AUGUST 21 2026 FATHER MICHAEL COUTTS
That long passage from Ezekiel chapter seven fascinated me as a child.
I could image the foot-bone connected to the ankle-bone, connected to the shin-bone, connected to the thigh-bone. And then, as I grew older, I said, “This would make a fantastic horror movie.” You know, like Freddie Krueger, or Friday the 13th.
But Ezekiel 37 has become very famous thanks to the Delta Rhythm Gang. In 1950, they sang the song “Dry Bones,” which they named “dem bones.” It was the story of trying to make people realize that God took care of them.
But coming to Ezekiel itself, in the time of Ezekiel, they had no sense of a resurrection, or life after death. We, who have grown up in the New Testament, and after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, find it very easy to believe in the resurrection, so much so that we often take it for granted.
We say it in the Creed, and sometimes we don’t even pay attention to it. “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.” We say it, and we move on to the next portion of the Creed, and carry on until we reach the “amen.”
But in the time of Ezekiel, this was the first sign there would be life after death. But it was not in the way that you and I understand it in the New Testament time. For them, it was the same life that they had before they died. Without the wrinkles, without the warts, without the headaches, without arthritis, and thrombosis.
They were just human beings once again, ready to carry on the mandate and the army of the Lord, against the enemies.
This Ezekiel 37 was also a metaphor. It was a metaphor for Israel. Israel had turned away from the Lord, the God who made a covenant with them. A God who gave them the Torah. A God who told them that they were his chosen people, and they used circumcision as a ritual to express that.
This was the time when the Israel abandoned the Lord and took on the idols of the Gentiles. And so when they were taken into captivity in Babylon in 586 Before Christ, it was not surprising. They said: “We are getting what we deserve.”
And there, on the banks of the River Euphrates, Babylon is southwest of the city of Baghdad even ’til today. And people still live there, I remember in 2004, when I was preaching on this very theme, and I said: “I do not know whether Nineveh still exists,” and I got a letter from somebody. He said: “I am from Nineveh, I’m settled in Toronto. It still is alive, and there are Christians there. Please pray for them.”
So Nineveh and Baghdad still exist today, with Christians that we need to pray for.
They were the people, just like the people of Israel, who sang: “On the rivers of Babylon, we put our harps on the willow trees. And we could not sing the songs of the Lord. If I should ever forget you, Jerusalem, may my hand wither, may my tongue cleave to my roof.”
But God never abandoned them. And so Ezekiel ends this long narrative with saying: “God will revive Israel.” And God will revive Israel because of a remnant of people that were in Babylon. Even in captivity, they decided: “We are going to be faithful to the Lord. We will circumcise our children, we will teach them the Torah, and every day we will repeat the Shema.”
To realize that God, as Jesus says in the Gospel, has to be loved with all our mind, with all our heart, with our whole being. And can never be taken away from our everyday life.
It is so sad that, as we come to 2026, we seem to forget all these things.
There was one person who did not forget all through his life, and that is Pope Pius X, whose feast we celebrate today. He was born Giuseppe Sarto. He came from a poor family. And even as a pope, he never once forgot that he had come from a poor family.
He had around his chest the usual papal cross, but it was made out of metal. And the cardinals said the others protested. “You’re the Pope! You should have that cross made out of either silver, or gold.” And he says: “I came from a poor family, it will be a metal cross.”
It would wait a whole century later, in 2013, for another pope, Pope Francis, who would also have a metal cross, not a gold or silver cross.
Pope Pius X had his motto of papacy to restore all things in Christ. He was deeply devoted to the Eucharist. And in those days they did not travel like the Pope travels today, in a bulletproof car. They mingled with the crowds.
One of the ladies came up to him, a mother came, and she said: “My son is only seven years old, and he wants to make his first communion.” And the Pope looked at the boy, and he says: “When you receive communion, who do you receive?” And he says: “Jesus Christ.” And the Pope said: “Let him receive communion. He has a whole life ahead of him, in order to understand this great mystery.”
Pope Pius X gave us an example of how to love on another with our whole mind, our whole heart, and our whole being.
God bless you all.
