First Reading
2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law. One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.” At the point of death he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.” After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing. After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”
Second Reading
2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Brothers and sisters: May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word. Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.
Gospel Cycle Cycle C
Luke 20:27-38
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out ‘Lord,’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
Am I willing to do for my faith? Am I will to suffer ridicule for my faith? Am I willing to be formed in my faith by the Scriptures and by the Church? These are the questions that come to mind this Sunday as we read the Scripture given to instruct us in the way of the Lord Jesus.
The Second Book of Maccabees gives us an account of what happens when a faith is persecuted. We need not think that we Christians are the only ones persecuted, even today. There are places in the world where Jews are still persecuted, places where Muslims are persecuted, places where Buddhists are persecuted and places where we Christians are persecuted. The challenge for all of us is to remain faithful to the truth that we have discovered in our lives and to listen to the truth of others without fear. It is so often fear of others and a fear of another way of looking at life that brings about persecution.
The Second Letter to the Thessalonians begins to speak about the faithfulness of Christ, who is always present for us, watching over us with love, seeking to help us. Our challenge is to respond to that love. Especially if we are ever persecuted or misunderstood, we need to have confidence that Christ knows us as we really are and is present with us in every circumstance, helping us in His own divine way.
The Gospel of Saint Luke talks about heaven and what heaven will be like. It also deals with a misinterpretation of heaven and the afterlife. It is far too easy for us to think of heaven as simply another version of earth and to think that all of the ways that things happen here will also happen there in heaven. Jesus wants us to be clear that heaven is nothing like earth and yet is not entirely different. There are clearly relationships with one another, but not based on the same criteria that we have here on earth. There is certainly a closeness to one another, but not with marriage as we know it here on earth.
All of the teachings today are preparing us for the end of the world and for our own death at the end of our life. Consistently in the Scriptures we find an awareness that our own lives will end one day and we shall meet the Lord. There is also a consistent awareness that the world as we know it is passing away and at some point there will be an end to the world.
None of this is meant to scare us but to prepare us. We are meant to be aware that we are now choosing the meaning of our own lives. We want to be choosing values and realities that will last forever because all other values and realities will disappear. We want to be choosing to follow the Lord Jesus because it is He who invites us to share life eternal. We want our lives to be transformed as much as possible now so that we are prepared for the joys of heaven.
My sisters and brothers, let us seek to know our Lord Jesus and to develop our relationship with Him every day. Knowing Him and living in Him makes us wonderful friends and companions to others in this life as well as preparing us for the heavenly banquet. Let us be faithful. Let us live our faith. Let us live always in love.