{"id":4657,"date":"2013-11-16T16:25:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-16T16:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4657"},"modified":"2013-11-16T16:25:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T16:25:23","slug":"32nd-sunday-of-ordinary-time-10-11-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4657","title":{"rendered":"32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (10.11.13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (10.11.13)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The liturgy of today is dominated by the idea of an afterlife.<\/p>\n

Belief in the \u201cResurrection of the body and life everlasting\u201d is surely one of the most important of our beliefs as Christians. It should light up our lives with meaning and hope
\nOften, however, it is but a pale and shadowy thing, shedding no more light than a crescent moon.\u00a0 Besides, we can be too concerned and preoccupied with this life, that we fail to even think about the life that is to come, until we are faced with the reality of serious illness and ultimate death of ourselves or of a loved one.<\/p>\n

In the first reading (2 Maccabees 7: 1-2, 9-14) we hear of the martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons, who drew their strength and their hope from their faith in the resurrection.<\/p>\n

The Gospel (Luke 20: 27-38) recounts how the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, and who were held in high esteem by the people because of their power and influence in political and religious circles in Judea, tried sneeringly to catch Jesus out by posing a question about marriage, re-marriage and no issue.\u00a0 Jesus dismissed their argument as irrelevant, stating that the resurrected are all sons and daughters – their relationship is as members of the same family, whether in this earthly life they had been married once or many times or not at all.<\/p>\n

In His reply, Jesus makes it clear that there is no comparison between human life, shared by all, and the Resurrection, shared only by those who are children of God.<\/p>\n

Jesus does more than argue the case with the Sadducees.\u00a0 The time comes when He Himself becomes the argument, by undergoing death, and then experiencing the glory of the resurrection.\u00a0 The risen Jesus is the ultimate argument against the Sadducees.<\/p>\n

If there were no life to come, then our lives on earth would be meaningless.\u00a0\u00a0 They would constitute a road to nowhere.\u00a0 Belief in the afterlife gives us hope, without which there is no future.\u00a0 We are pilgrims of hope.\u00a0\u00a0 We are not travelling in the dark.\u00a0\u00a0 We are following the path traced out for us by Christ.\u00a0 Hoping in God and in His Word, we believe that He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.\u00a0 He made us for eternal life with Him.<\/p>\n

Our belief in the afterlife should spur us on to live a better life here on earth.<\/p>\n

There may be times when we are assailed by doubts.\u00a0 Let us not be afraid to admit them and confront them.\u00a0 There is much that we do not understand about these mysteries of life, but remember too that we do not make the pilgrimage to the promised land of eternal life alone. We are members of God\u2019s chosen people, journeying together in faith and in joyful hope.<\/p>\n

May we grow in the knowledge and love of Christ during our life on earth, so that we may come to see our death for what it is \u2013 a joyful encounter with Him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (10.11.13) The liturgy of today is dominated by the idea of an afterlife. Belief in the \u201cResurrection of the body and life everlasting\u201d is surely one of the most important of our beliefs as Christians. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archdiocese-of-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4658,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions\/4658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}