“The land and our connection with it is not something rooted only in history or in indigenous societies — reflection on the land is part of our Christian and Catholic faith for today. We use different language, but the same meaning is there.”

“When there is a problem in our family—a sickness, a divorce, an addiction that destroys life—we trust that God has the power to bring about healing and recovery. But as we wait for God to act, we suffer. Today’s gospel tells us that Jesus suffers with us, caring for us and sharing our pain.”

“For John, no matter how often we renew our faith, there is the supreme testing by death. Whether the death of a loved one or one’s own death, it is the moment when one realizes that it all depends on God.”

“Jesus doesn’t stand off at a distance watching us suffer, without entering into our suffering too. He is there in every moment of our suffering, but especially when our suffering is greatest.”

“God is not a God who ordinarily rescues us, but is rather a God who redeems us”

“And neither can God be rushed because it is God’s timetable that protects us from perpetually stunting life and love by drawing them through the birth canal prematurely”

“We can live in faith, love, forgiveness, conscience, and fidelity in spite of everything that suggests that they aren’t true. They will bring us to what is deepest inside of life and love because God vindicates virtue.”

“If we are true to our friends then we enrich our own lives and give our friends a fuller life: hence the significance Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The best thing we can do for our friends is give them life – make their life fuller and better.”

“The God we believe in doesn’t necessarily intervene and rescue us from suffering and death (although we are invited to pray for that). Instead he redeems our suffering afterwards.”

“In the first hours and days that follow a tragedy we don’t need to speak a lot, we need to touch a lot. We simply need to be there.”

“in the desert the Christ expressed the true nature of sonship, on the mountain the disciples learned the true nature of discipleship, the woman at the well saw more deeply into living water, and the blind man taught us to understand the deeper nature of seeing.”

“the invitation in the gospel is to gently welcome the presence of Christ into your life wherever it is that you most need him because that's exactly where he comes to meet you”

“The Easter story teaches us that we do not need to fear death. Death is not the most powerful force in our universe. Life is.”

“I don't care where you are, I don't care how far you've fallen, I don't care how dead you are. The voice of Jesus can call you back to life, can pull you out of the tomb.”

“If we believe deep down that death does not have the final say then the nature of our fear would be transformed”

“You see what's being signaled here, friends, God's Word incarnate in Jesus Christ is more powerful than death. That is the incredibly liberating, uplifting word we're meant to hear in this great gospel.”

“We can read—yes. But can our minds and hearts appreciate the great gift of Resurrection when we read about it?”

“Often our sins, our weaknesses, frailties, anxieties and addictions entomb us – we become like Lazarus”

“He wept because sin has succeeded in disfiguring the image of God in man”

“we are called to experience that encounter with Jesus in our daily lives...But also we encounter suffering, anxiety, pain as we get closer to the resurrection. Standing beside Mary at the foot of the cross we can share our suffering. Calvary is not a place for the faint-hearted.”

“Resurrection is not about happy endings but about the triumph of the crucified one who burst the finality of the tomb and dispensed with the graveclothes”

“God not only desires to dwell among us but to lift us up – he really means, in Ezekiel’s words, ‘to raise us from our graves’”

“Belief in the Resurrection presents us with the challenges that Christ gave us through his own life of service, his sacrifices, his dying to self. It is a holy challenge and a passionate challenge.”

“We should be stunned into speechlessness at the thought that the Lord of the Universe, the Creator of the World, Word-made-flesh and Splendour of the Father ended his ministry of love choking out his last agonised words on a Roman cross”

“the ultimate thing that, that binds us is the fear of death. One day we'll hear the same voice calling us to come forth from our graves and have us rise from them. The Christ who wants to liberate us.”

“What is our God interested in? Life.”