32nd Sunday of the Year—Cycle C—2016
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 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.”
My sisters and brothers in the Lord,
Resurrection! Christ is risen from the dead! If Christ has not risen, our life is in vain. You and I are invited this Sunday to deepen our belief that Christ is risen from the dead and will raise us up with Him.
The first reading is from the Second Book of Maccabees and gives the account of a mother and her sons who are tortured to try to make them give up their beliefs. None of them do and the Romans are amazed just as they are relentless. So also today people are amazed when some Christians speak clearly that Jesus is God and will raise us up on the last day. For many people, Jesus is simply a good man and a religious teacher—but certainly not God and not risen from the dead.
The second reading comes from the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. This letter tells us today: “the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” This is part of the teaching of the Church and we must always listen attentively. No one, neither human nor devil, can separate us from Christ if we hold fast to Him. Christ is always with us and will give us His strength.
The Gospel from Saint Luke today is a well-known story about a woman whose husband dies, and then a whole series of brothers marry her, one after one, and then the Sadducees ask Jesus who will have this woman in the life of the world to come. The Sadducees ask this question because they don’t believe in the resurrection. Jesus is able to respond and show that God is a God of the living and not of the dead.
This whole Sunday Mass is about resurrection today and we are challenged to accept that Jesus does teach that there is resurrection from the dead and that God is a God of living people. We live this faith by living as Jesus taught us and loving all others. We show our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus by respecting all life and by living in our own lives in a way that reflects the life of the world to come.
We are in the last days of Ordinary Time and soon will transition to Advent. The readings today lead us towards Advent by calling us to reflect on the deepest meaning of life: relationship with God and living in God’s presence.
Your brother in the Lord,
Abbot Philip