Saturday, October 7 : Saint Augustine

“Awake, you sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will give you light!” (Eph 5,14)… We often say of those who are manifestly dead that they are sleeping; and indeed they are all sleeping for the One who is able to awaken them. For you a dead person is truly dead: you may well slap and shake him…, he will not wake up. But for Christ, the man he commanded to “Rise up!” was merely sleeping and he rose up immediately (Lk 7,14). It is easy enough to waken a sleeper from his bed but Christ awakens a dead man from his tomb with even greater ease… “By now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days” (Jn 11,39). But the Lord, for whom all things are done with ease, is coming… No bonds hold secure before the Savior’s voice. The powers over the dwellings of the dead tremble and Lazarus is restored to life… For Christ’s life-giving will even this death of four days is merely a sleep. But reflect over the nature of this resurrection. Lazarus, coming alive out of the tomb, was as yet unable to walk. So the Lord commanded his disciples: “Untie him and let him go”. Christ raised him up; they set him free from his bonds. The true majesty of the God who brings the dead back to life emerges in this narrative. The Word of life (1Jn 1,1) exhorts those who are bound by their evil habits… Having been strongly admonished these sinners return to themselves, begin to reconsider their lives and feel the weight of the chains of their evil habits. Ashamed, they make up their minds to change their lives. From then on they are raised from death and brought back to life since they condemn their former way of living. However, even though they are alive once more, they cannot walk as yet…; their bonds have to be untied. This is the ministry our Lord entrusted to his disciples when he said: “Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18,18).

maronite readings – rosary,team