32nd Sunday Year C - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2013

Let’s reflect on today’s Gospel … Sadducees had no sense of life after death, no belief in resurrection – which they saw as new-fangled ideas. Moses had said nothing about it – so that was that!  Yet the thought of death haunted them a bit – all over? finished? Their way of cheating death was to have their name, their memory, their wealth, continued through their children. Descendants were everything. For these people, marriage was all about children, begetting them, forming them, continuing, through them, the memories and the traditions. Unlike them, a lot of other Jews had begun to believe in life after death, resurrected life after death. So there were disagreements and arguments.

Jesus’ contribution was simple: Moses had, in fact, spoken about life after death – but the Sadducees had not noticed it. Once, when speaking to Moses, God had identified himself by saying: “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob”.  He didn’t say: ‘I used to be’ …  but “I am.  I still am”. So, if God is still their God, still their friend, then necessarily they are somehow still alive. As Jesus said, “God is God not of the dead but of the living.” And then went on to add: “To God everyone is in fact alive.” I’m alive. Mum’s alive; Dad’s alive. My priest friend, Frank, who died two weeks ago is alive. As far as God is concerned, they are as alive as they ever were.

During November, we have the wonderful tradition of praying for the dead. Mind you, we have about as much concept of life after death as an unborn child might have of life after birth, of life outside the familiar, warm, comfortable [even if getting ever more cramped] womb. But some ideas are more helpful than others. We can imagine it as young children might imagine it; or as adolescents might; or as people who have never been in love might … but the most helpful view is the more mature view, which organises life from the standpoint of personal relationship and of love. Adolescents are concerned about fitting reward and punishment. People who love find meaning in acceptance and in forgiveness. God relates [at the least!] as one who loves. As Jesus said, “I call you friends”. After his crucifixion, and the disciples’ defection and denial, he kept on calling them “brothers” and wishing them “Peace!”. People who have learnt to love can do that. People who have learnt to love want to do that.

What is Purgatory about? I think of it as the ‘Finishing School’ in loving. I hope that is what it is it, because, by the time I die, I shall still be far, far short of my full potential to love. Why don’t I love? more? Basically, I suppose, it is because it hurts. As Jesus once put it, I have to die to myself, to my self-absorption, to my desperate sense of self-importance, to my constant self-judgment, my inertia… my fear of getting too close, of being too vulnerable; but I hope I get the chance to continue working at it after death. We are not able to grow in love in isolation. There will have to be others there – ones easy to love and others harder to love. But they will all be trying the same thing. We shall be doing it together.

I do not believe any more that there are “abandoned souls in Purgatory” – certainly not abandoned by God, or by Jesus who died for them, or by the others there with them. That is what the Communion of Saints is about. Nor are they helpless or paralysed, waiting for God to intervene independently of them and make them able to love fully [which is what heaven surely is], in a flash, without cooperation on their part. Still, when others love us, they help us to love. That is where our prayers for the dead fit in. They are our acts of love, our reaching out in love. Good for them! Good for us!