Life from the Grave – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; March 22, 2026

Lazarus died again. That tells us that as stupendous as the miracle was, it was nevertheless but a trinket in the treasure house of God. Alas, we focus on God’s trinkets, which he gives to teach us to look for his greater gifts, rather than those greater gifts.

In today’s 1^st reading, God speaks to his people, who are alive as we usually speak of life, saying, I will open your graves and have you rise from them. They are alive, as we usually speak of life, but theirs is a life of exile, away from their land. For that reason, they feel like they are “dead”.

Today, what are the graves in which living people are buried, as though dead, from which God would call them to new life? If we understand the graves, we will understand the exile, and understanding the exile, we will also understand the land of true freedom. Just because we sing about the “land of the free” does not mean that personally we are living in a land of freedom.

Let’s think of the overlapping types of graves, over which Jesus weeps, three forms of exile, three types of slavery: addiction, mental illness, and vice.

An addiction is a compulsive behavior over which the addict no longer has control. Sometimes the addiction is merely an emotional obsession or psychological attachment; sometimes it involves a chemical dependency, as in a drug addiction; sometimes the addiction consumes a small part of a person’s life; sometimes it consumes the whole of the person’s life. Whether a part or a whole, in the measure that the person is bound by his addiction, he is a slave, he is not free, his humanity is degraded. Jesus weeps over his degraded humanity. There may be little or no moral fault in having an addiction if the causes are hereditary, or if the physical dependency caught the person by surprise or unawares. Yet, in the measure that the addictive behavior was, in the first place, freely and deliberately chosen, the person is not without blame. The addiction is also a vice. In either case, it is a form of slavery.

Then there is mental illness, which can overlap with addiction. I will consider two ways in which mental illness often takes away a person’s interior freedom, putting him in a sort of “prison” of his illness, degrading his humanity, over which Jesus weeps.

The first are delusional illnesses, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The delusion is a disconnect between the mind and reality. Within the context of the delusion, the mentally ill person might act quite rationally; the problem is that his reason has nothing to do with reality. The delusional person has become a prisoner of his own mind, controlled by his delusion, and is no longer free to act in the real world, in relationship to real people.

The second sort of mental illness involves a disorder of the emotions, often resulting from severe trauma, in which, for shorter or longer periods, the person’s awareness is consumed by an intense emotional state that submerges the activity of his mind, thereby suppressing his freedom.

Then there is depression, in which the emotions are so exhausted, so emptied out and suppressed, leaving a feeling of such complete emptiness that any sort of activity seems nearly impossible. I think of a person who, once he had arrived at his home, parked his car and simply sat in his car for an hour, incapable of doing anything at all.

As with addiction, there are often hereditary factors involved, or sources in childhood trauma, all of which mitigate or remove any personal blame. Yet, whether blameworthy or not, the person is imprisoned, as it were, by his condition.

Then there is vice. Vice might be called a voluntary, and therefore blameworthy, compulsion. Well, that is the reality, but the world does not see it that way; the world celebrates the “success” of the vicious man, the “operator”, like “the most interesting man in the world”. On the one hand, there is the alcoholic, whose drinking problem arises from a combination of hereditary weakness and emotional trauma, while on the other hand, there is the heavy drinker, who chooses to embrace the life of thrills involved with drinking, who likes the bars, the dances, the music, and the adventures. In a strange way, he thrives in this life, succeeds in this life, and, despite his heavy drinking, by a sort of secret instinct, keeps a certain measure and maintains a certain control over himself. Yet, having chosen this life for himself, he is no longer free for a better life; his vice shapes his thinking and outlook; he can no longer conceive something different or better – at least so long as he continues to thrive, after a fashion. The vicious man is a predator; the addict is more like the prey. Even the predator is a slave to his vice. Jesus also weeps over him.

Now, I mentioned at the outset that addiction, mental illness, and vice overlap. That is one reason why we cannot judge others. In a way, we give them more respect if we treat them as vicious, because at least at the outset, they chose their way of life in a human fashion, even if the life they chose is not worthy of a human being. Yet, in the measure that involuntary addiction or mental illness is involved, we would do them an injustice to blame them for something for which they are not responsible.

Here we meet with the words of Jeremiah: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? (Jer 17:9) The Lord alone can search the human heart. The Lord alone can judge.

Addiction, mental illness, and vice give us examples of “graves”, over which Jesus weeps. What they have in common is that whatever role choice might have in their development, they more or less impede a person’s freedom, thereby degrading his humanity, making it difficult or impossible for him to act in a truly human fashion. Whether he is to blame or not, the person feels the shame of the degradation of his humanity.

I have taken extreme examples of “slavery”; how about an example of true freedom?

In this world, true life is not found in the slavery of the flesh, but through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and his gift of grace. If, then, we contemplate her who is “full of grace”, who is called the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, we can best see the true life.

The Annunciation provides us with the best example. God speaks to the Virgin by way of the Angel. He addresses her as an intelligent person, capable of understanding and choice. She is troubled not by the presence of the Angel, but by the exalted greeting that seems too elevated for her lowly status; the Angel gives the reason for the greeting: she is to be raised up to be the Mother of the Messiah, the Son of David. The Virgin asks a question because motherhood does not appear to fit with her virginal vocation, already accepted and approved by God; the Angel reveals that her virginity is indeed part of the plan, for it will bear witness that her Son is not merely the Messiah, but the very Son of God, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, only after having sought and attained sufficient understanding of what is being asked of her, the Virgin gives her free consent. Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word. (Lk 1:38)

Here we witness the highest elevation of human dignity in the greatest exercise of intelligence and choice in the Virgin’s response to God through which she commits her life to the service of his saving plan as the Mother of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior. The Virgin’s ability to make such a response to the Angel did not come out of nowhere, rather God had prepared her for this supreme moment by the gift of her Immaculate Conception, her fullness of grace, and everything that his providence furnished for her education and formation. For her part, the Virgin had freely collaborated with God’s grace and providence. She further remained faithful to the consent she gave to God at the Annunciation, faithful to the point of standing by her Son at the foot of the Cross.

In the slaveries of addiction, mental illness, and vice, we see a sort of living death, driven in the last analysis by worldly fears. In the graced freedom of the Blessed Virgin, we see the perfect love that casts out fear (cf. Jn 4:18) that is accompanied by complete trust in God, and a desire only to please him: in this is fullness of life.

I will open your graves and have you rise from them. Well, I have set forth two ends of the spectrum between slavery and freedom, death and life. I expect that we are all somewhere in between. We want to be moving towards the sort of freedom in the sight of God exemplified by the Virgin. God’s unfailing love calls us out of our tombs, whatever they may be.

Jesus called the Apostles to this intelligent collaboration with his plan when he said to them, You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (Jn 15:14-15)

What the Apostles learned from Jesus, as his friends, they have handed on to the Church. If we receive from the Church, in faith, the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh, then we too can enter into free and intelligent collaboration with the plan of God, becoming thereby the friends of Jesus, sharing the life of the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. (Jn 14:6)

Yet, what should we say about the most desperate situations of vice, mental illness, and addiction? Well, as Jesus wept over Lazarus, four days dead, revealing his love, he weeps also for those in desperate situations of slavery and death. As Jesus called Lazarus, four days dead, from the tomb, he can call forth also those who lie in the tombs of addiction, mental illness, and vice. He does so in response to the petitions of the Marthas of the world, who believe that he is indeed the resurrection and the life, who believe that all things are possible to him.

St. Augustine, commenting on the words of Jesus, greater works than these will he do, says that to make a sinner to be just before God, which is a work in which we can collaborate with God, at least by our prayers, is a greater work than to create heaven and earth. (cf. Tractate 72 on John, St. Thomas Aquinas, ST IaIIae q.113a.9) All the more is it a greater work than raising Lazarus from the dead.

We should pray without giving up hope for those who seem as desperate as Lazarus, but no one should be content to be so passive as Lazarus, lying in the tomb. No matter how desperate your situation, you should at least desire to be delivered and do all that is in your power, even if it might seem little and limited. I once accompanied a woman for nine years who suffered severe mental illness, who felt very limited indeed in her freedom and capacity, yet she actually possessed a tremendous strength of will: will not to give in, will not to let her evil tendencies gain control, will to do whatever good she could.

That will, even in such straights, is a sign of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you.

After that resurrection, there will be no more dying, as Lazarus died again; there will be no more slavery, for God will wipe the tears from every eye and make all things new. (cf. Rev 21:4,5)