Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

My niece, Katie

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. "

The promise of eternal life is a most precious gift to us. We have received it from the martyrs – Jewish and Christian. We should never forget these witnesses for the faith when we reflect on this doctrine.

The Jews received the notion of an afterlife from other nations. Greeks, Persians and Egyptians expected it. But they thought of the afterlife as a dreary place where the dead  sadly remember their previous life. Bereft of any future, their memories fade as they too  fade into vacant mindlessness. Eternity is too much for the mind to bear.

The Jews had a very different expectation. They believed that God must surely reward the martyrs who had chosen death over abandoning their faith. Today's first reading is an abbreviated version of a ghastly story from the Second Book of Maccabees. A woman of iron faith watches her seven sons die under the torturer's hand. Eventually the bloodthirsty king begs her to relent. He appears unmanned by the courage of the young men and their mother. Of course she refuses. She continues to urge her sons to fidelity, speaking to them in the Hebrew language -- the religious language that the king cannot understand. After their trial of torture, God would surely give the widow and her sons everlasting comfort. 

At the time of Jesus, not all Jews believed this. The powerful Herodians and Sadducees had no use for such a promise; the poorer and more devout Pharisees, however, ardently hoped for it. To this day Jews are divided on the issue and it is not a major tenet of their faith. 

Christians have a very different take on the doctrine. As Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then empty (too) is our preaching; empty, too, your faith.

 (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

Without the promise of everlasting life we can just go back to whatever we were doing before we heard the gospel!

After All Saints Day and before the feast of Christ the King, we celebrate and ponder the Last Things: death, judgment, heaven and hell. The apocalyptic readings of this season remind us to take nothing for granted. Eternal life is not an entitlement given to everyone; it is a gift from the King of Martyrs who suffered a dreadful martyrdom on the cross. He is the Judge who finds some people worthy of his company.

And so I ask myself, “Does the Spirit of the Martyrs move in me? Do I have their courage, conviction and passion? Am I as ready to forget myself in the love of God and the service of others? What have I done today that might merit such a reward?"