As days grow shorter, leaves fall from trees, and the last of the year’s crops are harvested, the Church calls to mind those who have died and of Jesus’ promise of eternal life. Earlier this week we honored the saints on All Saints Day and remembered our beloved dead on All Souls Day. Today we hear Jesus affirm the resurrection of the dead when faced with a group of religious authorities who refuse to accept it. May our faith in Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, give us hope during these dark days.
Introduction to the Liturgy of the Word
The selections from scripture that we hear today portray people whose faith in eternal life with the Lord gives them confidence during times of trial. In Maccabees, seven brothers and their mother were arrested and tortured for their faith. Saint Paul is pursued by wicked people who will do anything to stop him from preaching. Jesus is in Jerusalem now, where soon he will be arrested and sentenced to death. But the dead will rise, Jesus tells the Sadducees, for the Lord is God of the living. May this give us hope as well.
Reflections
• The mother and sons in the first reading died for their faith. We are unlikely to face a trial that costs us our lives, but our faith can call us to sacrifice parts of our lives. Remember all the challenges that Jesus gave his disciples. They had to leave all their possessions behind to follow him. They were told they must carry their crosses. They were told that serving Jesus meant serving the least of their brothers and sisters. If we are to be true disciples, doing these things is a way we express our faith. It is easier to do whatever we please, avoiding hardships ourselves and ignoring the hardships of others. But our consciences call us to die to sin, to die to self-centeredness, to die to taking the easy way out, and to live for the promise of the Resurrection.
• We ask God to strengthen our faith so that we, like the seven brothers and their mother, like Paul, like Jesus, do not fear death. Our faith tells us that death is not the end. That faith allows us to live courageously in the face of suffering and despair.
• The seven brothers in the first reading and the seven brothers in the Gospel have something in common: they all appeared to have died in vain. The Maccabean brothers were killed one after another, never able to get married, to have children, or to grow old. The brothers in the question of the Sadducees died in short succession, each unable to produce descendants for his elder brothers. Even today we think of our name and our family line living on through our offspring. But we do not truly live on through anything or anyone we produce. We live on because God, Jesus tells us, “is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Luke 20:38). We do not live on because we are forever held in the world’s memory. We live on because we are forever held in God’s infinite memory.
Question of the Week
To what must I die in order to fully live in the way God calls me?
-from Pastoral Patterns
readings of the mass
LISTEN HEREto the Audio Recordings of the Readings of Sunday, November 6, 2022
SELECT HEREfor the Readings of Sunday, November 6, 2022,
Offerings
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