Homily for Mass for the 5th Sunday of Lent Year A + Day of the Unborn. Sydney, 26 March 2023

‘Jesus wept.’ (Jn 11:35) It’s the shortest and most moving verse of the New Testament. In two powerful words we glimpse the fullness of Jesus’ humanity: that rather than expressing a divine distance, impassability and indifference, Jesus is God come close, so close He could be overwhelmed with compassion for the suffering sisters, so close He could know for Himself the heights of human love and the depths of human grief. Yet this same extraordinary chapter 11 of John offers us another of the Gospel’s shortest lines: “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11:25; cf. vv. 26-27)—and the proof that that is so is the raising of Lazarus. Nothing could be better preparation for Good Friday and Easter ahead than to see Christ is weak enough to suffer, die and lie in the grave with us and strong enough to raise us up with Himself in glory.