Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

On The Three Persons Whom The Lord Raised

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, March 22, 2026

In the Gospels, Jesus raised three people from the dead. The first was a young girl, the 12-year-old daughter of a synagogue official named Jairus (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43). When Jairus saw Jesus standing near the sea, he approached him, fell at his feet, and begged earnestly, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her so she may get well and live” (Mark 5:23). After hearing Jairus’ plea, Jesus went with him. But while they were still on the way, some people from Jairus’ house came to him and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” She died in the house while Jesus was still on his way. Still, Jesus raised her from the dead with the words, “Talitha Koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” (Mk. 5:41). The second person Jesus raised was the only son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). Jesus and his disciples were heading to the city of Nain. As they approached the city gate, they saw a funeral procession for a man who had just died. When Jesus saw the poor widow weeping, he moved forward, touched the coffin, and raised the dead man by saying, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” The third person was Lazarus, a name meaning “God has helped.” The raising of Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus, according to St. Augustine, represents three types of sinners; it shows Christ's power to raise souls from different stages of spiritual death, whether the sin is hidden in the heart, acted upon, or habitual. 

These biblical stories are true accounts. Jesus genuinely raised these individuals physically from the dead. However, St. Augustine’s meditation on each of the three miracles can help us better understand what Jesus did. St. Augustine recognizes that the Gospels operate on different levels. He also understands that the Gospel writers communicate deep spiritual truths through these miraculous acts. What does the death and raising of Jairus's daughter symbolize? Remember, she died in the house. St. Augustine says she represents the spiritual death within our minds and hearts. This is a sinner who has consented to sin in their heart but has not yet acted upon it (sin hidden inside the house). They have not yet expressed it outwardly, which is a good thing; however, it is still poisoning us internally. This causes us to quietly think, “Gosh, I can’t stand him!” “What mean and nasty idiot.” “I can’t wait for her to be gone.” Resentments! Old grudges! Bitterness! These dysfunctions may not be voiced or acted out, which is good, but they still fester inside, poisoning our thoughts, will, and imagination. Sometimes we might lie or deceive ourselves by claiming to be good people simply because our spiritual dysfunctions have not yet shown in our actions, but Jesus is not satisfied with that. He wants to enter those spaces where unspoken evil thoughts have caused death and bring them back to life. He desires to heal us from that spiritual death. 

The second case involves the son of the widow of Nain. The young man is already dead and is being carried outside the house to the cemetery for burial. Augustine explains that he symbolizes a sinner who has not only thought about sin but has also acted on it, though not habitually. Resentment, anger, grudges, and bitterness begin to appear in our words, gestures, and actions. At this point, we start engaging in behavior that harms others. We make dangerous, divisive comments. This indicates a deep spiritual death. However, Jesus also wants to heal us from this kind of spiritual death. He wants to restore us to life. The third person Jesus raises from the dead is our brother Lazarus. Lazarus has been carried out of the house, placed in a tomb, and by the time Jesus arrives, he has been in the tomb for four days. When Jesus asks that the stone covering the tomb be removed, Lazarus's sister Martha exclaims, “Lord, by now there will be a stench.” How does St. Augustine interpret this? In his view, Lazarus in the grave represents the most severe case: a sinner who has become accustomed to sin. The sinner is not only dead but buried and decomposing (habitual sin). That evil, spiritual death, once hidden in the mind and heart, eventually becomes a persistent part of our lives. That anger, hatred, resentment, negative thoughts, etc., have become so ingrained in daily life that they begin to affect us and those around us. When this happens, we start to “stink”—meaning we begin to negatively influence others. Our own spiritual death is no longer just our problem but one that affects many others.

Sisters and brothers, every Lent, the Church asks us to take a moral inventory of our lives. Lent is a good time to examine each type of spiritual death—the internal, the external, and the most corrupt part of our lives that impacts others. If Jesus is willing to go to the tomb of Lazarus and bring him back to life, he will also go to the deepest, most corrupt, darkest, and most troubled states and invite us back to life. Some of the saddest comments I hear from people are: “Father, believe me, I am not worthy to serve in the capacity you are asking me to serve;” “Father, what I have done is so bad that I don’t think God will forgive me;” “Father, I don’t go to confession because there is no need, no point in going. It is just too much.” People who say such things are suggesting that their spiritual death has become so complete, so corrupt, that they are beyond God's reach. But the Gospel story of Lazarus says, WRONG! No one, not even those who believe they are trapped in evil, is beyond the forgiving power of Jesus Christ. He goes even to those darkest places to find us and bring us out. But we must allow him to enter inside us. 

Two details about Lazarus's raising that are often overlooked involve Jesus's actions when he reached the tomb. The Gospel states that Jesus was deeply troubled as he approached it. Jesus, the very embodiment of Yahweh, groans as he nears. What does that signify? St. Augustine interprets it as God’s profound pain at our dysfunction. If God's glory is a human being fully alive, then when we fail to flourish, God in Christ is disturbed. He groans with a strong desire to help us out of that state. The second detail appears in what we now call the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus Wept!” This is God weeping for us because of our sin. It breaks God’s heart when we are not fully alive. God isn’t weeping out of anger. He's not groaning because he’s upset with us. He is groaning and weeping because we are not alive, and he longs for us to be. 

What are we supposed to do? The answer is in the Gospel of John: “Take away the stone” (John 11:39). Many people feel stuck and living in darkness. They believe they can't rescue themselves from their situation. They feel like they are in a tomb, with a stone blocking their way and no one to help. As a result, they become fearful and hopeless. The good news is that Jesus’ power surpasses any power of sin. After the stone was rolled away, Jesus spoke with authority, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man rises and comes out. Imagine the Lord naming you, calling your name even if you’re in the darkest corner of spiritual life, and saying to you, “Come out!” Jesus wants us fully alive, for that is His glory. He desires us to thrive and be alive. Again, we must let Him help us. “Take away the stone.” Remove the addiction, the habitual sin, the spiritual dysfunction. Remove the stone—everything that causes you to stumble and fall repeatedly. If the stone isn’t removed, you cannot rise from this spiritual death. 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

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Spiritual Blindness Weakens Our Will And Clouds Our Mind

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, March 15, 2026

We are now in the middle of Lent. Last Sunday, we read the story of the woman at the well (John 4:5-42). This Sunday, we hear the story of the man born blind. Next Sunday, we will read about the raising of Lazarus from the dead. I tell you, these three stories, full of great characters, meaningful dialogues, and powerful insights, teach us a lot about who Jesus Christ is, what he means, and how he influences us. In the story of the woman at the well, Jesus reveals himself as the Living Water. In today's story, the healing of the man born blind, Jesus proclaims: “I am the light of the world.” 

The story says that when Jesus’ disciples saw the man born blind, they asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Why did they ask that question? They are looking for a way to blame him. But Jesus, operating from a correct vision, responds, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be revealed through him.” Meaning, he will be used to manifest the glory of God. Jesus shows compassion to him and now wants to bring him to a correct vision. Then he utters one of the greatest lines in John’s Gospel: “I am the light of the world,” meaning I am the light by which you see, in which you move, without which you stumble. If you want to see clearly and correctly, be grafted unto me, and see things the way I see them. When St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me,” he is witnessing to this very reality. He is saying that Christ’s light is illuminating his life from within. 

After that, Jesus approaches the man. He spits on the ground, forms a mud paste, and uses it to anoint the man. The great St. Augustine said the spittle represents the divinity of Christ, while the dirt symbolizes His humanity. What is happening here? Why are these three steps part of the miracle? Didn’t Mary teach Jesus any manners about spitting like that? Although it might seem gross, it connects to another event in the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis, we learn that God created Adam from the dust of the ground. In the first century of Judaism, there was a long-standing tradition (found in the Dead Sea Scrolls) that God created Adam from spittle and clay. The Dead Sea Scrolls mention that Adam, or man, was made from “spat saliva molded clay.” What is Jesus doing here? He is acting as God did in the Old Testament. He is performing an act of new creation.

After that, he tells the man to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam, and after he washes, his sight is restored. Why the pool? It is symbolic of baptism. Baptism signifies that we are drawn to Jesus and share in His life. One of the earliest descriptions of baptism is a “door to the sacred or door to the spiritual life.” It is through it that we enter the Church and learn how to see properly. In the Church, we teach each other how to see. Last week, during the announcement, I said something that may have shocked some of you. I said, “I encourage you to encourage me,” and that’s very true. We teach and show each other how to see clearly and properly as Christ sees. When someone says to you, “You are not seeing that right; you are not looking at the world as a Christian,” that’s the Church—the community of the baptized—helping you to see. 

At this point, the story should be over. Jesus finds a man born blind, makes a paste of his saliva and ground clay, rubs it into his eyes, and tells him to go and wash in the pool. He follows the instructions and then returns able to see. However, in John’s Gospel, that’s not the end of the story. In fact, what happens next is something we have seen many times before. Jesus performs a remarkable act of healing, demonstrating God’s creative power. How do people react? Sometimes they are amazed, grateful, and praise God. But often, the reaction is one of outrage, anger, rejection, disappointment, and accusation. In this story, the Pharisees tried everything they could to undermine what Jesus had done. First, they claimed that the man simply looked like the man born blind, suggesting it wasn’t really him. The man responded, “I am.” Then they tried to use the law to discredit him: because Jesus made clay and opened the man’s eyes on a Sabbath, they denied knowing where Jesus was from, insisting that he was not from God. They claimed he was a sinner. But in a beautiful declaration, the blind man said, “If he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I do know is that I was blind and now I see.” The simple statement he is making is this: I have come to true vision through Jesus Christ.

But why did these Jewish authorities go to such lengths to deny and undermine Jesus? You could say they were trying to avoid giving credit to Jesus to keep their hostility toward Him alive and resist accepting Him as the Messiah. If they acknowledged Jesus's work and ministry, the question would then be, why are they resisting Him? Even the disciples of the Pharisees would wonder why. So, the simplest approach is to reject, renounce, oppose, and deny Jesus and everything He is doing. But there is another reason, and it is at the beginning of the story. Upon seeing the man born blind, the disciples immediately asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The Pharisees were looking for a scapegoat to blame. They saw themselves as disciples of Moses, that is, the good ones. They defined themselves by pointing to someone outside their group, someone worthy of blame and shame. But by curing this man, Jesus announces, ‘stop the blame game, end the fingerpointing, cease the scapegoating.’ More to it, the Lord restores him to the community. He wants him fully involved and fully alive. But the Pharisees and the disciples do not want him in the community. They want him excluded. The right vision here is to see as God sees, that is, to see that all of us are connected to one another. The great Church Father, Origen, said that “to be holy is to see with the eyes of Christ.” On the outside, we look different. Our skin colors are different. We are Caucasians, blacks, and browns. Some are born in this country; some are born outside it. Some originated from Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, etc. Those distinctions are true and real. But holy and godly Christians do not stress and emphasize those. Because they see as Christ sees, they know that all of us are connected to each other. The Pharisees are blind but don’t see it. They want a world full of division and separation. But Jesus wants us to see as God sees— that all of us are connected to God and therefore to each other. 

God bless you! 

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

Only God Fulfills the Infinite Desire 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

Church of St. Bridget of Minneapolis, MN

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Littered throughout the Bible is the theme of thirst: our thirst for God and God’s thirst for us. In the Book of Psalms, we read, “As the deer thirsts for the running stream, so my soul is thirsting for you, my God” (Psalm 42:1). As we all know, thirst is a basic human desire. When you have walked outside in the sun and you’re thirsty, the thirst is usually so intense and relentless that you must drink to satisfy it. That’s the image the Psalmist uses to express our thirst for God. One of the most powerful declarations of Jesus, as he hung on the cross, is “I thirst” (John 19:28). In a literal, physical sense, God in human form was thirsty for water because of the crucifixion. But in a symbolic and spiritual sense, he thirsts for humanity's souls. He thirsts for you and me. 

In today’s Gospel (John 4:5-42), the theme of thirst is on full display. Jesus is in the town of Samaria, during the hottest part of the day, around noon. Weary from a long walk, he sits down at the well. There, he meets a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water. The woman at the well embodies the human race’s thirst for God. Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). In other words, Jesus is saying to her, “I thirst,” or “I am thirsty.” What brought the woman to the well? She was thirsty. So we have two thirsty people meeting: the mysterious God’s thirst for us and the human thirst for God.  Although God does not need us in the same way, God thirsts for us. St. Augustine teaches that Jesus is thirsty for her faith; Jesus is thirsty for her response. God’s passion to set things right and to share his life and love with us is a kind of thirst. Salvation happens when God’s infinitely powerful desire for us meets our desire for God. Our thirst for God is always trumped by God’s thirst for us. 

What is the woman’s reaction to Jesus’ request? She is surprised and feels somewhat insulted. She is doubly shocked by Jesus’ move and question. Then she asks, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” In Jesus’ time, Jews had nothing to do with Samaritans. Moreover, it was generally forbidden and considered inappropriate for a Jewish man, especially a rabbi, to speak to a woman alone in public, even his own wife or daughter. But because Jesus’s approach and teachings were radically counter-cultural, he says to her, “Give me a drink.” At this point, Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” What is living water? Grace. The divine life. That’s what he has come to offer the world. Then Jesus makes a distinction between the water from the well and the living water he offers: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst.” What is the Lord saying? You come to this well every day to draw water. You drink it, but it does not satisfy you for long. But I want to give you grace, the divine life, which will permanently satisfy your thirst. What is being described here is the play between concupiscence and desire for God. In my sermon last week, I said we are not for this world; we are meant for God. We are wired for God. Only God can truly satisfy the deepest hunger. The great St. Augustine puts it well, “Lord, you have made us for yourself, therefore our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

As the conversation continues, Jesus tells her, “Go call your husband and come back.” She answers, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus replies, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the man you are with now is not your husband.” Then the woman says, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.” What is happening in this back-and-forth exchange? In first-century Judea, a husband was the legal, spiritual, and economic head of the household, responsible for protecting and providing for his family. By asking her to go call her husband, Jesus was symbolically asking for what controls and guides her life. But who are these five husbands she has had? St. Augustine explains they represent the five senses that have dominated her life. Before meeting Jesus, she had been seeking the beautiful things that the eyes see, the beautiful sounds the ears hear, and the beautiful objects she could touch. She has also been dominated by sensual pleasure. The five senses are not evil in themselves, but they should not be our husbands or the forces that govern our lives. That’s why Augustine says that what we have here is a kind of marriage proposal. Jesus is indirectly saying, “I want to be your husband. I want to be the power that governs your life. Let me live in you so that I might lead your mind, will, creativity, and sensuality.” The Church Fathers often spoke of the marriage of heaven and earth that Jesus brought about. The woman at the well is a kind of bride, and Jesus is proposing himself as the Bridegroom. 

I love how the exchange reaches a beautiful conclusion. The woman is so impressed by Jesus and what he offers her that she runs into the city and announces him. She leaves her water jar and goes into the town, saying, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done.” Did she tell her everything she has ever done? Of course not! He did not recount her entire life in detail. But he has uncovered and revealed the secret of her life and what influences everything she has done, which is, her desire. And that desire has guided her actions. So, she proclaims Jesus and wants everyone to know about him. In doing so, she becomes the first evangelist in John’s Gospel, the first to proclaim Christ. She has been healed and set free. She now knows where to find the living water. And she wants her community to know about Jesus, the one who made her new life possible. When you read a great book, watch a great movie, or meet a great person, what do you want to do? You want everyone to know about it. This is the call to evangelization. If you have been healed and set free by our Lord Jesus Christ, bring everyone into it just as this woman has done. 

God bless you!