Magnificat has an interesting meditation today about Jesus' mercy to Lazarus, a selection from the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. It relates St. Augustine's belief that the the four days in the tomb represent the "fourfold spiritual death of the sinner." The four deaths include 1) death through original sin which actually brought physical death into the world, 2) death through actual sin against the natural law - something we see big-time in our own culture of death where mothers kill their own children and those enslaved by their own lust sin against their own bodies and those of others, 3) death through actual sin against the written law of God in the Ten Commandments, and 4) actual sin "against the law of the Gospel and of grace." Think of how often we fail to listen to God's admonitions in the Sermon on the mount when Jesus says, "You have heard it said....but I tell you" when He expands the Mosaic law to embrace a more all-encompassing love that refuses to "look at another in lust" or even to "become angry with your brother."
