Gospel:  LUKE 20:27-38  Click here for Sunday Readings for today, or find it in your own Bible or missal.

(Greetings this Sunday to the Leaving Certificate Students from Salerno School in Galway City, here in Esker for their Retreat! Thanks to you all! You were a delight. Every blessing on the year ahead.  Fr. S.)

Our reflection this week is written by Sarah Kelly.

Dear Friends,

Recently I watched a series on youtube called ‘What Would You Do?’. They are a sort of’ documentary. Now, if you’re like me at all, one episode isn’t enough. I became hooked.

The show is filmed by hidden cameras which are set up in various and different locations. In each scenario the camera, and directors, attempt to see how people will react to varying circumstances. In each setting, you see a different situation, and we see how people respond. In some, their actions are quite often heroic, but in others, you feel let down. But this is the idea. To monitor everyday normal people, and how they interact with very real and normal everyday encounters.

If we lived our lives as if no one was watching, I wonder how genuine we would be? Would our actions be motivated from a desire to help, purely because it is the right thing to do, or would we ignore the one in need because no one can see us. The lives we live in secret  are more visible than we might think. If we live our lives only pleasing people and God on a superficial level, but it doesn’t provoke a deeper response within us, then who are we really? God can see everything that we do, and the motivations behind them. St. Francis de Sales once noted that “we are sometimes so busy being good angels that we neglect to be good men and women”. What do you think of that? Does that make sense to you, and the way you are presently living? That far from doing something because you desire to help, you do it merely to look as if you are helping? One person who was filmed stated that ‘if I knew you were filming I would have helped’, and again ‘I should have said something’. But don’t feel bad, friends. Sometimes we try, and sometimes we can’t do anything. But next time, be more courageous and allow God to work through you.

We must constantly be alive to the present moment, and as Jesus teaches us in today’s Gospel “he is God of the living and not of the dead, and for him all are alive”. Each moment is a potential ‘Resurrection moment’, each moment has the capacity to create a new life, a new hope. That is the Paschal mystery  in which we hold firm our belief in Him who was raised from the dead, for our sake. Death has been conquered, so why do we rush around like we have no where to go? We are going somewhere… heaven. Today and every day, we must try and be a people of the now, living like Jesus, in the moment and ever ready to stand up for what is right regardless of what others may think.

So, my friends, take some time today to reflect on the words ‘what would I do’ in light of this Gospel. You are not living only for this world, but also “of the world to come”.

God bless,

Sarah.

P.S. ‘Paschal Mystery’ is our Christian shorthand for happened for us from Good Friday to Easter Sunday,- Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, pouring out his life for the world/us, and through that total giving of himself for us,  becoming absolutely Alive -and we with him- in rising from Death. It’s awesome, -if we ponder it! We are Resurrection People, Easter People,- alive to our toe-nails! Read all about it, in the wonderful early Christian hymn that St. Paul quotes in Philippians 2: 5-11.   (Ed.)

 Click here to link to ‘Soul Food for Hungry Adult Communities’ for this weekend.

Gospel:  LUKE 20:27-38  Click here for Sunday Readings for today:

‘Have you no home to go to?’

‘Have you no home to go to?‘ is a gentle way we have in Ireland of reminding someone that it’s getting a bit late and it may be time to make a move towards home.

The horizon changes this week, as we enter into November, – or  ‘Samhain’ as we call it in Irish,- a season of facing into Darkness and moving towards the shortest days of the year: a time associated in ancient times with the reality of death/darkness approaching. Not very popular thought, today, but a reality that we all dwell on at some time, because we know we cannot avoid it. Life is limited. There will be a halt to our gallop, at some moment. There will be a full-stop, some time. But our belief is that that particular full-stop is not the end of the story. A new paragraph, a new Chapter, so to speak, will begin.  At Christian funerals, we hear this frequently, during the Preface of the Mass:  ‘for your faithful, life is changed, not ended.’ 

The Question we all ask, at some time, is this:  Is death the end of it all?  Will our heavenly Father (Jesus’ name for God) just dispose of us like a used tissue, into the waste basket of nothingness? That doesn’t fit. How can one put ‘See what love the Father has lavished on us’ (First Letter of John Chapter 3:1) with just dumping us forever?

Here, we see Jesus, now arrived in Jerusalem after his long journey from Chapter 9 (‘he set his face towards Jerusalem’).  He meets different groups there, and some challenge him. One such is that group of religious leaders called the Sadducees, who had no belief in any resurrection from death. They try to catch Jesus out with a ‘What if…’ question that was designed to make Jesus look foolish. Read it for yourself.

Jesus answers them in two ways: first,  one of the purposes of marriage is for the continuation of the race, in this world. That won’t apply in the next life.

Secondly, he appeals to Moses (they believed in Moses, ok), where God speaks to Moses and God calls himself ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’,-  and these friends of God were all long dead! God is the God of those who died, long long ago, or recently. In other words, the dead are alive to God! There IS a life after death. ‘Now he is God, not of the dead but of the living; for to him all people are in fact alive.’ That’s how Jesus finishes.

Again, returning to those words at a Christian funeral, – ‘For your faithful people, life is changed, not ended. And when the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death, we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.’  We fold up our ‘tent’, because we all know that ‘we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come.’  We head for home!

In the meantime, life is for living, to the full,- ‘Live a life of love!’ says Paul. That’s livin’ ! – to the full.

If you can, take time to read the wonderful story of the seven brothers who were arrested with their mother. It’s from the Book of Maccabees, Chapter 7, verses 1,2 and 9-14. A great chapter to read. Each of the seven brothers died, rather than turn from their faith. The fourth one said, at the very end, to his executioners: ‘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; whereas for you there can be no ressurecion, no new life.’  And there are so many modern Christians in our times who are still giving their lives to God, and being executed for their faithfulness to Jesus Christ. They put us to shame.

Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.    (seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com)

Click here to view ‘Soul Food yum for Young Adult Communities’ for this weekend.