Appropriately following up from All Souls' Day last week, when we commemorated all the faithful departed, we are reminded of the reality of the Resurrection, born from an empty tomb on a Sunday morning so long ago.
It gives birth to the great hope that as surely as Christ rose from the dead, we, too, will rise from death to experience life anew. It is a hope that sustains us to bear all difficulties of this world, urging us to strive upward toward Heaven, as testified by the brothers who were tortured with their mother in the story from 2 Maccabees. We need not be afraid, even of death, because our faith teaches us that we will enter a whole new reality when we are raised to new Life, following Him Who is the firstfruits of the dead. That's the point Jesus seeks to underscore with the Sadduccees, who can't embrace the glorious reality of the Resurrection in light of the God Who is Living. We're in an existence that's beyond what we experience now in this life. We can't fully understand what it will be, but we have real hope that by faith it will one day be ours. And so we continue in that hope to live doing good and showing true love that reveals God's presence.
And as the Psalmist says, what joy we shall experience in the Resurrection to behold His glory in Life Eternal. What a glorious truth to behold as the end of the liturgical year nears, and the liturgy turns us toward the End of Time and the glorious reality of being raised to behold God face-to-face in all His fullness.
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