Fifth Sunday of Lent at Sacred Heart Church, New Town – 22 March 2026
Dear people of Sacred Heart, a few weeks ago, a member of your congregation took the trouble to make an appointment to visit with me and that person made an impassioned plea for me to come and celebrate a Sunday Mass with you. I responded saying that I have been to Sacred Heart a number of times during the week. Today provides an opportunity as I am going to celebrate Mass for the Bruny Island parishioners and have to be at Kingston by 12noon. I shall be back with you for the feast of the Sacred Heart in June. So it is a joy to be with you this morning.
Over these weeks of Lent, we have been on a journey together. In union with the universal Latin Church, we have walked with the Lord through desert places, stood in the light of the Transfiguration, paused at the well with the Samaritan woman, and last week we stood beside the man born blind whose sight was restored.
Today, that journey brings us to Bethany and Martha’s house.
But Bethany today is not filled with hospitality or quiet listening. It is a place of grief. A home that once welcomed Jesus is now filled with sorrow. Martha and Mary have lost their brother Lazarus. Their hearts are heavy. Their world has been shaken.
And into that grief, Jesus comes.
Martha goes out to meet him, and her words are so human, so familiar:
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
There is faith in those words—but you can feel the pain. It is the kind of prayer that many of us have whispered in our own lives. Perhaps not out loud, but in the silence of our hearts—when we have faced loss, illness, disappointment, or unanswered questions.
And what does Jesus do?
He does not dismiss her grief. He does not offer a quick answer. Instead, he invites her deeper:
“I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?”
And Martha, standing there with tears running down her cheeks, and sobbing in grief, makes a remarkable confession:
“Yes, Lord, I believe.”
Notice this: she says this before anything has changed. Lazarus is still in the tomb. The miracle has not yet happened. Her faith is not based on seeing—but on trusting.
This is where this Gospel meets us, here, this morning.
You see faith, for most of us, is lived not in dramatic moments, but in the ordinary rhythms of life—in quiet prayer, in faithful attendance at Mass, in kindness to others, in holding on when things are not easy.
You, the faithful people of Sacred Heart, know what that looks like. Week by week, year by year, you gather. You carry your joys and your burdens. You support one another. You keep the flame of faith alive in this place.
And so, like Martha, you stand before the Lord—not with perfect understanding, but with trust.
There are three gentle gifts that this Gospel offers us today.
First, Martha shows us that faith and grief can live together. To believe does not mean we are spared sorrow. Yet it does mean that sorrow does not have the final word.
Second, we see the love of Jesus. The Gospel tells us simply and beautifully: Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And that same love rests upon you. The Lord who came to Bethany comes here—to this church, to this community, to each of you.
And third, there is the question that echoes quietly but insistently:
“Do you believe this?”
Not only when life is clear, but when it is uncertain.
Not only when prayers are answered, but when they seem to hang in the silence.
As we draw closer to Holy Week, that question will come to each of us again. At the Cross… in the silence of the tomb… and in the gentle dawn light of Easter morning.
Perhaps our answer, like Martha’s, is not loud or dramatic—but steady, faithful, and true:
“Yes, Lord, I believe.”
Maybe, for us, that is enough. An act of faith was all it took for the Lord to raise Lazarus!
Most Rev. Anthony J. Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
22 March 2026