23 Nov 2024 – Saturday of Week 33

Link to Gerry O’Connor’s homily for tomorrow, Christ the King: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnwkzSyFP_M

Memorial: St Columban (aka Columbanus), born c. 543, monk of Bangor. 591 pilgrimed with 12 companions to Burgundy, established monasteries at Annegray, Luxeil and Fontaine; also founded Bregenz in Austria and his greatest foundation at Bobbio, near Genoa, where he died in 615. One of the GREATEST Irish missionary monks. (Saluting all Columbans today!) 

1st Reading: Revelation 11:4-12

The two prophets were killed as martyrs, possibly Peter and Paul, but are taken up to heaven in glory

I, John, heard a voice saying: “These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner. They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.

When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb; and the inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth.”

After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and those who saw them were terrified. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them.

Responsorial: from Psalm 143

Resp.: Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!

Blessed be the Lord,
my rock who trains my arms for battle,
who prepares my hands for war. (R./)

He is my love, my fortress;
he is my stronghold, my saviour,
my shield, my place of refuge.
He brings peoples under my rule. (R./)

To you, O God, will I sing a new song;
I will play on the ten-stringed lute
to you who give kings their victory,
who set David your servant free. (R./)

Gospel: Luke 20:27-40

Jesus defends belief in the resurrection of the dead

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Belief in the hereafter

During the persecution of the churches in Asia under emperor Domitian in the 90s, the Book of Revelation was written as a call to courage and perseverance in the faith. Its wild and colourful imagery evokes a strong sense of the life beyond this world, where those who have suffered for the message of Christ will have a sure place in glory. In today’s text the two “lampstands” (possibly Peter and Paul) were martyred by the powers of evil (Roman empire) who had also crucified their Lord. But then God returned to them the breath of life and they heard a voice from heaven calling them, “Come up here!” While the language is pure apocalyptic, the meaning is clear, that the souls of the just are in the Lord’s hands.

“At the resurrection, whose wife will she be?” The fable about the woman who had been married successively to seven husbands was posed as a way of mocking belief in the resurrection. But Jesus wrong-foots his critics by deflecting their question, to talk about the quality and nature of life after death. The ultimate answer, for which we may risk everything, even our lives, is known to God alone. Already we sense the promise of life with God, whom Jesus says is “God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”