32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022
2 Mac7:1-2, 9-14, 2Thes2:16-3:5, Luke 20:27-38
November is the month when we remember the Souls of the Faithful Departed. The Readings today lead us to reflect on life after death, on Eternity, on Resurrection and the Kingdom of Heaven. Of course, all of us wonder about and reflect on Life after the death of our earthly bodies. We mourn the loss of our loved ones and pray with and for them that we will all attain to what the Lord has promised to those who are faithful. And all of us rely on the merciful judgement of our Loving Lord.
We are given the gift of Faith to support us in our longing for the life promised to us. This Faith coming down from our father in Faith, Abraham, from Moses and the many prophets is witnessed to and strengthened by our reading of the Scriptures, such as those in today’s Mass.
None of us will be called on to witness so powerfully or courageously to our Faith in the resurrection of the dead as were the seven brothers in the book of Maccabees. But the manner of their witness to their faith will give us an insight into and an understanding of how great is the gift that we have been given and of the reward that we have been promised.
The first of the brothers declares that “We are prepared to die rather than break the Law of our ancestors”. The second brother expresses his faith that “The King of the World will raise us up”. The third brother acknowledges that his body was given to him by God; “It was heaven that gave me these limbs; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again”. When the others had been killed the fourth brother was undaunted; “Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men’s hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him”.
And yet there will always be those who, for one reason or no reason at all deny an afterlife. Sometimes it can be convenient to convince oneself that we are in no way accountable now in this life because there will be no follow-up!
It was so even in the time of Jesus, as we read in the Gospel today. The Sadducees were a small but wealthy and powerful faction in Jerusalem. They did not believe in a resurrection. They wanted to justify their erroneous beliefs and put down those who did believe. Their questioning of Jesus was mocking and making fun of the belief in an afterlife. Of course, they quoted Moses but interpreted his teaching to suit themselves. We sometimes experience the same attitude today when we encounter aggressive atheists or confrontational humanists.
In the new world promised by Jesus there will be no marriage or procreation, there will be no laws or compliance, there will be no doubts or arguments. How do we know? We don’t. But when Jesus replies to the Sadducees He does so by an act of Faith in God, the living one, ‘God who is God, not of the dead, but of the living’. This is the whole point of today’s gospel teaching; Our God is a living God and our Faith in God gives us life and is full of hope and promise.
”I shall be filled, when I awake, with the sight of your glory, O God”