Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

Title

Protection for the Day of Resurrection

Outline

What do you want protection from?

Many want protection from discomfort, disease, or temporal suffering. God may give us such protection; it is right to pray for it, just as Paul prayed for the removal of his thorn in the flesh. But God did not promise us a life of comfort; we know that suffering can be good for us. God was nice enough to warn me before some events, even if the warning was cryptic, but he was not obliged to do so.

Others want protection in the sense of safety, or the destruction of their enemies, and particularly deliverance from death. Sometimes those desires are evil and can even lead to the compromise of faith.

God’s protection is from those who would destroy our relationship to him, “that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people,” and from death itself, not by continuing our life endlessly, but by raising us to new life.

In 2 Maccabees we see protection from both

God kept those brothers from breaking covenant with him, “[from] transgress[ing] the laws of our ancestors.”

God kept the brothers full of hope of the resurrection and of reward in his presence

For them death was the end of suffering and the entrance into joy

Paul sees God’s faithfulness in protection

It was deliverance “from perverse and wicked people,” but behind such people was the devil, so the deliverance might well be deliverance from folding under pressure. Paul knew “the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” The human enemy was not the enemy.

Once they realized this and shifted their perspective the prayer would be fulled: “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.”

Jesus gives us the reason for all this

The Sadducees reduce the resurrection to reanimation and a continuation of this life, probably with better circumstances. The poor woman would be married and would bear children in the resurrection. They think they have made a reductio ad absurdum.

Jesus tells us that there is a life beyond life, that the resurrection is the re-embodiment of a life with God that is beyond life. God is, for he is being itself, and the dead in God are in him, for he is their God. Thus they experience life itself. In the resurrection we will have bodies, but what sort of bodies? Transformed bodies. Bodies the exist in the transcendent world, like the angels. So marriage and children, the co-creating with God in filling the earth, is over and worship is in Spirit and truth, not mirroring heaven in the physical world. Jesus reduces their reductio ad absurdum to a an absurdum - they do not know what they are talking about.

Sisters, this is the hope that animates us, even if it is a mystery

We often talk about “heaven” as if it were the resurrection - as if life picked up where it left off, but without pain and the like. That is fine if it gives folks hope, for we have no analogies for the reality.

The real hope is a mystery. It is deeper than we can imagine. It is participation in the divine perichoresis. It is the presence of God on the new earth in a city that is the Holy of Holies and is made of saints. It is beyond our imagination. It is therefore spoken of in analogies.

But that is the hope to which all we say about resurrection points, for that is where Jesus is (where being an analogy) and our hope is union with him and therefore with the saints who are already united to him.

Readings

Catholic Daily Readings 11-6-2022: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

FIRST READING

2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14

1 It also happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law. 2 One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to learn by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”

9 With his last breath he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws.”

10 After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put forth his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely stretched out his hands, 11 as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disregard them; from him I hope to receive them again.” 12 Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s spirit, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

13 After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. 14 When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of mortals with the hope that God will restore me to life; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”

Catholic Daily Readings 11-6-2022: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

RESPONSE

Psalm 17:15b

15 I am just—let me see your face;

when I awake, let me be filled with your presence.

PSALM

Psalm 17:1, 5–6, 8, 15

1 A prayer of David.

Hear, LORD, my plea for justice;

pay heed to my cry;

Listen to my prayer

from lips without guile.

5 My steps have kept to your paths;

my feet have not faltered.

6 I call upon you; answer me, O God.

Turn your ear to me; hear my speech.

8 Keep me as the apple of your eye;

hide me in the shadow of your wings

15 I am just—let me see your face;

when I awake, let me be filled with your presence.

Catholic Daily Readings 11-6-2022: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

SECOND READING

2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5

16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.

CHAPTER 3*

1 Finally, brothers, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, 2 and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. 3 But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. 4 We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you [both] are doing and will continue to do. 5 May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.

Catholic Daily Readings 11-6-2022: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

Revelation 1:5a, 6b

5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,

6 who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever [and ever]. Amen.

GOSPEL

Option A

Luke 20:27–38

27 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, 28 saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, ‘If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. 30 Then the second 31 and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” 34 Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. 37 That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; 38 and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Notes

Catholic Daily Readings 11-6-2022: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2022 | ORDINARY TIME

THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

YEAR C | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY

First Reading 2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14

Response Psalm 17:15b

Psalm Psalm 17:1, 5–6, 8, 15

Second Reading 2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5

Gospel Acclamation Revelation 1:5a, 6b

Gospel Luke 20:27–38 or Luke 20:27, 34–38

GREEN