The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Ez 37:12-14; Ps 130; Rom 8:8-11; Jn 11:1-45
As we approach the climax of the Church’s liturgical year, which is the celebration of the life, Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, also called the Paschal Mystery, the Scriptural readings on this Fifth Sunday of Lent set before us the theme of death and new life from different perspectives.
While we are familiar with the physical death of the body, so dramatically depicted in the Gospel account of the Lord’s raising of Lazarus from the tomb, Scripture teaches that there is another kind of death, a spiritual death, which threatens the believer and which so preoccupied the Apostle Paul. It is a struggle in which we are all involved. This fight has been likened to a battleground where the spirit and the flesh are engaged in constant conflict.
