Palm Sunday leads us further toward the joy of the Easter Resurrection and the hope of our own saintly transformation. Many recent Sunday Lenten Gospels have been miraculous. A miracle is an event only explained by the direct intervention of God, and it normally suspends the laws of nature. Miracles point to the kingdom of God and Heaven, our eternal home, as saints, God willing. The miraculous Transfiguration points to the divinity of Christ and our spiritual transformation. The Samaritan woman at the well discovers the miracle of living water that only Christ can give. The man born blind receives the miracles of sight and faith from our Lord.

Depictions of today’s Gospel are plentiful. Most present a motif where the viewer is seeing the events from outside of the tomb of Lazarus. The Saint John’s Bible illumination of the Raising of Lazarus, completed by Donald Jackson in 2002 as a part of the first hand-written and fully illuminated manuscript since the invention of the printing press offers a unique presentation of the story that both challenges and calls us to deepen our faith in Christ, and move toward a renewed sense of mission.

When someone we love dies, we become aware of a large absence in our life, an absence that seems to fill the world. The death of those we love brings into sharp focus their unique quality, and we often regret that we didn't make more room for them in our lives. Any of us who has watched the last moments of a life knows that it can become a time of regret, reproach, when our sorrow can take the form of wishing: "If only I had ..."

El Greco’s masterpiece, Christ Healing the Blind, clearly portrays much of the story that we hear in today’s Gospel. Painted about 1570, the artist, a Catholic seeking to further the agenda of the Catholic Church in response to the Reformation, helps the viewer to know the primacy of Christ as he incorporates aspects from stories of healing the blind, not just from the Gospel of John, but also from Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Through his composition, we are presented with a visual call to let go of our vision, to see Christ, and to know that the Son of God comes to create sight in us.

Sébastien Bourdon’s Christ and the Samaritan Woman offers us an interesting depiction of the story. Where most others focus on the first interactions between the woman and Christ, this painting focuses on the post-encounter events presenting the Samaritan woman as the evangelist for her village. Seen in blue and white, standing next to the reclining Christ, she is pointing Him out to those from the town who have come to see Jesus. The apostles observe, gathered together in the lower left corner of the painting, John in the red, and Peter in the white, seemingly disinterested and facing the viewer as he pulls at a loaf of bread.

All of us are anxiously waiting, waiting patiently for spring. It has been a long, rather wet, and cold winter! Change is coming—you can just feel it in your bones. The days are starting to get brighter and longer. The sun feels warm on our faces when we are out walking. There is a new season coming, a new time, a promise of something better.

There are some paintings of biblical stories that give rise to a genre. Certainly, the Transfiguration of the Lord may be considered one of these. Most will be familiar with the very famous 16th Century painting of the Transfiguration by Rafael housed at the Vatican. Rafael’s painting set the standard for the genre by presenting the painting in a diptych, the Transfiguration on top, and the story immediately after in the Gospel of Matthew on the bottom. Cristobal de Villalpando, a 17th Century Mexican Baroque painter, applied the diptych model in his presentation of Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus. The immense altarpiece (28’ high) invites the viewer to understand that the covenantal relationship established with Abraham is fulfilled completely in the life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In St. John's Baptism Gospel of Life, the Son of God Jesus Christ is with John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit descends like dove, and God the Father's voice is from heaven in St. Mark's account. So, is the Gospel about the Trinity, family, Baptism, life or preeminence? Of course, the answer is YES! All of the above. So, what does preeminent mean? Preeminent has Latin origin and means outstanding, standing out, or above all else.