Lord, we show you our wounds so that you may heal us.

And even if we do not, you know,

    and you wait to hear our voice.

Do away our scars by tears,

    like the woman in the gospel who washed your feet with hers.

 

You know how to help the weak,

    when there is no one who can prepare the feast,

    or bring the ointment,

    or carry along a spring of living water.

You come yourself to the grave.

 

So come to this grave of mine, Lord Jesus,

    that you would wash me with your tears.

With my dry eyes I have no such tears

    as to be able to wash away my offenses.

With your tears I will be saved, if I am worthy of your tears.

 

With them you will call me out of the tomb of this body and say, 

    “Come forth.”

Then my thoughts will not be kept pent up

    in the narrow limits of this body,

    but may go forth to you, and move to the light,

    that I may think no more on the works of darkness,

    but on the works of light.

 

Ambrose of Milan, c.339-397, Bishop of Milan

 

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When Jesus saw her weeping,

    and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,

    he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

 

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 

    “Lazarus, come out!”

The dead man came out, 

    his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, 

    and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, 

    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”