32 Sunday-c

Life after death. 

One of my friends said, " Be happy. When life closes a laptop, it opens an I phone". 

Once a woman accompanied her husband to a doctor's office. After his check-up, the doctor called the wife into his office alone and said, "If you do not do the following, your husband will surely die". Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast and be nice to him. For lunch, make him a nutritious meal and be nice to him.  For dinner, make him nice meal and be nice to him. Do not give him hard time. Don't discuss your problem with him.On the way home, the husband asked his wife what the doctor said to her, "she looked at him and said, "He said that you are going to die". 

For us Catholics, every month is special. Last month, we celebrated Rosary month and this month, the month of November is dedicated to the poor souls in purgatory. These celebrations remind us of the love of God. God might have created so many other people and He might have done so many other things but He chose to create you and me. It's because we are special and precious and it's because we are unique and important. If our life is so precious then, our death has a meaning too. We will not disappear without any trace. There is surely life after death. 

The holy Bible clearly indicates and talks about 'life after life'. That is why a believer acts differently in a given situation than a non-believer. And that is why we do everything for the glory of God and acts as children of light. Everything that we do here will be counted in the kingdom of God. We are called to live for ever and ever.  

Today more than one billion people are believing in Christ and many more are coming back to the fold.  We believe in Christ who says, "Those who follow me will not see darkness but have light of life". We will one day be like our Master. Yes, we will be given eternal life where we see Him face to face. In after life, we are like angels, will go beyond space and time. We being the children of the resurrection will have unending happiness and joy.  

In His time, Christ our Lord dealt with two strong religious groups namely Pharisees and Sadducees. Pharisee means 'separated one'. They separated themselves from every day and ordinary people. They were highly opinionated and authoritative one. The other group is called Sadducees. The Sadducees thought of themselves as conservatives. It is because they accepted only the written law of Moses as authoritative and thus they denied many of the doctrines such as after life, resurrection, reward and punishments.  

That is why when we talk about Sadducees, we say Sad to see. Sad to see that they rejected resurrection and sad to see that they did not believe in after life and sad to see that they did not have any hope. 

And that is why they were asking so many nonsensical question to Christ our Lord. 

Today  we are sad to see so many people live like Sadducees without any hope to tomorrow. We are sad to see our own family members and friends are not preparing themselves to eternal bliss and joy and we are sad to see them going away from His love and kindness but we believe in Christ who says that only those who are struck in this limited time and space, they are limited in their relationship and love but those who believe in Him go beyond everything. Yes, we are the children of the Resurrection and we are the children of light. 

Conclusion: Our God is not the god of the dead but of the living. Living person is the glory of God. We are not here because we were born, live and just disappear one day but we are here for His glory and honor. Let everything we do reflect His love and let everything we say promote His compassion and thus one day let us join Christ to be with Him for ever. Amen.