Application. You wish indeed to be among the chosen. But is that possible, if you are lukewarm and slothful in the service of God? Do you not stand all the day idle? You cannot excuse yourself by saying that you have not been called, for you were called by God when you were quite a little child to work in His vineyard, to serve Him and to labour for the salvation of your soul. From this day forward try to be more zealous in God’s service.
You have no cause to murmur or to be envious when God gives, to another as much as or more than He gives to you. But, if you are envious, apply to yourself the reproach which the master uttered against the labourers: “Art thou evil and envious, because God is good to thy brother?” (Overberg.)
Chapter LIV.
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS FROM THE DEAD.
[John 11.]
THE two sisters, Martha and Mary, who lived in Bethania, had a brother named Lazarus. Now Jesus loved Martha and Mary, and Lazarus. But Lazarus fell sick, and his sisters sent word to Jesus[1]: “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” Jesus, hearing this, said to His disciples: “This sickness is not unto death[2], but for the glory[3] of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”
Two days after, He spoke again to his disciples: “Let us go c, to Bethania; Lazarus, our friend, sleeps; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.”[4] The disciples answered: “If he sleeps he shall do well.”[5] They thought He spoke of the repose of the body, but Jesus spoke of death. Seeing, however, that they did
- ↑ To Jesus. He being then in Penea, to the east of the Jordan (see chapter XLIII), about thirty miles from Bethania.
- ↑ Unto death. Death which will last.
- ↑ For the glory. It is permitted by God, so that His Son may work the great miracle of raising the dead to life, and may thus manifest His divine power. The messenger returned to Bethania with this consoling though mysterious message, and there he found that Lazarus was already dead.
- ↑ Sleep. Our Lord called the death of Lazarus a sleep, because He foreknew that He would raise him from the dead. For Him, therefore, His friend was only asleep, though for others he was dead (St. Augustine).
- ↑ Shall do well. Sleep often shows a crisis in an illness, and is the first symptom of recovery.
