Thursday of the Fourth week in Lent – 31 March – Our Lenten Journey with the Great Fathers – 4 Kings 4:25-38, Luke 7,11-16.
“Give thanks to the Lord, invoke His Name; make known among the nations His deeds.” – Psalm 104:1
And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
Luke 7:14
“EVEN IF the signs of death have removed all hope of life, even if the bodies of the dead lie beside the tomb, yet, at the Voice of God, the corpses of those ready to decompose, will rise and recover speech. The son is restored to his mother, he is called back from the tomb, snatched out of it.
AND WHAT IS THIS TOMB? Your own! Your bad habits, your lack of faith. This is the tomb from which Christ delivers you, this is the tomb from which you will return to life if you listen to the Word of God. Even if your sin is so grave, that you are unable to wash it clean for yourself, with your tears of repentance, the Church, your mother, she who intercedes for each one of her children, like a widowed mother for her only son, will weep for you. For she feels for it with a kind of spiritual suffering natural to her, when she sees her offspring, dragged down to death, by lamentable vices…
LET HER WEEP, then, this pious mother; let the crowd accompany her – and not just a crowd but a large crowd – and may it show compassion towards this tender mother. Then you will come to life again in your tomb and will be delivered, the bearers will stop and you will start to speak the words of the living; everyone will be astonished. The example of one will correct the many and they will praise God for having granted such remedies to us for escaping death.”…St Ambrose (c 340-397) Great Father & Doctor of the Church (A treatise on the Gospel of Saint Luke)
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