Lent already has a certain sobriety, a certain restraint, a certain call to repentance. But now something intensifies. The crosses are veiled. The images are covered. The Church seems to withdraw even what is familiar and consoling, as if to say: now we must walk more closely with Christ into the shadow of His Passion. It is striking that at this threshold the Gospel gives us the raising of Lazarus. At first sight, it is a Gospel full of grief, delay, tears, and death. But in

In the long aftermath of his healing, the man who’d been born blind testifies to Jesus before he sees him.  And that's how it is with every one of us: we witness to Jesus by what we say and do long before, it seems, we get to see him face-to-face. That witness precedes sight, that testimony comes before certainty, speaks to us about the minimums needed to become Christian.  It's not necessary that all questions are answered or that all doubts have been dispelled.  We certainl

I would love to know where this woman at the well ended up. As we become familiar with the Gospel stories it is natural that we should be interested in what the characters did and how they lived for the rest of their lives. This is especially so for the Samaritan woman, because this is the longest conversation that Jesus has with any one person in the Gospels. That is not to say, though, that it was a long conversation. Perhaps they only spoke for a few minutes. But in that e