THIRTY SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C
6th November 2022
2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38.
Today’s readings bother on the resurrection from the dead. Resurrection is the reward of our faith in God. Jesus promised us resurrection when he said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die”. This promise and reward of eternity through resurrection presupposes a fundamental change, a transformation in those it is meant for. St Paul capture this fundamental change when he wrote, “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality”. The resurrected body is transformed beyond the limitations of our present world.
When we apply the transformation that is proper to resurrection to today’s readings, we easily notice that the analogy of the Sadducees in the gospel is nothing close. Asking whose wife the woman will be after marrying all seven brothers betrays their lack of faith and understanding of transformation of the resurrected body. The seven brothers and a mother of the first reading reveal the faith and understanding of the resurrection. One of the brothers exclaimed before his death: “Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men’s hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him;…”
The promise and reward of the resurrection is proof that everything we do has an eternal value. St. Paul’s prayer in the second reading is applicable to us; ‘May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who has given us his love and, through his grace, such inexhaustible comfort and such sure hope, comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do or say’. Resurrection is the reward of our faith in God.
Anthony Ekpunobi, CM.
