32ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38
This weekend, observed as the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, the church presents as the first reading a section from the Second Book of Maccabees.
Maccabees, First or Second, rarely appears as a reading at Mass. These books date from a period only two centuries before Christ. They rose from a very dark period in the history of God’s people.
When Alexander the Great, who had conquered so much of the present-day Middle East, died, his generals scrambled to succeed him. One of them, Ptolomy, became the pharaoh of Egypt, an ancestor of Cleopatra. Another of them, Seleucus, became king of Syria.
A successor of Seleucus, Antiochus IV, believed himself to be divine. He demanded that his subjects, including the Jews, worship him. Anyone who refused this demand paid dearly.
These two books of Maccabees lionized these pious Jewish martyrs who refused to forsake the one God of Israel.
This weekend’s reading describes quite vividly the penalty Antiochus IV reserved for those who denied that he was a god.
Heroism, therefore, is one lesson. Another is about the after-life. The reading mentions the after-life as a reward for holy living on earth. The after-life as a doctrine was not well refined in the more ancient Hebrew writings. Thus, Maccabees expands the notion.
The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians provides the second reading. This work too was written when times were very hard for true believers, in this case Christians. The epistle is challenging but encouraging. Regardless of whatever may lie ahead, it insists that disciples must hold firm to their bond with the Lord. Times may be bad, even terrifying, but they will pass. God, and those devoted to God, will be victorious!
St. Luke’s Gospel, the source of the last reading, continues the theme of the after-life. Its message is clear. Those persons faithful to God in this life will live with God, triumphantly and eternally, in the next life.
This reading also says that the ways of God are beyond our experience and our understanding. We are humans, nothing less but nothing more. We are nothing less in that we can decide to live so as to receive as God’s gift eternal life itself. We are nothing more in that we need God.
Reflection
War has tormented every generation of Americans, since the Revolutionary War. Americans died in the War of 1812, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the undeclared war against terrorism.
In a sense, then, filling our own history is catastrophe and death, just as such horror was part of Hebrew history.
For us, and even as we fight our personal wars, with whatever foes assail us, it is easy to be discouraged.
The readings teach us, and they console and inspire us.
They teach us that human sin, turning away from God, can bring upon people enormous injury and destruction. If we followed God, we would find the better way, to life, to concord, to wholesomeness.
Even so, life on earth, although we must endeavor to make earthly life good and productive, is not the end in itself. As the Second Vatican Council saw it, earthly life is a pilgrimage. All humans move from birth to death. Everyone dies.
True believers move not to death, but they pass death as a milestone on their way to eternal life.
These readings also remind us that the allurements that so often drive humans to hurt themselves and others inevitably will pass away. God will endure. His goodness will triumph.
Only God, in the heavenly kingdom, will survive — in everlasting glory. This kingdom awaits our entry — if we choose to enter it. The gates are open.
