<\/p>\n
How ironic!\u00a0 First, Jesus tells the parable about the rich man and Lazarus.\u00a0 And in that parable, the rich man wants Abraham to have Lazarus rise from the dead to warn his 5 brothers that they need to mend their selfish lives.\u00a0 But Abraham says that if people will not listen to Moses and the prophets, then neither will they listen to someone raised from the dead!\u00a0 And then, irony of ironies, Jesus actually went on to raise a person name Lazarus from the grave you know, Martha and Mary\u2019s brother Lazaru!.\u00a0 And it was in front of the Pharisees and Scribes, too.<\/p>\n
And do you know what the Pharisees and Scribes did after that?\u00a0 They actually plotted to kill Lazarus because of his testimony.\u00a0 Indeed, the raising of Lazarus was one of the things that pushed the Pharisees over the edge. \u00a0After that they wanted to have Jesus arrested and put on trial.\u00a0 How ironic; and how prophetic Abraham\u2019s words were.<\/p>\n
What the parable today demonstrates is just how difficult it is to shake us out of our comfort zone, especially when things are going well for us.\u00a0 And as a matter of fact, when things are going well people get angry when someone tries to shake them from their apathy about them, especially things that are wrong in this world that people are not facing.\u00a0 Why? \u00a0Because they just don\u2019t want to hear it.<\/p>\n
This was the case for the rich man; and the Pharisees were not far behind him.\u00a0 People can either be too comfortable to care- like the rich man; or they have a vested interest in the status quo and don\u2019t want to hear there is something wrong with it- like the Pharisees.<\/p>\n
Boy, do we have that problem today!\u00a0 Our society has lost sight of evil.\u00a0 Religious persecution of Catholics, Abortion, Assisted Suicide, Gay Marriage, untreated Mental Illness, Third World Hunger, and a whole host of other evils plague us.\u00a0 But most of us are too busy and passive about it in our relative affluence.<\/p>\n
One of the things we do is to trust the Government to solve these social problems.\u00a0 But isn\u2019t that what Jeremiah was preaching against in the first reading?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that trusting in man; trusting in secular society?\u00a0 We have a responsibility to help folks who are in need and to help people see the error of their ways.\u00a0 But we cannot delegate it away through the Government.\u00a0 Especially now when the secular Government is actually acting to bolster some of these evils; and when the Government has no way to pay for it.<\/p>\n
There is one thing all of us can do, and that is to pray.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Blessed Mother continually asked us to do when she appeared to visionaries at Medugorje and other places; and it\u2019s what the Church is asking us to do during Lent.\u00a0 Remember, we are being asked to engage in Prayer, Fasting, and Alsmgiving during Lent.<\/p>\n
And what is it that we should pray for.\u00a0 Lots of things:\u00a0 our enemies conversion; inspiration on how we can deal with and solve the problems, that God will somehow intercede, perhaps send us a leader; but most of all, to trust that when we pray, our prayers will be answered.<\/p>\n
Sometimes todays problems seem overwhelming.\u00a0 But it is then that we should remember Jeremiah\u2019s words:\u00a0 \u201cBlessed is the man who trusts in the Lord; whose hope is in the Lord\u201d.\u00a0 So, pray, pray, and pray some more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday of the Second Week in Lent Jer 17: 5-10; Lk 16: 19-31 Dc. Larry Brockman How ironic!\u00a0 First, Jesus tells the parable about the rich man and Lazarus.\u00a0 And in that parable, the rich man wants Abraham to have Lazarus rise from the dead to warn his 5 brothers that they need to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[207,208,206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}