Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 156
Reading 1
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."
Responsorial Psalm
R. (15b) Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will
be full.
Hear, O LORD, a just suit;
attend to my outcry;
hearken to my prayer from lips without deceit.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
My steps have been steadfast in your paths,
my feet have not faltered.
I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my word.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
Keep me as the apple of your eye,
hide me in the shadow of your wings.
But I in justice shall behold your face;
on waking I shall be content in your presence.
R. Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.
Reading 2
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.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus Christ is the firstborn of the dead;
to him be glory and power, forever and ever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
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 BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
We continue are journey through the last few weeks of Ordinary Time and to the end of The Church’s Liturgical Year. The month of November is where we focus on honoring the dead and reflect on the promises made to us by God. We have celebrated one of the great triduums of the Church, Allhallowstide, which focusing on honoring all those who have passed and are either now in The Communion of Saints or in Purgatory. We now go forward reflecting on ourselves and our spirituality in relation to what we are experiencing now and are eventually going to experience in the future. There is an individual aspect to this as well as a communal experience. Both need to be examined and addressed with the same importance if we are to experience a faith-filled life with all of its rewards.
The Scripture Readings in The Office of the Readings and in the Old Testament Readings of the mass have turned their focus on the two books of Maccabees. The death of Alexander the Great of Greece in 323 BCE led to the breakup of the Greek empire as three of his generals fought for supremacy and divided the Middle East among themselves. Ptolemy secured control of Egypt and the Land of Israel. Seleucus grabbed Syria and Asia Minor, and Antigonus took Greece.
The Land of Israel was thus sandwiched between two of the rivals and, for the next 125 years, Seleucids and Ptolemies battled for this prize. The former finally won in 198 B.C. when Antiochus III defeated the Egyptians and incorporated Judea into his empire. Initially, he continued to allow the Jews autonomy, but after a stinging defeat at the hands of the Romans he began a program of Hellenization that threatened to force the Jews to abandon their monotheism for the Greeks' paganism. Antiochus backed down in the face of Jewish opposition to his effort to introduce idols in their temples, but his son, Antiochus IV, who inherited the throne in 176 B.C. resumed his father's original policy without excepting the Jews. A brief Jewish rebellion only hardened his views and led him to outlaw central tenets of Judaism such as the Sabbath and circumcision, and defile the holy Temple by erecting an altar to the god Zeus, allowing the sacrifice of pigs, and opening the shrine to non-Jews. Though many Jews had been seduced by the virtues of Hellenism, the extreme measures adopted by Antiochus helped unite the people. When a Greek official tried to force a priest named Mattathias to make a sacrifice to a pagan god, the Jew murdered the man. Predictably, Antiochus began reprisals, but in 167 BCE the Jews rose up behind Mattathias and his five sons and fought for their liberation.
The family of Mattathias became known as the Maccabees, from the Hebrew word for "hammer," because they were said to strike hammer blows against their enemies. Jews refer to the Maccabees, but the family is more commonly known as the Hasmoneans.
Like other rulers before him, Antiochus underestimated the will and strength of his Jewish adversaries and sent a small force to put down the rebellion. When that was annihilated, he sent more powerful army into battle only to be defeated. In 164 BCE, Jerusalem was recaptured by the Maccabees and the Temple purified, an event that gave birth to the holiday of Chanukah.
Maccabees I and Maccabees II outline these events. The writings remind us how important the Jews faith were to their lives. There was an understanding that, regardless of temporary suffering, they were promised something greater than anything else that could be offered in this life. Three testaments of faith come to mind:
“You are depriving us of this present life,
but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.”
"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." "It is my choice to die at the hands of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him;”
"It is my choice to die at the hands of men
with the hope God gives of being raised up by him”
Confronted with death, these men were unwavering in their faith. They refused to surrender their spirituality to powers that were rooted in things of this earth and were in opposition to God. Even though we might not be confronted with things such as what they suffered, we are witnesses to these things happening around the world. Every day, thousands of Christians are martyred for their faith and thousands more suffer extreme persecution because of nothing more than their love of God. The threats to our way of life and to our families cannot be overestimated. The forces of darkness and those that are in direct opposition to God are right before us. A statue of the demon Baphomet marks the world headquarters of The Temple of Satan in Salem, Massachusetts. Abortion is professed to be a Constitutional Right up to and after birth. Day after day, the influence of God is reduced in exchange for individual freedoms that distort Natural Law as well as God’s Law. His instruction is being ignored in favor of feeding needs and desires of the flesh. All these things serve as a warning sign for us. Are we to indulge in these things or oppose them?
If we oppose these things, God will give us the strength and fortitude to oppose them. We do not have to start a revolution, we just have to recognize what is going on and refuse to participate in those things that are in direct opposition to God. There is no need to criticize and judge other people who do not follow us, for Jesus has told us not to do so, but by conducting ourselves rightly, we will put the Light of Christ on display and that will be opposition enough to defeat anything that comes in opposition to Him. We are God’s instruments, and it is through us, when we let God use us, that His kingdom is realized on this earth. That is why those who oppose God are so vile and filled with anger: The forces of darkness are fighting for something temporal and rooted in things that will soon fade away, while those who are with God are focusing on that which is eternal.
Jesus makes a point in the Gospel Reading today regarding The Resurrection of the Dead. The Law as professed by the Sadducees, Scribes, and Pharisees, tended to “put God in a box,” subjecting Him to human limitations and defining Him through the lenses of a human experience. God is eternal and so is His capabilities. The things we worry about now will have no impact on us in the coming age when we are resurrected. As Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans, Jesus freed us from the chains of the law through His death and resurrection. The Law should be followed in reaction to God’s love and not for fear of consequences. When Jesus tells us not to worry about something, maybe we should listen. In the end, whatever we are confronted with, will not overcome us if we focus on God. The end of the story has already been written; we just have to be willing to follow the script. Being with God forever is not a continuation of what we are experiencing here on this earth, it is a transformation into something greater beyond anything that can be offered here. With that, we need to constantly remind ourselves that, as God’s children, we will be lifted above the state we now find ourselves in and into a new heaven and earth as realized through our relationship with our God.
Deacon Tom
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