Fifth Sunday of Lent

1. Lectio

Gospel (John 11:1-45)

There is something almost shocking in the Gospel—
a detail so vivid it feels nearly improper:

Jesus, seeing death,
seeing grief,
seeing the ruin of what was meant for life—

became perturbed.

Not mildly saddened.
Not distantly observant.

But shaken—
even, as the Greek suggests,
snorting with indignation.

The God who calls dry bones to life,
who hears the cry “Out of the depths,”
who sends His Spirit to raise mortal bodies—

is not indifferent to death.

He is disturbed by it.

Not because He is powerless—
but because He knows it does not belong.

We need faces and voices to speak for people again. We need to cherish the gift of communication as the deepest truth of humanity, to which all technological innovation should also be oriented.

A possible alliance

In this season of Communion—the Centennial pillar for March, am I allowing myself to be rightly perturbed by the absence of real faces and voices in my relationships, so that I might reclaim communication as a sacred encounter—choosing presence over distance and ensuring that even the tools I use serve genuine human connection rather than replace it?

2. Meditatio

Yesterday, I found myself quite perturbed—
not by death, nor by cosmic injustice,
but by car horns.

Kim and I are in Miami for a family wedding,
and while the Everglades have been magnificent
and the people wonderfully diverse,

the roads have been… expressive.

Driving an unfamiliar rental car
in an unfamiliar city,
I found myself hesitating—just slightly—
only to be greeted by the immediate theology of the horn.

In Amarillo, such a pause would pass unnoticed.
In Miami, it seems to summon judgment.

I asked Kim if it was just me.
She confirmed it was not.
My brother confirmed it too.

There is, it seems, a communal liturgy of honking.

And I was perturbed.

Not deeply, perhaps—
but enough to notice it,
to carry it,
to replay it.

And then comes the Gospel,
with its startling claim that Jesus Himself was perturbed.

This complicates things.

For I have often imagined Christ
as serenely untouched—
never irritated,
never troubled,
never honking, so to speak.

And yet here He stands,
troubled in spirit.

Not by inconvenience—
but by death.

Which leads me to an uncomfortable question:

If I am perturbed by traffic,
what should I be perturbed by?

And more pointed still:

Does Jesus ever become perturbed with me?

Not with the impatience of a driver—
but with the deeper sorrow
of seeing me stalled in places I ought to move forward.

Perhaps His perturbation is not condemnation,
but invitation.

Not an angry horn,
but a holy summons:

“Come forth.”

And the real question is not whether He calls—
but whether I am willing to leave the tomb
of my own hesitation.

3. Contemplatio (Chestertonian Synthesis)

Chesterton might say that the modern world has grown accustomed to the wrong disturbances.

We are perturbed by noise,
by inconvenience,
by the small collisions of daily life—

and entirely unperturbed
by sin,
by despair,
by the quiet triumph of death in the soul.

Yet Christ reverses this order.

He is not troubled by being interrupted—
He is troubled by death interrupting life.

He is not perturbed by inconvenience—
He is perturbed by evil masquerading as inevitability.

And therein lies the great paradox:

The one who is perfectly at peace
is the one most deeply disturbed
by what destroys peace.

Perhaps holiness is not the absence of disturbance,
but the presence of the right kind.

To be perturbed, then,
is not the problem.

To be perturbed by the wrong things—
that is the tragedy.

4. Oratio

5. Actio — In Light of Laudato Si’ and Synodality

…creation is harmed “where we ourselves have the final word, where everything is simply our property and we use it for ourselves alone.”

Laudato si’ §6

Our world is wounded—
and that indifference is itself a form of participation in that wound.

Today, I will allow myself to be rightly perturbed:

• I will notice suffering rather than ignore it.
• I will respond to frustration with patience, not escalation.
• I will walk synodally—recognizing that others, too, are navigating confusion, fear, and unfamiliar roads.

Instead of adding to the noise,
I will become a presence of listening.

For communion is not built
by louder horns,
but by shared understanding.

6. Song Pairing 🎵

🎶 “Perturbation” – Orestis🎵

7. Movie Pairing 🎬

🎬Movie: “Unhinged” (2020)

My Story

• Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese such as John Salazar—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
• Bishop Yanta, who sought to enforce the Dallas Charter even when Bishop Matthiesen resisted him, and who bore the personal and pastoral cost of doing so. I met with Bishop Yanta about Bishop Matthiessen’s “no regrets” stance. He listened. He believed me. He acted where he could. And when he retired, he urged me—quietly but firmly—to keep speaking out.
• Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.
• Bishop Daniel Cardinal DiNardo…

While we recognize your thoughtful suggestion for a renewed dialogue on Bishop Matthiesen, the present circumstances do not present an opportunity for it. I think it would foster division not dialogue. We remain confident in God’s providence and hopeful for what the future may bring.

from a letter dated March 5, 2026