THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR  Cycle “C”

Today this Sunday falls on Remembrance Day, the day we respectfully recall all those who died in the World Wars. The last post will be sounded and wreaths will be placed on Cenotaphs all over the world. We salute heroism, courage, steadfastness, and generosity. But we also ponder the enormous loss of life in war: families robbed of love, society deprived of the gifts and skills of those who were killed, economies diverted to fuel the war effort. Truly, our feelings are mixed.

How appropriate then to hear the message of Jesus, that God “is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.” There is no time and place where God cannot be, and so although our loved ones may be gone from us, they are alive in God in whom they died. They are alive in God and not only in our memories.

This resurrection faith helps explain why men and women have sometimes died rather than renounce their faith. The first reading from Maccabees recounts events from approximately 167 BC, when attempts were made to turn Jerusalem into a Hellenistic city, using torture and execution to get its people to foreswear their Jewish faith. The fierce resistance of the Maccabee brothers echoes right down the centuries; so also the astonishment of their tormentors. The selections given in the first reading actually leave out some of the more horrific descriptions of torture.

It is a reminder to us that we are caught up in a similar struggle. Not that we face the same terrible choice. But the culture around us erodes us gently, wanting us to conform, just as the henchmen of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes wanted the brothers to conform by eating a little forbidden meat. Yet the brothers knew that to go along with this simple gesture would reach right into their soul. It would put them on the same side as those who had desecrated the Temple.

The lesson for us is that we need not only courage but also discernment, so that we know where ands how we draw the line. We need especially to be aware that we live in an age of mass culture, when everything is reduced to entertainment. Seriousness of purpose goes against the grain of the times. Even the most sacred beliefs are mocked. Yet for the Maccabee brothers and their mother, faithfulness was the gateway to resurrection. Faith made a difference, an eternal difference. It can all sound a bit daunting, this talk about vigilance and resistance unto death.  We should take hope from the second reading. St. Paul rejoices with the Christians of Thessalonica as he reminds them how God gives us love, comfort and hope, and will always guard us.

The mystery of sin is matched with the mystery of goodness. There were people famous for their goodness: Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, for instance, and our own dear Mother Teresa. But the battle order of goodness is also held by the anonymous people who are praying, coming for Sunday Mass, honestly earning their livelihood, and helping the poor. These are the people who are doing good in the small corner of their lives. They may not realise it, but their values, prayers, actions and faith are fighting back the forces of evil. And our faith is that the battle will be won.

The Sadducees distinguished themselves for not believing in the resurrection. They thought they could disprove the resurrection by throwing at Jesus the hoary old story of the woman married to seven brothers successively. For the Sadducees the only form of resurrection was the continuation of a person’s character in their children. Jesus’ response was twofold: he told them that life in heaven would not be like that on earth; and if God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then all people must be alive in God’s eyes. You don’t need philosophical arguments to know the power of God. The seed falls into the ground, decays and rises up in new life. Jesus proves it by appearing to his disciples with a body that can eat solid food and can pass through locked doors. A body with a unique personal story and mystery.

The life of the resurrection may be different from the life we knew on earth, but we shall take our own personal stories with us. The Sadducees though they had the last word on the law of Moses, but the apparently uneducated carpenter’s son from Nazareth knew something they did not know: he knew the power of God.

PRAYER:  by Emily Bronte. These were last lines written before her death in 1848 aged 30 years:

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven’s glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

 

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity !

Life – that in me has rest,

As I – undying Life – have power in thee !

 

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men’s hearts; unutterably vain;

Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

 

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by thine infinity;

So surely anchored on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

 

With wide-embracing love

Thy Spirit animates eternal years,

Pervades and broods above;

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears.

 

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes cease to be,

And thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in thee.

 

There is not room for death,

Nor atom that his might could render void;

Thou, thou are Being and Breath,

And what thou art may never be destroyed.