Martha, Mary, and Lazarus have been dear companions in my spiritual journey for years. Perhaps it’s my resonance with Martha’s propensity to do rather than be – what I suspect may be an area of lifelong grappling for me – that draws me to them or perhaps it’s the summons to “unbind” Lazarus and “set him free” that speaks truth to my heart of the unbinding to which we are all called to experience ourselves and to assist God in offering others. I simply feel a connection when praying with these three siblings and their recorded experiences with Jesus.
Such a sense of kinship has held truer still in the past few years since my brother’s passing. Oh, how I have – time and again – despaired with Martha over my brother’s decline and eventual death, raged with Mary over Jesus’ delay in arriving and His seeming lack of urgency in stopping of the horror of it (believing full well that He could if He wanted), wept with Jesus out of the anguish-ridden chasm only deep love can forge, sat with Lazarus dead and decaying in the dank darkness of the grave, and rejoiced – REJOICED! – with everyone present in the power of Our God to bring hope to hopelessness, to overcome death with life, to restore what is broken to wholeness.
As today’s Psalm announces, Our Lord is indeed kind and merciful, far beyond our ability to grasp the magnitude of it. In the fullness of our lives, in our contorting ourselves to do more and yet more rather than simply be with ever greater freedom and ease, in our navigating the chasms that grief opens within, in our daily graces and grudges, in our suffering in body, mind or spirit or our accompanying others in theirs, and in each step of our wayward and holy journeys, may we trust that to which the experiences of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus give witness: the boundlessness of God’s kindness and mercy for all and for each of us. And, in knowing this, may we be balm-bearers, messengers of God’s mercy, God’s kindness, God’s astounding goodness in our wanting world.
Cindy Schmersal
I have the great joy and privilege of serving as Creighton University’s Vice President of Mission & Ministry and, therein, partner with folks throughout the University and beyond in collectively animating and perpetually deepening our Jesuit, Catholic mission and identity. No doubt, it’s graced work.
An Ohio native, I have spent most of my life in the Midwest, save a few formative years in my youth during which my family and I lived in Egypt.
I was first introduced to the Jesuit charism as an undergraduate student have remained meaningfully engaged with the charism since as a student, volunteer, employee, parishioner, and retreatant. To say it has powerfully shaped and changed my life is not an understatement.
I am both grateful for and humbled by the opportunity to share in writing these reflections. It is great gift to engage scripture with others in this way and, through the reflections and responses to them, be connected with a wonderful web of Christians throughout the world.
