‘It is meaningless to preach at a funeral Mass if we don’t mention the resurrection of Christ.’ Sunday Reflections, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

 

Moses with the Ten Commandments

Philippe de Champaigne [Web Gallery of Art]

Teacher, Moses wrote for us . . . (Luke 20:28, today's Gospel)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel Luke 20:27-38 [or 20:27, 34-38] (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)

There came to Jesus some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, [and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterwards the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”]

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge 

Fr William Spicer 

(1949 - 2009)

Thirteen years ago a Columban colleague of mine, Fr Willie Spicer, died suddenly in Ireland at the age of 59. And in a very real sense he preached at his own funeral. The homilist, Columban Fr Michael Scully, a very close friend of Father Willie because of their many years in Japan, told a remarkable story of how central the Resurrection was in the late priest's preaching at funerals and of how a man was led to the faith by this. Here is part of the homily of Father Scully, who died on 29 September 2019. I have highlighted  some passages. 

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