32nd Sunday C

Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor including the land of the Israelites.
He and his successors ruled there until the spread of the Roman Empire.
They tried to introduce their own Hellenistic, Greek culture and impose their pagan religion on the occupied peoples.
The majority of the Jewish people opposed this and wanted to remain loyal to the Law of Moses and the Temple.

Then the occupiers took over the Temple and dedicated it to the pagan god Zeus and held wild parties there. They passed a law to forcing Jews to eat the pagan sacrificial meals.
Many Jews rebelled.
They refused to touch the pagan meals and were prepared to face torture and death as a punishment.

That is what happened to a mother and her seven sons
-as we have heard in the first reading.
One by one they refused to participate in the pagan ritual and were killed.
They all declared their faith in the resurrection and life after death.
This happened about a 150 years before the birth of Christ.
Jesus himself, as we know, preached the resurrection and everlasting life.
He proved this point when he underwent death and rose to life again.

To the Sadducees he said that to God all people, dead or alive to us, are in fact alive. This is our faith too.
Once a human life has begun it will never end. Our lives will never end.
You and I will never ever NOT BE. We shall always BE.
We fall asleep in death and then -as we said in the psalm-
when we awake we shall be filled with the sight of God’s glory.