For a ten year period in my life, I had an aversion to eating anything that had to do with poultry. For the most part, I actually like poultry products like chicken, turkey, duck and goose. I often would pass the local "KFC" and dream about anything that was double-dipped in highly choleric, cholesterol-infused cooking oil. Because of one experience, I desire to eat poultry came to an end.

The days of my youth seemed like nothing but non-stop chicken dishes that presented themselves at the dinner table. I think back to my days of youth on my farm in Sandwich, Illinois (population 5400) when I used to live on a farm with my parents, two brothers, a sister, a huge garden, and lots of animals for which I was responsible. Twice a year, my father would put 250 chicken eggs in an incubator and we would nurse those eggs until they hatched. For six months, we kids were all responsible for raising those chicks until they were grown enough to be accompanied to our milk shed. On our farm, no bad child would want to be accompanied to the milk shed; on our farm, the chickens had it worse. Twice a year in the milk shed, we would clean and prepare 250 chickens, bag them, and then take them into the house where my mother would freeze them in order that she have them ready for six months worth of chicken meals for the family.

I need to preface the next comment I wish to make by speaking about my mother, who was the most spirit-filled woman I ever knew and the reason I became a priest. As a Christian, my mother devoted her life to serving the homebound parishioners of the area that she would visit out for lunch at Paul's diner in Sandwich (a place that was actually a train engine refitted as a restaurant). She was the church sacristan; she was the defender of the oppressed. My mother used to work at the parish center as much as she worked in the kitchen of our house. My mother used to make us clothes when we did not have enough financial resources to provide for ourselves and my mother would pray the rosary with us most every night when I was young.

But for all those strengths that I would mention, my mother (God forgive me) was a horrible cook. I used to dread my mother's cooking to a point where I couldn't stand the sight of meatloaf or chicken for quite a long time. It was because of my mother that I learned how to cook. I am not the greatest cook in the world, but I learned how to devote myself to cooking as many meals for the family as I could while growing up.

The way my mother prepared the chickens back in my youth was legendary, and not in a good way. The recipe for my mother was simple - you put the chicken in boiling water, you cook the life out of the chicken until it encountered what I called "the second death," you remove the chicken from the water, remove the skin, then throw away the skin and the broth and serve this twice-dead chicken for the family with home-grown potatoes and vegetables that we had canned for the winter. I used to despise having my mother cook this limp, lifeless chicken for years until 1988 came along and the perspective on my mother's cooking changed significantly.

In May of 1988, my mother passed away in an auto accident. For a while after my mom's death, I stopped eating chicken altogether. Although I couldn't stand the way she cooked this particular meal, I couldn't stop reminding myself about my mom whenever I passed by a KFC. It was at that time I also left the seminary in order to live with my dad during his time of grief. This was a good time for me to leave the seminary anyway; the Diocese of Rockford was going to send me to Belgium for upper graduate studies and I felt I need to be committed completely to the priesthood to take that kind of step.

For a while, my father and I grieved together over the loss of my mom. We said the kinds of things that people often say when someone is taken away before we feel it is their time. We would often ask ourselves in our grief, "Why would God do something like this to someone so young?" Even today, when those in our community have lost someone "before their time," so to speak, I often return to this same question.

And then I thought about today's gospel and the theme of Lazarus' resurrection from the dead from the 11th chapter of St. John's Gospel. I thought to myself about the scripture stories where Jesus raises someone from the dead, from Jairus' daughter in the fifth chapter of Mark's Gospel to a centurion's servant and a widow's son being raised from the dead in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke. None of these individuals are present physically with us today, although all four of them were raised by the Lord according to the gospel passages I have just cited.

So the questions I asked myself this week, which serves as the themes for today's homily, are thus: Why would the Christ temporarily reanimate a body if that body would eventually die? Why doesn't Jesus Christ just permanently reanimate the body altogether so that we can live on earth forever?

As I reflected on these stories, I came to this simple conclusion: the goal of life is not to live on earth forever. Our resurrections stories from the gospels show us that God has the ability to resurrect the human body that encounters its "first death," so to speak, its death on earth. However, God's ultimate purpose is not an earthly one; rather, God's ultimate purpose is to strengthen our souls in order that we never encounter what the Church calls this "second death" of faith, this death from God.

In the world of theology, we understand that the first death, the death of the body, was introduced to humanity through the sin of Adam and Eve. In the beginning, humanity had this gift of immortality, this gift of eternal life. When we sinned, we lost that relationship. When we sinned, we turned away from the breath and life that was known as the likeness and image of God. By turning away, we died in sin.

But here is the interesting part, the part that becomes a gift in our lives. In our faith in Christ, we escape from a second type of death, a death of faith that is completely devoid of God. In this second death we become non-existent, since the afterlife is a life dependent on the love of God in order to exist. Four times in the Book of Revelation, we are warned to avoid this "Second Death" of Faith (2:11; 20:6; 20:14; 21:8); as this last book of the Bible teaches us, "To the thirsty I will give the gift from the spring of life-giving water. The victor will inherit these gifts, and I shall be their God, and he will be my son… but as for cowards, the unfaithful, the depraved, murderers, the unchaste… and deceivers of every sort… their lot… is the second death."

In our first reading from Ezekiel, God had promised us that the covenant that God has made with us is an eternal one, a covenant of spirit that offers us life, even in death. And though humanity may suffer corruption and death, the spirit of God is eternal and will rescue the people who turn to the spirit for life. Whereas the prophet Jeremiah focuses on a new Covenant for those who believe, Ezekiel and the second chapter of Isaiah focus more on the eternal covenant that has journeyed with us throughout our lives. As a resurrection people, that covenant is Christ. As a people of faith, the breath of that covenant is the Spirit of God.

It is that Spirit of God that gave life to the dead. It is that Spirit of God, through Christ, that raised Lazarus. And if we believe in this faith, it is that Spirit of God that gives us life as well. If we understand the power of today's gospel, then the text affects us on so many different levels. The Gospel of John shows us a compassionate Savior who celebrates with us at our weddings and grieves with us at our funerals. We read in this Gospel how our Lord feeds us with the Bread of Life and serves us as he washes our feet. We are presented with a very human and understanding Lord who has experienced human joy and suffering and shares those joys and sufferings with us at a meal in church every time we gather and pray. We even encounter a Lord who is willing to take on the burden of our sins on the cross, which is symbolized by that crucifix that adorns our church and hopefully adorns all of your houses as well.

Most of all, I have come to realize from today's gospel is that Jesus did not want to reveal himself exclusively as just the savior of the world but was a friend and brother to the members of the world as well and wished to share this Spirit of love with his friend Lazarus, the same spirit of love that he shares with his Father in heaven. Jesus felt the same emotions at the times of loss as anyone of us would today; that is what happens when you are blessed with a human nature. As much as Jesus loved us and was willing to suffer for us on the cross, this story tells us that Jesus also grieves for us in the same way that we would grieve for each other.

Of the three readings that we have encountered in our three scrutiny Masses, the story of the woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, our story today affects our emotions the most, since the themes of loss and suffering are the ones that strike to the heart of human mortality. We have learned in our faith that all of us will perish from this earth, but if we have faith in the Lord we are given a gift called "a second birth," a life of faith in heaven, a life that will never end. If we put our faith in God and in his Son, our friend, then our life of grief will one day come to an end and all of us, brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, will gather at the Lord's banquet table and celebrate as if, literally, there were no tomorrow.

It is for this reason that I find peace with my God and my mother, knowing that the goal for all of us in not a long life on earth but an eternal life in heaven. Whether our life on earth lasts one day or 100 years, if we learn how to love, no matter how long we live, then on the last day we will be celebrating in the kingdom of heaven with the members of our family who share in this love. And with that love, we all live together forever, in a heaven that our Catechism describes as "Eternal life with God; communion of life and love with the Trinity and all the blessed. Heaven is the state of supreme and definitive happiness, the goal of the deepest longings of humanity."

As we prepare ourselves for the holiest week of the year, let us grieve over our Lord who suffered and died for us. Let us also celebrate the gift of life that he gave us and the extent for which he willingly suffered so that this life may continue. For if we cherish life at all, we would be willing and desiring to sacrifice our own lives so that eternal life may become a thing of hope for this generation. My mother was willing to cook bad chicken for me so that I may live. May we do whatever it takes to reveal the treasure of life that awaits us in heaven.

This is our prayer.