May the Lord give you grace, peace and health in the Holy Spirit. It is 06th November 2022. We celebrate 32nd Sunday in ordinary time. We reflect on 2Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; and Luke 20:27-38.
Is there a life after death? Will we rise again to meet and be with God?
As we rap up the liturgical year, the Church invites us to reflect about life after death. Many do not believe that there is life after death. The doctrine of resurrection is accepted by everyone. But we believe that there is life after death and that is what the reading of the day teaches us. “Remember the Good News that I carry, ‘Jesus Christ risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David.’ (2 Tim.2:8).
God is God of living. God revealed Himself to Moses as God of Abraham, Isaac and the God of Jacob. Physical death is not the end, but it is the spiritual continuum with God in another form.
Jesus died in the hands of unjust and evil people and rose again. “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain, and your faith has been in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)
Happiness is only complete in God after death and that is permanent. The worldly happiness is incomplete, imperfect and not long lasting. God alone can offer lasting happiness. Whatever we have today is the foretaste of what we are going to have eternally.
“For now, we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)
Though life after can be proved empirically, we are affirmed so strongly from the readings that life after death is a spiritual momentum and continuum with God.
Our God is God of living just because God has the power to offer that no one else could do.
Martyrdom of seven brothers for standing up for faith and hope in the doctrine of resurrection, with that powerful witnessing by them begins in the hope of resurrection begins.
Sadducees denied resurrection just because their faith was limited within Torah, the first five books of Pentateuch. The response of Jesus to those who refuse to accept the resurrection is our belief indeed. Death is indeed a link that connects to the next life in God. St. Paul strengthens the Thessalonians in the second reading.
There is no need to perpetuate life through childbearing after death. The resurrection is a completely different form of life. Resurrected bodies are children of God. Not all Jews believed the resurrection. We need to store up treasures in Heaven. Will we see them all in Heaven?
“Until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13). For no one is dead and gone but we all remain safe in God’s loving bosom.
It is up to us to look up to heaven and allow ourselves to be consumed by God’s love and nothing
How do we prepare ourselves for the life after death, the eternal life? May God help us hope for the better in life after. God bless you.