Lazarus

The feast of the raising of Lazarus, celebrated by the Church in the past on this day, was one of the four days on which the qualified catechumens used to receive the sacrament of baptism. Two things are essential in the celebration of this feast: the first is that the position of the feast seems like a culmination of the forty-day fast and an introduction to the other fast, the Holy Week fast. As for the second, performing the baptism on this day reveals that the Church saw in the raising of Lazarus a “confirmation of the common resurrection”. Christ does not abandon his friends in death. You know. When Martha, Lazarus’ sister said to Jesus: “if You had been here, my brother would not have died”, she echoed an old concept that the soul of a dead person remains with his body for three days. Jesus answered her: “Your brother will rise again…”. She did not know that, by His saying, He wanted her to leave the old for the new covenant. She said: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day”. He said: “I am the resurrection and the life…”. This is the feast of the raising of Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary, as well as our own.