The first reading, from the Book of Maccabees, presents to us the martyrdom of several brothers and their mother, who were refusing to eat food that was unclean in the eyes of the Jewish faith.
An invading Greek army, under the leadership of King Antiochus, had occupied Israel. It is useful to note that King Antiochus claimed himself to be divine (La Bibbia – Via Verita e Vita, Paoline, 2012, p. 1105). The new rulers of Israel were rooting out, eradicating, stamping out Jewish customs and laws. The Temple in Jerusalem was profaned. Jews were forced to eat food that was against their religion. It is in this context that the martyrdom of the seven brothers and their mother takes place. They give their lives up knowing that life eternal is a fact, a reality. The reading ends by speaking of “the hope God gives of being raised by him”, and with the ominous warning for King Antiochus and his crowd: “for you, there will be no resurrection to life”.
This is a good moment to remind ourselves that all of us will rise on the last day. We will be raised with our bodies, by the power of God. Every single time that you pass by a cemetery, keep in mind that it is only a temporary holding place – all those bodies will rise. At the Resurrection of the Dead there will be the Last Judgement, conducted by Christ: “Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 678). After the Last Judgement, there are two possibilities, both of them eternal, for a person to end up: heaven or hell.
The second reading, from the Letter to the Thessalonians, asks that we be strengthened in “every good work and deed” (2 Thes 2:16). Here, we are encouraged to work at our salvation, knowing that we are not working, we are not labouring alone. Christ himself guides our hands in this work, and he does so with God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. We have “comfort and good hope” from God, as the text says.
In the Gospel, we hear of the confrontation between the Sadducees and Jesus. The Sadducees come up with a riddle for Jesus to solve, a story-puzzle of seven brothers and a woman, seven times a widow. The first reading spoke of seven brothers, whose martyrdom testified to the existence of eternal life. Now, the Sadducees are also using seven brothers, but this time, to try to show that there is no resurrection. Jesus sees through their logic, and reminds them that to God, even the dead, are alive. God is the eternal “now”.
Whatever our state of life or vocation, all of us have the chance, have the opportunity to work out our salvation, to enter the eternal “now” in communion with God. For most Catholics, for many of you here, this working out of salvation takes place in the context of marriage. Marriage is a life-long covenant of one man and one woman, which is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and the procreation of children. St. Amphilochius has this to say about the married state: „[M]arriage is honourable in all, and above every gift of the earth, as a fruit-bearing branch, as a flowering tree…as the comfort of the race of men, as the creator of humanity, as the painter of the image and likeness of God, as blessed of the Lord” (The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, M.F. Toal ed., 1957, vol.1, p.172). There is great honour and blessing in the married state, here in this life. And yet, the effects of marriage are not eternal. St. John Paul II, writing in his Theology of the Body, repeated, “Marriage and procreation do not definitively determine the original and fundamental meaning of…being, as a body, male and female. The resurrection indicates the closure of the historical dimension” (Man and Woman He Created Them, John Paul II, 2006, p.399, [69:4]). At the Resurrection of the Dead, those who enter into eternal life will develop new bonds of communion with each other, and primarily with the Trinity.
As we draw closer to the Resurrection of the Dead, let us be attentive to the fact that our life is eternal, and that we ought to work at our salvation. This we do by faithfully fulfilling the duties of our state of life and vocation. In our toil, we are assisted by the prayers of Our Lady, the Queen of Families, whose intercession we invoke. Amen
(Fr. Pawel Ratajczak, OMI, Nov. 10, 2019)