“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life. . . . If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.  – St Teresa of Avila

(Gospel Text: Lk 20:27-40)

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,

Came forward and put this question to Jesus, 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.

Now there were seven brothers;

the first married a woman but died childless.

Then the second and the third married her,

and likewise all the seven died childless.

Finally the woman also died.

Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her."

Jesus said to them,

"The children of this age marry and remarry;

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.

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.

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;

and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,

for to him all are alive."

Some of the scribes said in reply,

"Teacher, you have answered well."

And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

In our age of growing unbelief the case is not closed.

There are growing numbers of people who think that this life is all there is, that when death comes the lights turn off and then there is nothingness. This belief is comforting, for “now”, for people who have lived only for themselves and shudder at the thought having to someday answer for their self-absorbed lives. 

The deniers of eternal life are also fighting against themselves.

Human beings naturally intuit that there is something more to life, something beyond this world. When a child suffers the misfortune of losing a loved one and is told that grandpa is "with God" or "has gone to heaven," the child does not doubt it. He may have difficulty accepting the loss of someone so dear, but that there is a better place beyond this world he does not deny. He will only deny it if he/she is taught to do so by his/her parents in the home.

"Do not fear.”

Having a realistic attitude toward death will help us not only to prepare well for our own, but it will also lead us to look forward to the life to come. Is this not what we say every Sunday at Mass when we recite the Profession of Faith? "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come."

The only thing that can prevent us from being raised from the dead is ourselves.

Try your best to sit quietly in His presence, go to Eucharist Adoration regularly. If you let Him do some talking, you’ll find your heart and mind changing in ways you never thought possible.