THE CHRISTIAN AND DEATH.
November 6, 2022.
Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time – C.
“It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope
God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection
to life.” 2 Mc 7:14
An Amerindian proverb says: “There is no death, only a
change of worlds.” And a Jewish proverb adds: “If you start thinking of death,
you are no longer sure of life.”
Speaking of the Christian and death we speak of faith and
death, or more especially, of our Christian belief in the resurrection. Many
realities go beyond our human understanding and challenge us. Among them is the
Resurrection of the Dead. As Christians, we profess it in our Credo. "I
believe in the resurrection of the dead and in life everlasting..." But
what does it mean for us, and how do we face the reality of death when it
comes?
The Church teaches us that, "Because of Christ,
Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me to live is Christ, and
to die is gain." "The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we
will also live with him.” What is essentially new about Christian death is
this: through Baptism, the Christian has already "died with Christ"
sacramentally, in order to live a new life; and if we die in Christ's grace,
physical death completes this "dying with Christ" and so completes
our incorporation into him in his redeeming act: It is better for me to die in
(eis) Christ Jesus than to reign over the ends of the earth. Him it is I seek -
who died for us. Him it is I desire - who rose for us. I am on the point of
giving birth... Let me receive pure light; when I shall have arrived there,
then shall I be a man.” CCC 1010.
Therefore, for us Christians, our vision of death receives
privileged expression when we try to read it through the lens of faith and
beyond a simply passing reality. Death bores a meaning of a journey to another
stage of life. We could say, inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux that when facing
death, we are not dying, we are just traveling and entering into life. Our
being reaches its perfection only through this journey from this earthly life
to the life in God. "Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the
time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life
in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny. When
"the single course of our earthly life" is completed, we shall not
return to other earthly lives: "It is appointed for men to die once."
There is no "reincarnation" after death." CCC 1013 So, what do
we mean by resurrection, and how to face our separation from this earth?
Today's readings provide us with a ground to reflect on the
realities of life and death. A clarification before all; for us Christians,
death is not the end of life. It is merely a change of life. We pass from one
dimension or stage of life to another. Death could be seen as the beginning of
the life that God ultimately had in mind for us when he created us. In that
sense, the Holy Scriptures are clear on the fact of life after death. There is
another life beyond and after the present one. It is this assurance of life
after the current life that gave courage to the seven children and their
mother, in the first reading, to face fearlessly the persecutions of the king.
While they were arrested and tortured in order to oblige them to break the Law
of their ancestors, the Law of God, unanimously, they rather chose to undergo
tribulations and death rather than fall into idolatry and defiance to God.
There is one sentence that can express their faith in life after 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; whereas for you there can be
no resurrection, no new life." In their faith, they knew God will raise
them to a new life. How will that happen, they knew not. Nevertheless, they
believed in the resurrection.
The faith of the Maccabees will also be expressed by the
Lord while answering to the Sadducees who do not believe in life after death.
They gave a parable that shows their lack of comprehension of the mystery of
the Resurrection. The Resurrection is not a re-edit of the actual life. It is
not a reincarnation. It is not zombieism. It is, as we said ahead a new life on
a new stage. The Lord says, "The children of this world take wives and
husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and the
resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for
they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they
are sons of God."
At the Resurrection, man is brought to a stage of life where
his being is no longer subjected to the condition of the material and its
needs. He is beyond the sensitive nature and the limitations of the body. He
becomes immaterial just like Angels. When we speak of Resurrection, we must
always be careful to not fall in a confusion like that of the Sadducees. It is
not a continuation or an improvement of this present life. If that were the
case, the question of the Sadducees would have all its meaning. For a woman
married to seven brothers successively, in obedience to the Mosaic Law on
Levirate, whom then will she belong to at the Resurrection?
The Christian paradise or life after death is not like
described in the Muslim Holy Quran. I read somewhere that, "The Prophet
Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is
an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome
decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from
Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'." --- In heaven
believers will have wives called "houris" (virgins)."
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