Blog & Pastor Letters

It’s been said that the more you get to know someone, the more you realize that there is so much more to know about that person. If I learn tomorrow that my friend is a rock climber, all of a sudden more questions pop up: When did you start? Where do you go? How do you train? Learning this one fact makes me realize there’s a whole lot more I don’t know about the person.

What does it mean to “bear witness” to something? If we witness a crime, we can report that to the police, and they will take a witness statement to record what we’ve seen or heard. If we witness an event, we might be called upon to give an interview for a news story about our experiences.

When we read the accounts of the Lord Jesus’ appearances in his resurrected Body, we find some curious things. First, people that know him well, those whom he taught and with whom he lived and loved, somehow don’t recognize him at first; and second, these people who encounter the Risen Lord Jesus only recognize him at the Lord’s initiative.

When I was leaving my very first priestly assignment as a young parochial vicar, I was, naturally enough, very sad. I was speaking to a brother priest who worked with me in the parish as the other parochial vicar, and, with the arrogance that can only come from inexperience said, “At least I know that, as I leave this parish, all the people really loved me.” My friend, older, with a few more years of priesthood under his belt, laughed hard and said, “No, no they didn’t! What, are you crazy? Not everyone loved you!” I was horrified! I was dismayed!

When we encounter the Lord Jesus in today’s Gospel, he is at his low point, at the nadir of his popularity. He’s away from the main stage, away from Jerusalem. He received word that one of his closest friends, Lazarus, is dead. Jesus waits three days, foreshadowing the time He will spend in the tomb, before going to see Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary. The Lord loves these women. They are his friends and he delights in their company. He delays his arrival outside of Bethany so that the glory of God can be shown.

I recall being in fifth grade when my teacher told my parents that I was having some problems reading what was written on the blackboard. My perceptive teacher, Mrs. Joy Agresto, noticed my squinting and my struggling to write down what was on the blackboard in that venerable grammar school, which is now known as Saint Joseph the Worker Catholic Academy. This would have been in 1982, a very long time ago.

My parents took me out to a Cohen’s Fashion Optical and I had my eyes tested. About a week later, my father took me out to the eyeglass store and I tried my glasses on the first time. I vividly recall being able to see so much better; it was like a new world of details was opened before me which I had not realized was there.

Of the many powerful scenes in the epic biopic Pope John Paul II, starring Jon Voight and Cary Elwes, one continually sticks with me. Early in the movie, in a flashback to his childhood, the young Karol falls to the ground and awakes, injured, to his mother’s voice of comfort. Here we have a beautiful example of a parent handing on, in the truest sense, the Faith of the Church. His mother tells him (and I am paraphrasing), Karol, life is confusing and complicated, God is simple. Let me show you the simple way: “In the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”