On 10th March, we went to Bethany. It was a beautiful place, first we went to the Lazarus Catholic Church and each one had a brochure with the gospel John 11, 1-45 in her own language.

We prayed and held a moment of silent remembering that Jesus loved to visit the home of Martha and Mary and enjoyed their warm hospitality and attention. They are wonderful women in the Bible and they are of very different temperaments. Martha loved to serve and to be active in her life and Mary was sitting attentively by Jesus’ feet and she was listening to Jesus. Both prayer and work are important in our life, we need to be contemplative in our work and our activities and prayers are doing acts of love, hope and justice.

In addition, we went to the Lazarus’ Tomb. It was a beautiful place, we went down stairs and it was a small cave.
Sometimes the person needs to die to resurrect and then have life. This happens a lot in our histories of live. Also, we believe that Jesus brings us hope and resurrection and we are in the merciful arms of God.

“Jesus said: “I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies, will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11, 25-26)

Jesus invited us to return our lives to God. Also, that we can be women of faith, as were the sisters of Lazarus.

“Yes, Lord,’ Martha said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, and the one who was to come into this world.'”(John 11, 27)

Jesus tells us that death is not the end but the way towards the light, towards life.

Lazarus always received and opened his home to Jesus and his disciples and his relation with Jesus was quite deep. These invited us to reflect in our life how our relation with Jesus is and how we are receiving and opening our heart to Jesus.

Finally, we had a delicious lunch together in Jerusalem. We thank the Lord for these beautiful moments we enjoyed together.

Andrea Chacón Carmona, Novice NDS
Community St. John in Montana
March 14th 2016.