During the Lenten season, it’s not so easy to turn a blind eye to what we find ourselves bound to. We may feel bound by time, by finances, by unforeseen circumstances, by our sins – all things of this world. Just as we find ourselves bound by these worldly things, so too do we find ourselves bound by its ways: what it values, what it diminishes. Namely, the sanctity of life. There is no shortage of examples that demonstrate this culture of death we find ourselves in.
In his Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II devotes several paragraphs to describing and criticizing the cultural foundations that allowed abortion and euthanasia to become prevalent. He attributes “the deepest roots of the struggle between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death’ ” to “the eclipse of the sense of God.” From the pope’s perspective, “When the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church illuminates: “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involved the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.”
When holding the heart of the Gospel to the tenets of modern culture, the disconnect is quite striking. Within this culture of death, we are encouraged to constantly pursue comfort and eliminate suffering, hollowing out the fullness of life’s experiences and diminishing not only our participation in Christ’s passion, but also the cost of that price and the value it holds. As we move into the Easter season, let us take time to consider the source of our daily habits and routines, and an opportunity to orient them towards the Light; thus, renewing our sense of God’s presence and His desires for all life.
In reflecting upon the bindings of this life, Father Zehren of the Church of the Annunciation gives this insight:
“Both of these cloths, the birth cloth and the burial cloth, remind us that from the moment we are conceived in the womb until our lives on this earth come to an end, we are bound… As we journey through this life and draw near to Jesus, He begins to set us free from the realities of sin and death that have held us bound.”
We are bound by cloth both in birth and in burial. The raising of Lazarus demonstrates how our life and death is bound to Christ, and it is through Him alone we become unbound. As we navigate through this persistent culture of death, we must not lose sight of the truth, the way, and the life.