Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 10, 2013
2 Maccabees 7:1-2,
9-14; Psalm 17; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38
The
concept of the resurrection to life is introduced in the Book of Maccabees
where the seven brothers and their mother show their great fortitude in abiding
by the teachings of their ancestors. In their great hope, they exclaim, “The
King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.” Jesus makes a veiled
reference to the seven brothers when the Sadducees ask him about the
technicalities of marital property rights of the deceased. He is not obscured
by their diversion and he stays on point. Rather than to play a logic game, he
schools them about their denial of the resurrection and makes a bold assertion
that the dead will rise. This belief is imbedded in our collective Hebrew
history and it is part of the faith we profess as Catholics.
Jesus
tells us Moses knew that the dead would rise when he encountered the Lord in
the burning bush when the Lord exclaimed, “I am who am. I am the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” God declares that he is the living God, not the God
of the dead, but of the living, and to God all are alive. Jesus is showing the
progression of thought on the mysterious idea of the resurrection that has always
existed from Moses, was first expressed in the Book of Daniel, took common root
in the Apocalyptic literature like Maccabees, and then he explicitly states it
during his lifetime. Yet, for such a fundamental Christian belief, no one
really knows what it means or how it will be brought about.
The
idea of eternal life is a great comfort for us for we are a people who live
both for today and for the world to come. We call ourselves a ‘now and not yet’
people that is consummated in our eternal life with God in heaven. This belief
orients the moral good we try to do in this present world because these
treasures will be stored up for us in heaven. For those faiths or philosophies
that do not contain the afterlife or any sense of forgiveness, all that matters
is the way we treat people in this world. For us Catholics, a philosophy of life
that merely ends at the physical death of a person feels very incomplete. Thank
God we believe in the life that is to come – a world where God’s mercy does not
depend upon human judgment.
As
this is the month where we remember the souls of the Faithful Departed, we also
remember that we are living in a true communion of saints where the living and
the dead share life together because to our God all of us are alive to him. Many
of us will recall experiences when a deceased loved one let us know from beyond
the grave that they are doing well and are enjoying their time with God. Since
we are the ones who are living in this temporal world, we think it is our
responsibility to pray for our deceased loved ones. It is, but we have to
remember that their prayers aid us more greatly because they are lovingly
interceding in our lives for our own good. In many ways, they no longer need
our prayers, but we need theirs. Our best prayer for them is that we know that
they are always with us and that we can still receive their love. Our bonds
remain strong. Our connection to them remains a communion of love that cannot
be separated by the thin veil of life that we call death. Our deceased always
remain in our life and their memories cannot be erased.
Jesus
reminds us that our God is alive and is not an abstract thought. That we will
always be alive to God is a given for God cannot forget the beauty of our
souls. God looks upon us so tenderly. It means that we ought not to fear death
because it will bring us into the presence of our loved ones and that our loved
ones who are still on this earth will eventually rejoin us. Can you imagine the
long warm embrace we will receive when we see our deceased parents or children
or best friends again? They will be with Jesus to welcome us into a new plane
of life where we can watch and be concerned for the world in dire need of
greater love and forgiveness. The gap between heaven and this earth is not so large
and for us believers, this is the time to get to know Jesus much better so his
embrace will be that much greater when he welcomes us home.
Our
comfort is not just in knowing that the life is to come will be better, it is
in knowing that our life today is supported by many loved one who are present
to us in unimaginable ways. With such a great multitude of spiritual resources,
the ordeals of this present life are made manageable. This is a passing world,
but we are people who live with a great open secret: Our God is always going to
love us into new existence. God’s love will connect us all to one another in a
great symphony of love. Because of this, we can only sing of God’s goodness
because God’s offer is incredible.
Themes for this Week’s Masses
First
Reading: The Book of Wisdom tells us that the Lord
manifests himself to those who do not disbelieve him. In the view of the
foolish, the righteous seemed to be dead, but they are in peace. The author
makes an appeal to kings to attain Wisdom, but it involves listening to the
Word of God. Wisdom is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of
the power of God. He tells them that if the kings succeeded in knowledge enough
so they could speculate about the world, how is it they did not more quickly
come to know its Lord? The Lord’s power has been seen throughout history to
ensure the deliverance of his people so they may praise him more perfectly.
Gospel:
Jesus tells the crowds that if your brother wrongs you seven times in one day,
and returns to you seven times saying, “I am sorry,” you should forgive him.
Jesus said that we must regard ourselves in this manner: we are unprofitable
servants; we have done what we were obliged to do. On his journey to Jerusalem,
Jesus heals then lepers from Samaria and Gallilee, but only one of them, a
foreigner, return to give thanks. Jesus tells the people what the Kingdom of
God is like and he reminds them the Kingdom of God is already among you. He
reminds them that many will not see the Day of the Lord because they concern
themselves with earthly cares and will not understand the revelation of the
Lord. Jesus reminds them that they must pray constantly because the Father is
generous and wants to bountifully give to those who ask for what they need.
Saints of the Week
November 10: Leo the Great, pope and doctor (d. 461) tried
to bring peace to warring Roman factions that were leaving Gaul vulnerable to
barbarian invasions. As pope, he tried to keep peace again - in particular
during his meeting with Attila the Hun, whom he persuaded not to plunder Rome.
However, in Attila's next attack three years later, Rome was leveled. Some of
Leo's writings on the incarnation were influential in formulating doctrine at
the Council of Chalcedon.
November 11: Martin of Tours, bishop (316-397), became
an Roman soldier in Hungary because he was born into a military family. After
he became a Christian, he left the army because he saw his faith in opposition
to military service. He settled in Gaul and began its first monastery. He was
proclaimed bishop in 371 and worked to spread the faith in at time of great
uncertainty and conflict. He divided sections of his diocese into parishes.
November 12: Josaphat, bishop and martyr (1580-1623)
was a Ukranian who entered the Basilian order and was ordained in the Byzantine
rite. He was named the archbishop of Polotsk, Russia and attempted to unite the
Ukrainian church with Rome. His opponents killed him. He is the first Eastern
saint to be formally canonized.
November 13: Francis Xavier Cabrini, religious
(1850-1917) was an Italian-born daughter to a Lombardy family of 13
children. She wanted to become a nun, but needed to stay at her parents’ farm
because of their poor health. A priest asked her to help work in a girls’
school and she stayed for six years before the bishop asked her to care for
girls in poor schools and hospitals. With six sisters, she came to the U.S. in
1889 to work among Italian immigrants. She was the first American citizen to be
canonized.
November 13: Stanislaus Kostka, S.J., religious
(1550-1568) was a Polish novice who walked from his home to Rome to enter
the Jesuits on his 17th birthday. He feared reprisals by his father
against the Society in Poland so we went to directly see the Superior General
in person. Francis Borgia admitted him after Peter Canisius had him take a
month in school before applying for entrance. Because of his early death,
Kostka is revered as the patron saint of Jesuit novices.
November 14: Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Superior General (1917-1991)
was the 28th Superior General of the Jesuits. He was born in the
Basque region of the Iberian Peninsula. He is considered one of the great
reformers of the Society because he was asked by the Pope to carry out the
reforms of Vatican II. November 14th is the commemoration of his
birth.
November 14: Joseph Pignatelli, S.J., religious and
Superior General (1737-1811) was born in Zaragosa, Spain and entered the
Jesuits during a turbulent era. He was known as the unofficial leader of the
Jesuits in Sardinia when the Order was suppressed and placed in exile. He
worked with European leaders to continue an underground existence and he was
appointed Novice Master under Catherine the Great, who allowed the Society to
receive new recruits. He secured the restoration of the Society partly in 1803
and fully in 1811 and bridged a link between the two eras of the Society. He
oversaw a temperate reform of the Order that assured their survival.
November 15: Albert
the Great, bishop and doctor (1200-1280), joined the Dominicans to teach
theology in Germany and Paris. Thomas Aquinas was his student. With his
reluctance, he was made bishop of Ratisbon. He resigned after four years so he
could teach again. His intellectual pursuits included philosophy, natural
science, theology, and Arabic language and culture. He applied Aristotle's
philosophy to theology.
November 16: Roch Gonzalez, John del Castillo, and
Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J. (1576-1628) were Jesuit priests born to
Paraguayan nobility who were architects of the Paraguayan reductions, societies
of immigrants based on religious faith. They taught the indigenous population
how to plant farms and other basic life skills that would protect them from the
insidious slave trades of Spain and Portugal. By the time the Jesuits were
expelled, 57 such settlements were established. Roch was a staunch opponent of
the slave trade. He, John, and Alphonsus were killed when the envy of a local
witch doctor lost his authority at the expense of their growing medical
expertise.
November 16: Margaret
of Scotland (1046-1093) was raised in Hungary because the Danes invaded
England. She returned after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and sought refuge in
Scotland. She married the king and bore him eight children. She corrected many
wayward abuses within the church and clarified church practices.
November 16: Gertrude the Great (1256-1302) was placed for childrearing into a Benedictine monastery at age 5
in Saxony. She lived with two mystics named Mechthild and as she developed her
intellectual and spiritual gifts, she too became a mystic. Her spiritual
instructions are collected into five volumes. She wrote prayers as a first
advocate of the Sacred Heart.
This Week in Jesuit History
·
Nov 10, 1549. At Rome, the death of
Paul III, to whom the Society owes its first constitution as a religious order.
·
Nov 11, 1676. In St James's Palace,
London, Claude la Colombiere preached on All Saints.
·
Nov 12, 1919. Fr. General Ledochowski
issued an instruction concerning the use of typewriters. He said that they
could be allowed in offices but not in personal rooms, nor should they be
carried from one house to another.
·
Nov 13, 1865. The death of James Oliver
Van de Velde, second bishop of the city of Chicago from 1848 to 1853.
·
Nov 14, 1854. In Spain, the community
left Loyola for the Balearic Isles, in conformity with a government order.
·
Nov 15, 1628. The deaths of St Roch
Gonzalez and Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez. They were some of the architects of the
Jesuit missions in Uruguay and Paraguay.
·
Nov 16, 1989. In El Salvador, the
murder of six Jesuits connected with the University of Central America together
with two of their lay colleagues.
"God looks upon us so tenderly." I will carry that beautiful truth with me and share it with the RCIA this week. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIt is a fundamental truth. Remember it always.
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