Gospel: Resurrection gives us hope for life after death. Please see the Homily and readings below.
Gray Water System: The gray water system has been repaired. Check out the story and pictures on www.holyrosaryalaska.org. Thank you JD Bennis for donating your time and talent. While the heavy equipment was being unloaded, Jerry, a neighbor, come by with his dog to apply for some work. We hired him on the spot.
Children’s nativity Narrative: During the homily this Christmas, children will be acting out the nativity. If your children would like to have a part, i.e. shepherd, angel, wise man, Mary, or Joseph, please contact Bernina, Angie, or Diana.
First Communion: May 22nd, 2011, will be a First Communion Mass. If you have a child six years or older please let me know so I can start training. We already have three children signed up.
Have a great week and see you Sunday…Fr. Scott
HOMILY
32nd Ord C DLG 2010 Heaven 2 Mac 7: 1-2, 9-14; 2 Thes 2:16 – 3:5; Luke 20:27-38
What happens when we die?
The Sadducees believed that when you died, that was it…blackness….A kind of hell. We believe that Hell awaits those who do not have a friendship with God, do not believe in God, and condemn the Holy Spirit.
In the Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that there is life after death. Jesus believes in the resurrection. In the gospel Jesus says, “Resurrection is not the continuation of this life, but its complete transformation by the living God.
When we die, Catholics believe that living a Christian life insures that our soul will go to purgatory. Purgatory, according to the Catechism says, “Those who die in the state of friendship with God but are not fully purified, are assured of their eternal salvation. However, they must undergo a final purification to obtain the perfection of love and holiness needed to enter heaven.” In other words, everyone will spend time in purgatory, some longer than others.
When Jesus comes to earth for the second time, our Creed tells us, He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” The last line says, “We look for the resurrection of the dead.”
All the dead will rise when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead. In the final resurrection, our bodies will be transformed, though we do not know precisely how. The manner of our resurrection exceeds our understanding and imagination and is accessible only to our faith.
What is Heaven like?
The Church teaches that, “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the stat of supreme, definitive happiness. There will be perfect communion with the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Mother, the angels, and saints.”
We do not really know what heaven will be like…it is beyond our human imagination. Many scholars have tried to describe it;
1. The physical body will be replaced by one that cannot decay…it will last forever. So, a main reason to marry is to raise children…to keep the Christians from dying off. In heaven, no one dies…so getting married and having children is not necessary.
2. Relationships will exist. We will probably be reunited with people who we knew on earth. However, there are new relationships in heaven. We will be united with countless brothers and sisters in Christ. Something we can never achieve on earth.
3. We will be like angels, says Jesus. That means that we will probably have a different kind of body, real, and recognizable, yet not restricted as it is now. Paul says it best in the second reading today, “the future is bright, real, and fulfilling, however tough life is now.”
So when we think about your own death or grieve over those loved ones who have died, let these readings today give you hope.
The resurrection of Jesus assures us that death is not the end of existence…a dark nothing. Have hope that when our loved ones die, or when we die, our resurrected life will be qualitatively better than life on earth; our bodies will never die, and our relationships will be transformed.
Let this hope of resurrection provide comfort and strength to face the difficulties of life and the loss of people we love (539 Words).
2 Maccabees 7: 1-2, 9-14
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. One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: "What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors." At the point of death he said: "You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying." After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: "It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again." Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man's courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing. After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, "It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life."
2 Thessalonians 2:16 – 3:5;
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, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word. Finally, brothers, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you (both) are doing and will continue to do. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.
Luke 20:27-38
“Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, 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."
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