This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

Reading 1, Jeremiah 18:1-6

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord as follows, 2 ‘Get up and make your way down to the potter’s house, and there I shall tell you what I have to say.’

3 So I went down to the potter’s house; and there he was, working at the wheel.

4 But the vessel he was making came out wrong, as may happen with clay when a potter is at work. So he began again and shaped it into another vessel, as he thought fit.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me as follows, 6 ‘House of Israel, can I not do to you what this potter does? The Lord demands. Yes, like clay in the potter’s hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel.

Gospel, John 11:19-27

19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.

20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, 22 but even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.’

23 Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’

24 Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’

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

27 ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.’

not a stopping place but the way home

We are mere clay, but God is the potter who fashions us and refashions us. How does he do this? Through Jesus who is the resurrection, we are remade in his likeness, so that death is not a final stopping place, but the way that leads home. I am just about to officiate at an interment of ashes, where I will place a tiny casket of human ash in a grave, believing that the human person is remade, unimaginably transformed, for life with God forever. If I can say nothing about this transformed life, is my belief worth much? The resurrection life is Jesus. I cannot describe it but I can give it a name, and therefore a character.