Ostium Catholic

Can these bones come to life? The question is asked in the middle of a valley that gives no grounds for optimism. Very dry. Ezekiel says the honest thing: Lord God, you alone know. And God's response is not a correction. It is a command: that is enough - prophesy.

The prophesying precedes the rattling. Ezekiel does not speak because he sees signs of life. He speaks and the signs of life follow. The two-stage revival - bones and sinews and flesh first, then spirit from the four winds - mirrors the creation vocabulary of Genesis 2. Ezekiel is re-creating Israel using the language of the first creation. God is doing what only he can do, and the human instrument is the spoken word before the evidence.

The greatest commandment is love - total love, with all the heart and soul and mind - and the second is its extension to the neighbor. Love is the form the dry bones take when the spirit enters. The vast army that stands is the people who have received the spirit and live as what they were always meant to be.

Pius X understood that the Eucharist could do what formation could not finish. Children were waiting too long for what they needed early. He brought the bread to seven-year-olds before they were ready because the bread makes ready what readiness cannot produce on its own.

The early adult years often contain their own valleys - the faith that seems to have dried since childhood, the relationship that has gone to bones, the direction that looks like a dead end. Ezekiel's assignment is available: you don't need certainty. You need to say what God has said. The prophesying is the instrument, not the report of what happened after.

Name the valley. Give the honest answer: only God knows if this can live. Then do what Ezekiel did: speak the promise before the evidence. One sentence. Say what God has said over the specific dry thing in front of you.

Lord, you alone know. I prophesy anyway: you will open this grave, put your spirit here, make this live. I will know that you are the Lord. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Amen.