JUST 3 MONTHS TO LIVE..!!

"You speak so much about life is beautiful. Convince someone like me who has only 3 months to live." A post-graduate, at 26, with a cancer of bone marrow, she shot the question to me. 

"How lucky you are", I said. "You know you have 3 months. I am here and can die at any moment. You are a PG. Go and help cancer patients, help nurses, do what you couldn't do so far." I said. 

After 3 months she sent a postcard. "Brother, I am still alive", with her signature. She sent a card every week. After 6 months she wrote, "I am going to fight a war with the very thing that is killing me. I have started doing research on cancer."

She went on to live for another 7 years. Got her Ph.D before she died. I was happy, not so much for her doctorate, but for 7 years she lived every day by this one thing... I will not let anything die within me while I am still alive..!!

(Mahatriya)

Death is not the last Word (John 11:1-45)

In the book of Ezekiel the condition of Israelites is described as "dry bones", as "in the graves". They are in exile. Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple was gone. People felt abandoned, hopeless and cut off from God. Hope feels buried and faith feels fragile. Often we feel lifeless without a future. In these dark moments God speaks words of promise and restoration. God assures that exile is not the end...

"If you had been here, my brother would not have died"... anguished cries of Martha and Mary. Some pointed questions, even accusations. Where were you Jesus? Why did you take so long getting here? I thought you loved my brother... I thought you cared... You and I will have similar questions and doubts too...

Jesus doesn't answer as we might wish. He doesn't explain anything. But he is completely with them in their pain and loss. "Jesus wept", "Once more deeply moved", these expressions show that God's absence is not his insensitivity or indifference. As He showed to the Israelites, he will show his power... That death is not the end...!

Jesus called Lazarus, "Come out". He also said, "unbind him. Let him go" He wants us to be freed from the 'burial clothes' of despair, fear, doubt and hopelessness. What is 'dead' in me right now? Am I feeling like dried bones? Or lost in the grave of despair and lack of enthusiasm? As you draw closer to the Holy Week, ask for the grace to believe in God's power to restore and renew you.

Death is not the ultimate tragedy of life. The real tragedy is what dies within me when I am still alive. Tragedy is what you and I kill within us, around us, in others on a daily basis.

To live in the hearts we leave behind... is not to die...

Gregory Frank,

Bareilly.