the gift of death and the hope of the resurrection - 32nd Sunday C 2013

There was some debate which raged in Facebook recently about celebrating Halloween with ugly masks and horrible makeup.  But since I joined Facebook with the sole purpose of updating myself as to what is happening around, I just listened and read comments as they came which turned quite nasty at some point.  But this is my two cents worth opinion.  Every culture in the world has its share of ghosts and ghost stories.  I for one thought that white ladies are residents of Iloilo or at least the Philippines until I saw in Discovery Channel that they also have a white lady in Vietnam and Thailand.  This preoccupation with Aswang I believe comes from our innate struggle to understand or even to find a solution on the problem of death, to come to terms with death.  Since day one in the womb of our mothers there has always been a preoccupation to survive, to want to hold on to life, to want to live as long as it takes.  Nevertheless someway, somehow we will definitely meet the way of all mankind in our own time, in our own death.  For as long as we could not come into terms with our mortality, for as long as we could not accept the inevitability of death and dying and for as long as we are unresolved in our understanding as to what lies beyond death and dying, we will always have a Halloween, the fear of death, the fear of what lies after death.

And yet, despite the fear of death, and despite the desire to go on and live forever, we also feel deep inside us that we do not also want to live like this forever, that this is not the kind of life we would want to live in eternity.  Kon kaisa may mga hambalanon kita nga nagasiling hay kasurumpaan man ni nga kabuhi man.  There are even other expressions which I could not mention because this is a holy mass.  But it is clear, we want to live forever, but definitely this is not the kind of life I want to live forever with.

And here comes the solution of Jesus, two things - death and resurrection.

Last November 2 I told some people in my homily that death is an ally, death is a friend, death is a gift from God. I can see in their faces that they don’t want to believe me.  But this inspiration comes from St. Ambrose who said, death is not just a consequence of sin, in fact, it is “a remedy to sin.” 

In the Our Father we pray, deliver us from evil.  When we are alive it could mean free me from this particular temptation, from this particular desire, from this particular bad habit, free me from my anger, from my lust, free me from that which could harm my body and soul because there is evil in the world.  But this prayer receives its final and definite answer when we die, for when we die all evil cease.  When we die there is no longer any longing because all hope will be fulfilled.  There will be no more sickness, no more injustice in the world, no more evil men, no more situations that make us helpless and hopeless. 

When we die there is no more faith for we shall see God as he is.  When we die there will be no more imperfections for our brokenness will be made whole, our lack will be supplied, our questions will be answered, our doubts will be turned into trust.  In the end all that will remain in us is love.

Death is a remedy, it is the only way God can free us from all evil.  When we die evil can no longer touch our souls and our souls will return to God and from God it will be reunited with our bodies and our bodies will be freed from the evil of corruption and we will rise again, no longer bound by the human conventions of who married whom and who is wife to whom.  And then finally, we will live forever.  The courage of the seven brothers comes from this faith in the resurrection.

P.S. - there are only two human persons who resurrected, so far – Jesus and Mary.  When Jesus was resurrected his disciples did not know him immediately for he was “completely changed in appearance” though he retained the nail marks in his hands and feet.  When Mary appeared, even the little children in Lourdes and Fatima would describe her as a very beautiful woman.  That is the excitement of the resurrection – our bodies will be filled with beauty.