March 22, 2026
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Lectionary: 34
First Reading: Ezekiel 37:12-14
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.
Then you shall know that I am the LORD,
when I open your graves and have you rise from them,
O my people!
I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
and I will settle you upon your land;
thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.
Responsorial Psalm: 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
R. (7) With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to my voice in supplication.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
If you, O LORD, mark iniquities,
LORD, who can stand?
But with you is forgiveness,
that you may be revered.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn,
let Israel wait for the LORD.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
For with the LORD is kindness
and with him is plenteous redemption;
And he will redeem Israel
from all their iniquities.
R. With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.
Second Reading: Romans 8:8-11
Brothers and sisters:
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh;
on the contrary, you are in the spirit,
if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But 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.
Verse before the Gospel: John 11:25a, 26
I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will never die.
Gospel: John 11:1-45
Now a man was ill, Lazarus from Bethany,
the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil
and dried his feet with her hair;
it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.
So the sisters sent word to him saying,
“Master, the one you love is ill.”
When Jesus heard this he said,
“This illness is not to end in death,
but is for the glory of God,
that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
So when he heard that he was ill,
he remained for two days in the place where he was.
Then after this he said to his disciples,
“Let us go back to Judea.”
The disciples said to him,
“Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you,
and you want to go back there?”
Jesus answered,
“Are there not twelve hours in a day?
If one walks during the day, he does not stumble,
because he sees the light of this world.
But if one walks at night, he stumbles,
because the light is not in him.”
He said this, and then told them,
“Our friend Lazarus is asleep,
but I am going to awaken him.”
So the disciples said to him,
“Master, if he is asleep, he will be saved.”
But Jesus was talking about his death,
while they thought that he meant ordinary sleep.
So then Jesus said to them clearly,
“Lazarus has died.
And I am glad for you that I was not there,
that you may believe.
Let us go to him.”
So Thomas, called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples,
“Let us also go to die with him.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus
had already been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away.
And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to comfort them about their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming,
she went to meet him;
but Mary sat at home.
Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.
But even now I know that whatever you ask of God,
God will give you.”
Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise.”
Martha said to him,
“I know he will rise,
in the resurrection on the last day.”
Jesus told her,
“I am the resurrection and the life;
whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe this?”
She said to him, “Yes, Lord.
I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God,
the one who is coming into the world.”
When she had said this,
she went and called her sister Mary secretly, saying,
“The teacher is here and is asking for you.”
As soon as she heard this,
she rose quickly and went to him.
For Jesus had not yet come into the village,
but was still where Martha had met him.
So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her
saw Mary get up quickly and go out,
they followed her,
presuming that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him,
she fell at his feet and said to him,
“Lord, if you had been here,
my brother would not have died.”
When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping,
he became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said,
“Where have you laid him?”
They said to him, “Sir, come and see.”
And Jesus wept.
So the Jews said, “See how he loved him.”
But some of them said,
“Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man
have done something so that this man would not have died?”
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb.
It was a cave, and a stone lay across it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him,
“Lord, by now there will be a stench;
he has been dead for four days.”
Jesus said to her,
“Did I not tell you that if you believe
you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone.
And Jesus raised his eyes and said,
“Father, I thank you for hearing me.
I know that you always hear me;
but because of the crowd here I have said this,
that they may believe that you sent me.”
And when he had said this,
He cried out in a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out,
tied hand and foot with burial bands,
and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
So Jesus said to them,
“Untie him and let him go.”
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary
and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
Reflection
According to Paragraph 128 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a great tool for interpreting the Bible is a method called “typology” or “foreshadowing.” It is explained as follows: “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.”
It basically says that there are events in the Old Testament (OT) that parallel events in the New Testament (NT) because the former records prophecies and promises which were fulfilled in the NT at the coming of Jesus our Lord, noting that Jesus is the perfection of all the things God has planned. Jesus, as the Word of God, was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1: 2-3).
This highlights the fact that God is in control of history and the plan of salvation was thought about from eternity, and fulfilled according to His plan and schedule. God is our Almighty, all-knowing and all-present Father. He has already seen everything from eternity.
Today’s First Reading is a good example of OT prophecies which found fulfillment in the NT upon the coming of Jesus. Saint Augustine of Hippo beautifully expresses the typological relationship of the OT and the NT as one divine narrative, written by the same author – the Holy Spirit: “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.” In the First Reading, God promised to open the graves of His people who have died. Jesus, in the Gospel, comes as the one who gives life to God’s people: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11: 25-26; see Matt 27: 52-53).
First Reading: Ezekiel 37:12-14
“O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel” (Ez 37:12).
To have a better understanding of this verse, we must go back to Genesis Chapter 3 and man’s ‘Fall in the Garden’. Because of original sin, our proto-parents were banished from the Garden of Eden and the gates of heaven were closed. It is for this reason that the plan of salvation commenced and will find fulfillment with the coming of our Lord Jesus the Christ because “He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent” (Col 1:18).
This tells us that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the gates of heaven were opened again and the way to the God was revealed because Jesus is Himself the only Way to the Father; no one comes to the Father except by Jesus and He is the only acceptable sacrifice for the atonement of all the sins of mankind. His death on the Cross is what took away the sins of the world to save man from everlasting damnation.
God, throughout salvation history, called and sent prophets to bring His message of hope to mankind and in our First Reading today, it was the prophet Ezekiel. In other words, God sent prophets to announce the coming of the Messiah in one way or another. And when you piece them all together, you’ll know that it was all part and parcel of a grand plan which no one else can conceptualize and execute other than our God and Father.
Because of original sin, mankind was condemned to everlasting death due to Adam and Eve’s pride and disobedience. Their banishment from the Garden also meant that they couldn’t have any access to the Tree of Life in the Garden (see Gen 3:24). Therefore, all generations after our proto-parents inherited original sin, including the condemnation unto death. The passing down of original sin will continue until the last person is born before the Second Coming of Christ – the ‘parousia’ of our Lord at the end of time.
Because of God’s love for man, he gave us his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but will have life eternal (see John 3:16). In other words, God brought the Tree of Life to man through the Cross of Jesus that we may have life once again through Christ. Jesus is the vine from whom all life flows and we have to be branches if we have to be with Him forever. Jesus is The Way, Truth and Life (see John 14:6).
In the Creed, we profess that when the Lord died He descended into the realm of the dead and on the third day, rose from death by His own power. All those who are worthy of eternal life were awoken from their graves, just like the prophecy in today’s First Reading. They entered life everlasting knowing that it was God, the only begotten Son of the Father, who woke them up in fulfillment of the promise in today’s Reading. In Psalm 6:5, it says: There are no graves for the souls of those who believe and love the Lord! God is always faithful! What He says is true! “I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD” (Ezekiel 37:14).
In Saint Matthew, we read this account when our Lord died: “…the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matt 27:52). Today’s First Reading ends with this verse: “I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land…” (Ez 37:14)
At the Baptism, the Holy Spirit hovered over our Lord like a dove. On the Cross, our Lord said: “Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit”; “it is complete”. Our Lord’s last breath pours out His Holy Spirit to undo the disobedience of Adam and Eve in His work of salvation. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down like ‘tongues of fire’ thereby giving birth to the Bride of Christ, the Church – that’s us. What would be the common thing about these three Bible events, it would be the appearance of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Paul said: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 1:3). The phrase “every spiritual blessing” refers to the Holy Spirit who is Lord and giver of life. Jesus saved mankind by pouring out the Holy Spirit into our lifeless and dark world. Jesus may have ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of power but He is always present to us by the power of the Holy Spirit because of the will of the Father. Our Trinitarian faith, our faith in one God in three persons, is true and real.
Second Reading: Romans 8:8-11
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen 1: 1-2), and then it continues: “…then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Gen 2:7). Unfortunately, man lost the indwelling of the Spirit when they disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit. Thus, salvation is offered as a second chance, out of God’s great love for mankind.
On the Cross and before He expired, God’s Spirit has been poured out once again to the world when our Lord said: “Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit” (Luke 23:46), and “It is finished” (John 19:30). This was manifested and confirmed in two Gospel narrations: First, on Easter night when Jesus tells the Apostles: As the Father has sent me, so I send you. Receive the Holy Spirit. The sins you forgive are forgiven; the sins you retain are retained; the Second was in Acts, at the new Pentecost, inside the cenacle room, which happened 50 days after Easter.
The Holy Spirit came to to mankind through the Cross, the Ascension and Pentecost. Baptism infuses our souls with the Spirit and gives us divine life. This is why St. Paul says in the Second Reading: “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom 8:8). We can only be pleasing to God if and only if we are always guided by the Spirit and abide in the Lord.
In Baptism, we die to ourselves to embrace newness of life because we are born anew in water and Spirit (John 3:5), and thus, born from above (see John 3:3). Saint Paul says: “But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom 8:9). By virtue of our Baptism, we are no longer in the flesh because we become a child of God our Father, who is divine and holy. Our Christian identity is indelibly marked on us at baptism, making us sons and daughters of the Father because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. St. Paul says: “Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
Saint Paul goes on: “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Rom 8:10).
In other words, we have been “made right or justified” in the eyes of the Father through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus became the sacrifice and atonement for our sins which cleansed us to start life anew. By His death on the Cross, the Holy Spirit was poured out for us to make us whole again. It is the same Lord and Holy Spirit which resuscitates our dead souls each time we go and avail of the Sacrament of Confession, Penance & Reconciliation: “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” (Rom 8:11).
On the Cross, at Easter and at Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee of life everlasting. Abiding by our Lord Jesus is what enables us to be blessed, to be sacred and pleasing to the Father because through Him, in Him and with Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, we can praise and glorify God forever and ever, Amen.
Gospel: John 11:1-45
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
Jesus is the author of all life because He is Life personified. In our faith, to believe that Jesus is God is essential and imperative. Not to believe that Jesus is God negates what Christianity is all about and there is nothing to hope for in the end. To believe in Jesus is to believe that He is God and Life. As the Word of God, he has authority over heaven and earth and He has power over life and death. Nothing came to be without Jesus and this is the reason why our Lord can declare that He is the resurrection and the life, and that He is the promised salvation of the Father.
To believe in Jesus is to know and believe all the above-mentioned things, to worship Him as Lord and God, and to nurture a relationship with Him through daily conversion—which requires that we leave our past life of sin and death, and embrace the newness of life with Jesus as the Lord of our lives because only in Him are we resurrected and born anew—a new life in God our Father.
A blessed Fifth Sunday of Lent to everyone.
– Gospel Reflection by Kuya Rommel Cecilio of SLRP Bible Apostolate Ministry