may omit nothing of our Gospel, I shall divide it into three reflections: in the first, you will see how shocking and deplorable is the situation of a soul who lives in habitual irregularity; in the second, I shall show to you the means by which he may quit it; and, in the third, what the motives are which determine Jesus Christ to operate the miracle of his resurrection and deliverance. O my God! let thine all-powerful voice be now heard by those unfortunate souls who sleep in the darkness and shadow of death; command these withered bones once more to be animated, and to recover that light and that life of grace which they have lost.
Reflection I. — I remark, at first, three principal circumstances in the deplorable spectacle which Lazarus, dead and buried, offers to our eyes. First, already become a mass of worms and corruption, he spreads infection and stench; and behold the profound corruption of a soul in habitual sin. Secondly, a gloomy napkin covers his eyes and his face; and behold the fatal blindness of a soul in habitual sin. Lastly, he appears in the tomb, bound hand and foot; and behold the melancholy subjection of a soul in habitual sin. Now, it is that profound corruption, that fatal blindness, and that melancholy servitude, typified in the spectacle of Lazarus, dead and buried, which precisely form all the horror and all the wretchedness of a soul long dead in the eyes of God.
In the first place, there is not a more natural image of a soul grown old in iniquity, than that of a carcass already a prey to worms and putrefaction. Thus the holy books every where represent the state of sin under the idea of a shocking death; and it seems as if the Spirit of God had found that melancholy image the most calculated to give us, at least, a glimpse of all the deformity of a soul in which sin dwells.
Now, two effects are produced on the body by death; it deprives it of fife, it afterward alters all its features and corrupts all its members. It deprives it of life: in the same manner it is that sin begins to disfigure the beauty of the soul; for, God is the life of our souls, the light of our minds, and the spring, as I may say, of our hearts: our righteousness, our wisdom, our truth, are only the union of a righteous, wise, and true God with our soul: all our virtues are only the different influences of his Spirit which dwells within us; it is he who exciteth our good desires, who formeth our holy thoughts, who produceth our pure lights, who operateth our righteous propensities; insomuch that all the spiritual and supernatural life of our soul is only, as the apostle speaks, the life of God within us.
Now, by a single sin, that life ceases, that light is extinguished, that Spirit withdrawn, all these springs are suspended. Thus the soul, without God, is a soul without life, without motion, light, truth, righteousness, or charity: it is no longer but a chaos, a dead body; its life is no longer but an imaginary and chimerical life; and, like those inanimate substances set in motion by a foreign influence, it seems to live and to act; but "it is dead while living."
