God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable; His love
exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience
is responsive, not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him
that we are loveable.
Fulton Sheen, Rejoice, 1984: 9
At this time of year our thoughts turn quite naturally to
things eternal. We have prayed for the repose of the souls of the faithful
departed, and remember those who gave their lives in the past century. As
Christians we know that our earthly life is not all that there is. This
morning’s first reading is, despite its rather gruesome subject matter, one
which contains hope – the hope of eternal life, the promise of a loving God, in
whose image we are made.
This hope is
part of our faith, which is to be lived out in love: costly, and self-giving.
This is our calling as Christians. This is what St Paul is encouraging the
church in Northern Greece to live out. As a result of this we are called to
prayer and the spread of the Gospel, that the message of God’s love and
forgiveness, of healing and wholeness in the message and person of Jesus
Christ. Through his giving of himself on the Cross we can have hope; hope that
this world is not all that there is, that our destiny is something greater,
something richer. The Sadducees can only ask a question to try and support
their denial of life after death. Christ can only start from the reality of
eternal life with God. It is acknowledged by Moses, it is the heritage of Israel,
and thus for the Church as the new Israel.
This is why we
as the Church pray for the living and the dead; it is why we are fed by Word and
Sacrament – nourished by God and with God, given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet,
to prepare us for an eternity with God. Such is the comfort which God gives us,
such is the grace poured into our hearts. Such a great gift should provoke in us
something of a response – a fashioning of our lives after the self-giving love which
is the heart of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In this we can truly become what we were created for. We can realise
that Love increases the more it is given, freely, not counting the cost, in the
faith and hope that this life is not all that there is – that we are called to live
out love in our lives. To live it out so that world may be filled with love, that
it may believe, freed to sing the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and
God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might,
majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.
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