The Resurrection of the Body and Life Everlasting, Amen!
Homily preached November 6, 2022
by Monsignor Michael Deering

I’ll never forget a class I took in my first year of Seminary. It was a Philosophy class called Ontology, which is the study of Being, and it was taught by a great big, gruff and imposing Priest by the name of Fr. Boulieu.

One day, Fr. Boulieu walked down the aisle, stood at my desk and asked me:

“Where’s Gramma?”      I blurted out, “She’s buried in Chicago.”

And he came right back and said, “That’s not Gramma!”

And he was absolutely right. The mortal body that lies buried in a Chicago cemetery ... is not ... the loving woman that I once knew.    So where is she?

That became the class theme among us seminarians,    “Where’s Gramma?”

If you’ve studied Philosophy, you may recall that according to Aristotle, the soul is defined as “the life force of the organism.” In order for there to be life, there must be an organizing force present to sustain it. That force is called the soul. So, all living organisms have a soul.   Plants and animals and human beings ... all have souls.

The difference is that plants & animals have mortal souls … that die when they do. And Human beings have immortal souls … that never die … but live on in eternity.

But where?    Where do human souls go when the body dies?

In the years before Jesus came to earth, people simply spoke of ...

the abode of the dead as the place where human souls went after death.

It was not Heaven or Hell, it was just the abode of the dead.

But gradually through the guidance of all the Leaders and Prophets that God sent, men came to believe that where they went after death

was determined by how they lived their lives …

and if they were true to God’s Laws,

they would be favored to live with Him forever.

This is apparent in our First Reading from the Second Book of Maccabees, when some 150 years before Jesus, a great persecution of the Jews took place and we hear how a mother and her 7 sons were martyred because

they refused to betray the Law of Moses which forbid them from eating pork.

They were ordered to stick out their tongue and it was cut off !

They were ordered to stretch out their hands and they were cut off!

It’s obvious that this family really believed that there is another life after our physical death … that someway, somewhere, somehow … our souls ...

will go on living after our bodies die … hopefully with God, who made them.

Wow! What courage and conviction they had to have!

You wouldn’t give up the only life you know

without a sure hope of getting another life!

We hear this belief from the woman’s sons ... with the first one declaring:

“you are depriving us of this present life,

but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.”

The third son speaks of his tongue and hands saying:

“It was from Heaven that I received these;

for the sake of God’s laws I distain them;

from him I hope to receive them again.”

And the fourth son boldly announces:

“It is my choice to die at the hands of men

with the hope God gives of being raised up by him.”

Not everybody has that understanding.  Not everyone has that faith and hope.

St. Paul admitted in our Second reading today, “For not all have faith.” How true!

Which is why there is so much sin in the world!

If men and women really understood that ...

the way they live their lives in this world of space and time …

determines where they will live in eternity after they die on earth ...

there’d be a whole lot less sin in this world!

How blessed we are to have faith.    How doubly blessed we are

to be living after Jesus came to earth and left us many assurances

that we could one day share Eternal Life with Him in Heaven.

Recall Matthew’s Gospel from All Saints Day last Tuesday, where Jesus preached the 9 Beatitudes … and 3 of them promised us the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus adds insight to this in today’s Gospel, saying: “Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead… can no longer die.”

Here, Jesus is referring to the End of Time ...

when our bodies will rise from the grave and be reunited with our souls once again!

Jesus will speak specifically of this in two weeks when we contemplate Matthew’s Gospel of the coming of Jesus as King to separate the Sheep from the Goats ...

with the Sheep going to Heaven ... and the Goats going to Hell!

Heaven is Eternal Life ... it’s Eternal Life of ... the Body and the Soul.

Hell is Eternal Death ... it’s Eternal Death of ... the Body and the Soul.

So you see, those who love God and neighbor, die once ... just in their Body.

But those who do not love God and neighbor die twice ... in their Body and Soul.

(that’s why the sentence of Hell is referred to as ... the Second Death)

The fourth son indicated this in our First reading when he bravely accused the king

saying,      “but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”

How long will we ... be with ... or be separated from God be after we die?

Forever!     And forever is a very long time.

Have you ever thought about forever? How long is it? For me it hurts my mind to even try to think about it because I can’t comprehend such a vast period of time.

You know, a few years ago, archeologists digging in Argentina discovered ...

a dinosaur skeleton that measured 105’ long.

And they say that it lived … 88 Million years ago!

Can you even begin to comprehend how long ago that is?

• A few people live to be 100 years old.
• Our Country is 200 years old.
• Our Church is 2000 years old.
• The Giant Sequoia trees in California are 3400 years old.

And these dinosaurs lived 88 Million years ago!

With that kind of time in the past, there could be that kind of time in the future.

Where do you want to be ... 88 Million years from now?

Where do you want to be all along the way to 88 Million years from now?

There’s only one answer that makes any sense … and that’s ... with God!

With God … who is perfect … who is all good ... who is Life and Love!

Realize that there are no changes once you end up in Heaven or Hell.

As they sometimes say in Retail, “All sales are final!”

Only from Purgatory will there be a change along the way …

when souls transition from being Purified to being Glorified.

The Church just emphasized this last Wed. in celebrating the feast All Souls ...

where we prayed for the Eternal repose of all persons who have gone before us.

But, at the end of the world there’ll be no Purgatory... only Heaven and Hell.

How blessed we are to be living on this side of Jesus’ Resurrection ...

where we have several written accounts...

by people who actually saw Jesus in His glorified, resurrected Body.

Imagine living back in the Old Testament or even during the days of Judas Maccabees.  What faith they must have had to give their lives for their beliefs in God ... without having the assurance that Jesus gave to all of us ... by rising from the dead.

Let’s relish all the truths of our Catholic faith. For these are the things

that will motivate us to never give up in our walk with the Lord.

Today Paul blesses us with the words,

“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.”

What an essential thing that is … endurance.

Jesus Himself said” “Whoever endures to the end will be saved.”

Jesus has revealed the goal … to be with Him in a glorified body in Heaven.

So contemplate my Professor’s question:    Where’s Gramma?

She’d not here.   That’s just her body in a grave in Chicago. Her soul is with God ... where she awaits the day when her body will be raised and united with her soul

to live forever in Eternal Happiness in Heaven.

And where do you want to be after your earthly life ends?

Where do you want to be 88 Million years from now?

If we follow Jesus and grow in the love of God and neighbor,

we will merit to live with God forever!

     And forever is a very long time.

What a glorious future we have to look forward to ...  

a future that we joyfully declare each time we pray the Apostles Creed and say:

“I believe in the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”

Amen!