9781644135945

The Light of the World
to Thy name, O Most High. . . . For the Lord is a great God and a great King over all the earth,
alleluia.” He is the master of life and death. All things are subject to His will, and nothing can
resist His power. The Gospel bears witness to this truth.
When Jesus was passing by the city of Naim, He was accompanied by His disciples and a
great multitude of the Jews. As He approached the gate of the city, He met the funeral cortege
of a young man, the only son of a widow, who was being carried to the burial place. “And when
the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said to her: Weep not” (Gospel). As He
approached the bier, He commanded the bearers to halt. Then He spoke to the young man,
saying: “Young man, I say to thee, arise.” The young man sat up on his bier and Jesus delivered
him to his mother.
Jesus gives life, and He alone can give it. We, too, were once children of death because of Original
Sin; but Jesus met us on the way. Our mother, the Church, was mourning over us. Christ was
touched with pity and approached us through His representatives, His priests, and by their
hands the life-giving waters of baptism were poured upon us. In this way we received spiritual
life and were united to our mother, the Church. With gratitude in our hearts we today recall
the occasion of our baptism. “With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and He had regard
to me; and He heard my prayer, and He put a new canticle into my mouth, a song to our God”
(Offertory). Christ will come again to our grave and will say to us, “I say to thee, arise.” The
gates of the grave will be flung open, and we shall arise from the dead. With joy the glorified
soul will embrace its body, revivify it with its blessed life, usher it into the realm of the living,
and unite it to the happy and glorified Church in heaven. “With expectation I have waited for
the Lord. . . . He put a new canticle into my mouth.” He who gives life to the dead enters into our
midst today in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, as the all-merciful and all-powerful God. Death
still holds sway over many members of the Church, who are ruled by sin, passion, worldliness,
and indifference to God, and who have forgotten the day of their baptism. But even for these
the Church prays, weeping; and our Lord touches them by His grace and says to them: “Young
man, I say to thee, arise.”
Christ has given Himself as a sacrifice for the dead. He prays to the Father for mercy
and pardon. With unspeakable groanings He prays for grace and power that life may be restored
to these who are spiritually dead. “I have come that they may have life and have it more
abundantly.” For this purpose, too, Christ offers Himself up in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
and in Holy Communion. “The bread that I will give is My flesh for the life of the world”
(Communion prayer).
Meditation
The liturgy of this Sunday is dominated by the picture of the raising to life of the young man
of Naim. We ourselves have been called to life through our baptism. Having restored us to life,
Christ gives us back to our sorrowing mother, the Church. The thought of Easter also enters
prominently into the liturgy of the day. Today we are to be grateful for the grace of baptism and
the sacrament of penance.
“Young man, I say to thee, arise” (Gospel). For the liturgy, this young man who was dead
represents those spiritually dead: the heathen, the apostate, the renegade, the enemy of God,
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