32-sunday C

32 Sunday C 

Once two friends were talking to each other. One woman said, “you know what my husband is an angel”. The other woman said, “Wow...that is awesome, and I am so jealous. You are so lucky; my husband is still alive”. 

Friends in Christ Jesus, 

Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God says that being children of the resurrection, we cannot die anymore, because we are like angels and are sons and daughters of God. Jesus often says that He is the Resurrection and Life. Anyone who follows Him, will not die but have life, life that has no end. 

And that’s why every time, I celebrate a funeral Mass, I make sure that everyone understand that death is not extinguishing the light. It’s just putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.  

Once life asked death, “how come people adore me and they despise you?” Death said, “It’s because you are a beautiful lie and I am a painful truth”. For those who believe in Risen Christ, death is not a painful truth, it’s a beautiful truth. I hold so many dying people’s hand as they pass away. I experience about 99 percent of the people are so agitated. It’s because they struggle to understand the beautiful truth about death.  

There is a non-Christian story in which a woman comes to the holy man and says, “I know you have the power to raise the dead to life and my only son died. Please bring him back to life”. The holy man says to her, “Yes, of course I will raise your son to life. And all you have to do is, “Just find a house in which death never occurred and bring from that house a glass of water”. 

The story ends saying that the woman never returned to the holy man at all.  

But, for those who believe in Christ, death is not an end at all. It's a new beginning. In order to establish that new beginning, Christ called out Lazarus from the tomb. He raised the dead man to life in Nain and He said to that little dead child, ‘Talita kum”, namely little child, I order you, get up. 

In today’s gospel, a glimpse of truth is given namely after death, we all become like angels.  

What do angels do? They love God with who they are, and they become messengers of God, spreading that love and kindness to all. They become a bridge between God and human. 

If we want to be like angels, all we have to do is just awakening those angelic characters that are hidden in us. Yes, we have to love God with all our heart, mind and body and soul and love and accept others. We don’t need to fly to be angels. All we have to do is just walk with our own brothers and sisters in need. Amen.