32d Sunday of Ordinary Time
Nov. 6, 2016
2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14
Holy Cross, Champaign, Ill.
“The
King of the world will raise us up to live again forever” (2 Macc 7: 9).
A
Greek kingdom based in Antioch of Syria—now the city of Antakya, Turkey—ruled
the Jewish people from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., when his
generals divided his empire among themselves, until the Jews revolted against
their Greek masters in the mid-160s B.C.
The reason for their rebellion was a vicious religious persecution
initiated under the Greek King Antiochus IV, the villain in the story in our
1st reading this morning/evening. That
persecution and the Jewish fight for freedom under the leadership of Judas
Maccabeus and his brothers are the topics of the 1st and 2d books of Maccabees
in the OT, and it’s the Jewish triumph that’s celebrated annually with the
feast of Hanukkah in December.
The
1st reading consists of just 8 verses out an entire chapter—41
verses—describing the gruesome martyrdom of 7 brothers and their mother on
account of their refusal to violate the Torah, the Law of Moses. As you heard from the words of 2 of the
brothers, they stood firm because they believed in the resurrection of the
dead, in everlasting reward or punishment beyond this life according to how one
has lived in this life, reward or punishment to be experienced in our whole
person, body and soul.
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Martyrdom of the 7 Brothers
(source unknown)
|
So
we see that by the 2d century B.C. many Jews had come to believe in the
resurrection of the dead as God’s ultimate plan for humanity. In our Lord’s time that belief was widespread
but not universal. The Pharisees
embraced the teaching, while the Sadducees, who accepted as sacred Scripture
only the Torah (the 1st 5 books of the OT), did not. Hence the controversy in today’s gospel
reading, and Jesus’ quotation to them precisely from Exodus, the 2d book of the
OT.
Every
Sunday and feast when we renew our profession of faith, we say, “I look forward
to the resurrection of dead and the life of the world to come,” as a
fundamental truth of our Christian faith.
It’s
true that human reason by itself—without divine revelation—may come to the
conclusion that there must be some kind of afterlife, some kind of immortality,
for human beings. If God is just—which
most religions believe he is—and if an awful lot of injustice is never set
right in this world—victims restored to their health or prosperity or
happiness, and the evil punished—then divine justice requires that the balance
be set right in eternity.
In
itself, that philosophical position doesn’t require belief in bodily
resurrection. The Greeks, e.g., believed
that a person’s true self was the soul, the spirit; bodily death was a
liberation. You may recall that when St.
Paul preached the resurrection of Jesus to the wise men of Athens, they laughed
at him (Act 17:22-34).
But
our biblical faith reveals to us that when God created humanity “in his own
image,” he created us as embodied persons.
Our selves, who we are, must include our whole being, both body and
soul. A disembodied soul isn’t a whole
person and so can’t be considered a redeemed person. When we profess that Jesus has redeemed us,
we profess that he has redeemed us entirely and fully restored God’s image in
us. Not that God has a body—not until God
the Son took on a human body at the moment of his incarnation, his “enfleshment.” That human flesh has been raised from the
tomb, so that now it does provide for humanity an image of God in the flesh, an
image of what we shall be when, as we
look forward to, we shall be raised from our graves on the Last Day, when Jesus
the King of the world returns in his glory to judge the living and the dead, to
restore the balance of justice for every human being.
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| The Triumph of Christianity (Gustave Dore') |
If
our bodies are destined for resurrection and for the fullness of life with
Christ; if our bodies are part of our being images of God—then we treat our
bodies with utmost respect. That’s why
we bring the bodies of the dead into church for funeral rites, why we honor
them with incense, why we bless the graves into which we’ll inter them. The Holy See has just reminded us of this in
a document published on Oct. 25, called Ad resurgendum cum Christo
(“On Rising with Christ”), which is reported in this week’s Catholic Post.
Presenting
that document to the public, Cardinal Gerhard Müller reminded us: “Caring for the bodies of the deceased, the
Church confirms its faith in the resurrection and separates itself from
attitudes and rites that see in death the definitive obliteration of the
person, a stage in the process of reincarnation, or the fusion of one’s soul
with the universe.” The Vatican
instruction says that the deceased should be buried in a marked grave or the
cremains put into a mausoleum or columbarium marked with the person’s
name. One reporter put out this summary
of one part of the instruction: “Loved
ones belong in a cemetery, not on a coffee table . . . . nor should human
remains be turned into jewelry. People—even dead people—are not pendants. The instruction denies burial rites for those
who ‘requested cremation and the scattering of ashes for reasons contrary to
the Christian faith’ (8).”[1]
Cardinal
Müller explained, “A human cadaver is not trash,” and an anonymous burial or
scattering someone’s ashes “is not compatible with Christian faith. The name, the person, the concrete identity
of the person” is important because God created each individual and calls each
individual by name to himself.
At
the same time, the cardinal also commented, labeling a grave or tomb or urn in
a public place is an expression of belief in the communion of saints, the
unending unity in Christ of all the baptized, both living and dead (which is another
component of our Creed, as you know).
Let
me add that this latest Church document instructs us about what should ordinarily be done with the mortal
remains of our loved ones and fellow believers.
It doesn’t discuss exceptional cases like war, natural disasters,
burials at sea, or bodies completely obliterated by some kind of horror like
Hiroshima or the Twin Towers. After the
10 o’clock Mass, I was asked about giving one’s body for medical research. The instruction doesn’t address that
question, but it has long been considered a legitimate, charitable action. A Salesian sister whom I knew did just that
about 10 years ago. I think the
presumption there is that the remains will be respectfully taken care of; e.g.,
after its medical study, sister’s body was returned to the FMAs for burial in
their cemetery.
The
instruction reminds us: “From the earliest times, Christians have desired that the
faithful departed become the objects of the Christian community’s prayers and
remembrance. Their tombs have become places of prayer, remembrance, and
reflection.” (n. 5) The Church
prefers burial or entombment of the faithful (n. 4); cremation is permitted,
provided that the ashes are treated with the same respect as is due the body (n.
5); and that our treatment of the remains of the dead reflects our belief in
our ultimate destiny, which is to rise with Christ and live forever with him,
as he lives bodily and, we Catholics believe, his Virgin Mother also lives,
having been taken up bodily into heaven already in anticipation of the general
resurrection to which the rest of us look forward with eager hope, for then our
redemption by our Lord Jesus will be complete—provided only that, like the 7
brothers and their mother in 2 Maccabees, we have done our best to be faithful
to the God who has called us by name to be his own.
[1]
John M. Grondelski, “Vatican Issues a Timely Reminder on Cremation,”
National Catholic Register, Oct. 29,
2016 online:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/vatican-issues-a-timely-reminder-on-cremation.
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