RISING FROM THE GRAVE - A: 5th Sunday in Lent

First Reading: Ezek 37:12-14 (26 March 2023)

“Thus says the Lord God: ‘O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel’” (Ezek 37:12).

This is God’s statement to Ezekiel in a vision, assuring him and the Israelites that the resurrection of the dead is bound to happen in the future. These words can be taken both literally and spiritually. In the literal sense, God might be referring to the physical rising of those who had decomposed already as dry bones (cf. vv. 1-4), in such a way that their “bones came together, bone joining to bone” (v. 7a), “sinews appeared on them, flesh grew over them on top” (v. 7b), and finally “breath entered them” (v. 10). This belief is specifically immortalized in the Nicene/Apostle’s Creed in its 11th article of faith, i.e., “I believe in the resurrection of the dead”.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church elaborates this profession further as it states, “We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day” (CCC #989).

In the metaphorical or spiritual sense, God may denote that the Israelites’ miserable condition during the Babylonian exile would come to an end, soon. This prophecy came into reality when in 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus allowed the exiled Israelites to return to Judea to reclaim their patrimonial land and rebuild their temple (cf. 2 Chr 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4). Such a phenomenon may denote Jerusalem’s “rising from the death”. Indeed, by the time of Herod the Great, the temple of Jerusalem had already been fully restored (Jn 2:20), even superior in grandeur than Solomon’s temple, being adorned now with more precious stones and expensive offerings (cf. Lk 21:5).

However, I think that a third sense can be introduced that deeply reflects the situation of most citizens of the world today, i.e., a psycho-social sense. This reading emphasizes that the term “grave” connotes the collective culture of death that has always characterized the world. In Pope Francis’s third encyclical titled, Fratelli Tutti, the vicar speaks about the great misery experienced by thousands of people inhabiting war-stricken territories.

The irony is several countries nowadays opt to engage in wars even if thousands of people tragically lose their homes, family members, livelihood, self-dignity, national and cultural heritage, and, most especially, their own lives.

“Rising from the grave,” I think, entails a communitarian resolve of removing all dug “graves” as a result of the desire of a few to gain material and hegemonic advantages. To combat this evil, Pope Francis calls for a universal brotherhood, by working not only for charity (FT §164) but also for justice. Accordingly, he illustrates, “If someone helps an elderly person cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity” (FT §186).

These so-called graveyards can be eliminated by having a conscious effort among societal-leaders of ensuring earth’s inhabitants with a decent and moral living.

If this ideal is accomplished, there is, then, no real need for the resurrection of our dead society. Rather, we simply can carry on living because we are already collectively vibrant, joyful, and alive in body and spirit. In this dream, I concur with the Pontiff when he hopes that “God willing, after all this, we will think no longer in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those’, but only ‘us’. If only this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing” (FT §35).

- Rex Fortes, CM