ Because with the Lord there is mercy: and with him plentiful redemption. ⁸ And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
R. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption.
Commentary
De profundis — from the depths. This is the Church's great psalm of penitence and hope, and on the Fifth Sunday of Lent it rises from the very bottom of the human condition: out of sin, out of desolation, out of the grave itself. Saint Augustine meditates that the depths from which we cry are not merely our sufferings but our sins — the self-dug grave of the soul that has turned from God (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 129). Yet the Psalm does not end in the depths: it ends with Israel hoping in the Lord, with plentiful redemption, with the total wiping away of all iniquity. The CCC teaches that hope is precisely this theological virtue — it keeps man from discouragement, it sustains him during times of abandonment (CCC §1818). The Psalm is the prayer of Lazarus in the tomb; it is the prayer of every soul that has known its own mortality and still dares to cry upward. With the Lord there is mercy — not a little, but plentiful.
✠ Second Reading — Romans 8:8–11
⁸ And they who are in the flesh, cannot please God. ⁹ But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ¹⁰ And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit liveth, because of justification. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
Saint Paul announces something breathtaking: the very Spirit that raised Christ from the dead on Easter morning already dwells within the baptised. The resurrection is not merely a future event to be awaited — its power is already at work in us. Saint Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on this passage, writes that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a pledge and earnest of the resurrection, transforming even now the mortal body which sin had condemned (Commentary on John, Book XI). The connection with Ezechiel is exact and deliberate: God promised to put His Spirit in His people and make them live — and Paul proclaims that promise fulfilled in Christ and communicated to us in baptism. The Challoner note on verse 16 is instructive: the Spirit gives testimony not by absolute certainty of personal salvation, but by the inward peace and love that are signs of God's favour. We receive the Spirit not as a guarantee against failure, but as a power to rise from every fall. In the last days of Lent, this is the Church's great encouragement: He that raised up Jesus shall quicken also your mortal bodies.
✠ Verse Before the Gospel — John 11:25–26
I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live; and every one that liveth and believeth in me, shall not die for ever.
✠ The Holy Gospel — John 11:1–45
The Lord be with you. — And with your spirit.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.
¹ Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. ² (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.) ³ His sisters therefore sent to him, saying: Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. ⁴ 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. ⁵ Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. ⁶ When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he still remained in the same place two days. ⁷ Then after that, he said to his disciples: Let us go into Judea again. ⁸ The disciples say to him: Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee: and goest thou thither again? ⁹ Jesus answered: Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world: ¹⁰ But if he walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him. ¹¹ These things he said; and after that he said to them: Lazarus our friend sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. ¹² His disciples therefore said: Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. ¹³ But Jesus spoke of his death; and they thought that he spoke of the repose of sleep. ¹⁴ Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe: but let us go to him. ¹⁶ Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him. ¹⁷ Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave. ¹⁸ (Now Bethania was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off.) ¹⁹ And many of the Jews were come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. ²⁰ Martha therefore, as soon as she heard that Jesus had come, went to meet him: but Mary sat at home. ²¹ Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ²² But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. ²³ Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again. ²⁴ Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day. ²⁵ Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live: ²⁶ And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this? ²⁷ She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who art come into this world. ²⁸ And when she had said these things, she went, and called her sister Mary secretly, saying: The master is come, and calleth for thee. ²⁹ She, as soon as she heard this, riseth quickly, and cometh to him. ³⁰ For Jesus was not yet come into the town: but he was still in that place where Martha had met him. ³¹ 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 goeth to the grave to weep there. ³² When Mary therefore was come where Jesus was, seeing him, she fell down at his feet, and saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ³³ Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews that were come with her, weeping, groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself, ³⁴ And said: Where have you laid him? They say to him: Lord, come and see. ³⁵ And Jesus wept. ³⁶ The Jews therefore said: Behold how he loved him. ³⁷ 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? ³⁸ Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave; and a stone was laid over it. ³⁹ Jesus saith: Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith to him: Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days. ⁴⁰ Jesus saith to her: Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God? ⁴¹ They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifting up his eyes said: Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast heard me. ⁴² And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. ⁴³ When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth. ⁴⁴ 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. ⁴⁵ Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in him.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
Et Jesus flevit — and Jesus wept. The two shortest words in the Latin New Testament contain the most astonishing truth: the Son of God, who is about to call a dead man from the grave, first stands before the tomb and weeps. Saint John Chrysostom, moved by this detail, writes that Christ did not weep from ignorance of what He was about to do, but to show that He truly shares our human grief — that divinity does not stand aloof from our pain but enters it (Homilies on John, Homily LXIII). He groans in spirit, He is troubled, He weeps. Then He commands. The Raising of Lazarus is the final, crowning sign of the Fourth Gospel, and it is structured as a revelation of identity: I am the resurrection and the life. Not merely a channel of resurrection — its very cause and substance. Martha's confession in reply — Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God — is John's equivalent of Peter's great confession at Caesarea Philippi. She says it not on a mountaintop but before a sealed tomb, with death still fresh in her nostrils. That is where faith is proved. The CCC teaches that the raising of Lazarus is an announcement of Jesus' own resurrection, but differs from it: Lazarus' resuscitation was a return to earthly life, whereas Jesus' resurrection is entrance into another life beyond time and space (CCC §646). Lazarus would die again. Christ will not. We who believe in Him shall not die for ever.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst weep before the grave of Thy friend and yet didst call him forth by the power of Thy word: look upon us in the graves we have dug for ourselves, and speak our name. We believe, with Martha, that Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. We trust, with Thy prophet, that Thou wilt open our sepulchres and put Thy Spirit within us. Let the Spirit who raised Thee from the dead quicken also our mortal hearts this Lent, that we may stand at Easter already risen within. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be...
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
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