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6th November 2022

Homily for 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14; 2 Thes 2: 16-3:5; Lk 20: 27-38)

REFLECT: The living God gives life everlasting

My dear friends, our God is not dead or God is not the God of the dead but living. The God who lives make us live and gives us life in fullness. God is the God of the living because God gave the power to Jesus to conquer death, arose from death, and proved the world his victory over the grave. Therefore, it is the resurrection of Jesus that promises us eternal life. We have to make known the living God by our way of living. Our human living is expressed in different ways. It is based on laws and legislations, traditions and customs of the society, belief and faith practices. The readings of the day invite each one of us to introspect and act on how we can make the living God alive in our world today. Therefore, based on the liturgy of the word, I would like to Share with you three points of reflection.

1. Laws:

We all of us know that Law is a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. Law is understood as well as set of rules which prescribe or prohibit our actions to conform to a certain order or pattern of behavior. The purpose of law is to protect our general safety, and ensure our rights as against abuses by the other.  In the bible law places an important role in the lives of the people. Apart from other laws of the society which the Pharisee, scribes, Sadducees were following, following the commands or law of  God, presented to us through the ancestors, patriarchs, kings, Judges, prophets is considered as more important.

In Deuteronomy we hear from Moses, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish,” (Deut 30: 15-18).

After the death of Moses, when Joshua takes up to lead Israelites to the Promised Land, we hear him say, “Constantly read the book of this law and meditate on it day and night that you may truly do what it says. So shall your plans be fulfilled and you shall succeed in everything,” (Josh 1:8). So this is the significance of following laws and commands of God. Our adherence to the laws would imply that we accept God and his ways.  

We have one such adherence to Laws and legislation in the first reading from Second Maccabees. The first reading speaks of the martyrdom of seven brothers, who were prepared to die rather than to break the law of the ancestors by refusing to eat the forbidden flesh, which was prohibited by law. In all the seven brothers there is a common declaration of their faith in immortality. The seven brothers each time before their torture express their belief and faith in God for eternal life saying, “You now dismiss us from life, but the king of the world will raise us up. He will give us eternal life since we die for his laws.”

Their courage to face death for the adherence of God’s Law and their faith in the immortality of life that God provides, whosoever believes in Him, make them faithful before God and stand as models for us to follow the laws and ordinances of God.  Today, we need to remind ourselves of the laws of God in the Bible, laws in the church, laws in the community, society, and family. Are these laws binding us as chains or freeing us to practice faith in God freely, willingly and happily? Most of the time we consider laws as burden or burdensome. Perhaps it may be. But laws that enable us to be noble in life need to be practiced and performed for the sake of good and goodness. Ultimately, laws are there to promote life and not depromote, discourage, disown life. Let us pray that laws free us and take us closer to God in life.

2. Traditions:

Tradition is a custom, or way of doing something that has continued from the past to the present. It is also based on the ideas and beliefs passed down from one generation to the next. Tradition offers us a sense of belonging for those who may feel like an alien or outsider. Traditions have been always given importance since the dawn of human societies. That’s why someone has very aptly perceived and shared, “traditions fulfill four key criteria for achieving the “Four B's,” our senses of Being, Belonging, Believing and Benevolence. Yes, that’s the importance of tradition in our human living.

We hear in Catechism of the Catholic Church that “Through Tradition, the Church, in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes. The sayings of the holy Fathers are a witness to the life-giving presence of this Tradition, showing how its riches are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and her prayer,” (CCC. No.78). Yes, tradition is significant and it gives meaning to the life we live, the faith we profess and believe. The second reading from St. Paul’s second letter to Thessalonians speaks of the perseverance of faith in the Lord in following the traditions that was taught by word or by letter. Therefore, we are called to be faithful to the traditions handed on to us. St. Paul encourages us saying that God would encourage the hearts, make steadfast in every good work and word. God will guard us from every wicked and evil people, because all do not have faith…

Yes, the faith need to be fostered without affecting the traditions of the church and the society, but traditions should not exceed or precede more than our faith in Jesus Christ. Traditions need to be merged with the faith in Jesus Christ. That’s what we would read, “Tradition is to be distinguished from the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions, born in the local churches over time.  These are the particular forms, adapted to different places and times, in which the great tradition is expressed. In the light of tradition, these traditions can be retained, modified or even abandoned under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium,” (CCC. No. 83).

So we need to respect tradition that has been handed on to us from predecessors of the church. Traditional practices need to be carefully analyzed and followed without watering down its importance, but adapting them according to our current times. Today we become either extremists or have no limits at all in following the traditions. Let us view the traditions of the church rightly and increase the level of faith in God day by day in our lives.

3. Belief and faith Practices:

It is said in general that faith is the strong trust and confidence in something or someone. Belief is a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. The purpose of faith is to believe in oneself and allow God to come into your life and take control. As Christians, we are called to have faith in God, follow the path of faith and belief that Christ taught us, handed on to us through the apostles to the Church. Therefore, our faith in God needs to be strong; the faith and belief system in the church provide ample opportunities to manifest the faith in Christ; as individuals we need to discern our faith in God in the given human situations and make our faith and belief practices solid and sound.

To have one such faith collectively and individually, we need to pray for such faith not only for the life that we live in the present with joys and sorrow but the life in the future, which is uncertain and unpredictable. The future of our living is based on our faith and trust in God. When we ask God in faith or put our trust in God, He grants us our desires according to His will and plan. But to reach the future of life or the fullness of life in God may include sometimes the trials and troubles, challenges and changes. But what makes our life steady about the unknown future is our faith in the God of the living.  That’s what we read in the Bible, “there is a cause for joy, then, even though you man, for a time have to suffer many trials. Thus will your faith be tested, like gold in a furnace. Gold, however, passes away, but faith worth so much more will bring you in the end praise and honor when Jesus Christ appears,” (1 Pet 1: 6-7).

Today’s gospel reading speaks about the resurrection of the dead. The opening sentence of the Gospel we read that some Pharisees claimed that there is no resurrection and quote the law of Moses that if a man’s brother dies, having no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now all those who married the woman and the woman too die and whose wife will be the woman?

Jesus clarifies their claim and makes them understand that at the time of resurrection from the dead, there is no more marriage. There is no death even because, by resurrection they are reborn and become sons and daughters in the Lord. However, Jesus confirms about the resurrection from dead by recalling the act of Moses who called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And so concludes “For God is the God of the living and not of the dead, for all live to God.”  Yes, our God is not dead; he is still alive and active in us. He has breathed in us his spirit; it continues to live in us by the power of the risen Christ. Christ has proved victorious over death by rising and so declared to us too that we would not die rather we will have a share in the resurrection of Christ.

The living God gives us life, life in abundance, a life forever, a life of hope and a life of joy. The power of resurrection we will be able to experience only if we believe in God and believe in the resurrection of life that God would grant us. That’s what Pope Francis says, “Jesus' resurrection shows us that death does not have the last word; life does. Christ has been raised, so it is possible to have a positive outlook on every event of our existence, even the most difficult ones and those charged with anguish and uncertainty.” Sometimes situations become such that we doubt and suspicion overwhelms us in the living God, leads to lack of clarity of faith we have and profess; sometimes our faith in the living God becomes shallow because of the superficial life we live, cold indifference that we show in giving importance to many trivial things in life rather than having faith in the living God, who promises to give eternal life to those who believe in Him (Jn 11:25).

Pope Francis as well says, “Jesus’ Resurrection does not only give us the certainty of life after death, it also illumines the very mystery of the death of each one of us. If we live united to Jesus, faithful to him, we will also be able to face the passage of death with hope and serenity. In fact, the Church prays: “If the certainty of having to die saddens us, the promise of future immortality consoles us”. This is a beautiful prayer of the Church! A person tends to die as he has lived. If my life has been a journey with the Lord, a journey of trust in his immense mercy, I will be prepared to accept the final moment of my earthly life as the definitive, confident abandonment into his welcoming hands, awaiting the face to face contemplation of his Face. This is our point of arrival: to see the Lord.” So let us believe in the living God that he would give us life, transform our lowly bodies like his glorious body (Phil 3: 21). Let us journey with Jesus who journeys with us as He is Emmanuel- God with us. He is always with us and stays with us. May God help us to practice the faith that God has given to us in Jesus Chris through the Catholic Church.

RESPOND:

What is my attitude and approach towards Laws, traditions and faith practices of the Church?

Do I believe in Laws, traditions and faith or belief systems or practices of the Church? Or Do I consider them as burdensome?

Let us pray that Laws, traditions and faith or belief system and practices of the Catholic Church help and enable us to move closer to God and increase the level of faith that we have in the living God, who gives life eternal. Amen.

“Anyone, therefore, who is raised up to the Savior’s new life, no longer lives by, in, or for self; rather, he is living with, in and for his Saviour. As St. Paul says, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and alive with a life that looks towards God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (St. Francis De Sales, TLG, Book 7, Chapter 7, p. 231)

God bless you all…

Live Jesus