Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
The Church has for its first reading for Mass on this weekend a section from the Second Book of Maccabees.
Maccabees, First or Second, rarely appears as a reading at Mass. These books are late in the formation of the Scriptures as we now have them. They date from a period only two centuries before Christ, describing a very dark period in the history of God’s people.
When Alexander the Great—who had conquered so much of the present-day Middle East—died, his generals scrambled to succeed him. One of them, Ptolomy, became the pharaoh of Egypt. Another of them, Seleucus, became king of Syria.
A successor of Seleucus, Antiochus IV, believed himself to be divine. He demanded that his subjects, including the Jews, worship him. Anyone who refused this demand paid dearly. This weekend’s reading vividly reports the penalty Antiochus reserved for those who denied that he was a god.
Maccabees I and II were written about martyrs who defied Antiochus. These two books lionize the pious Jewish martyrs who refused to forsake the one God of Israel.
Heroism, therefore, is one lesson. Another is about the afterlife, which is mentioned as a reward for holy living on Earth. The afterlife as a doctrine was not very refined in the more ancient Hebrew writings. Maccabees expands the notion.
St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians provides the second reading. This work, too, was written when times were hard for true believers. The epistle is challenging but encouraging.
Regardless of whatever may lie ahead, Paul insists that disciples must hold firm to their bond with the Lord. Times may be bad, even terrifying, but God will be victorious!
St. Luke’s Gospel, the source of the last reading, continues the theme of the afterlife. Its message is clear. Those faithful to God in this life will live with him, triumphantly and eternally, in the next life.
This reading also says that the ways of God are beyond our experience and our understanding. We are humans, nothing less but nothing more. We are nothing less in that we can decide to live in such a way that we receive as God’s gift eternal life itself. We are nothing more in that we need God.
Reflection
On Nov. 11, our country will celebrate Veterans Day, which began as a commemoration of the day in 1918 when Germany and its allies surrendered and the First World War ended.
No war has been fought without great suffering and death. World War I, however, was new to human experience in the untold number of human lives that it took. Hundreds of thousands lost their lives on battlefields or in bombing raids, which were new to warfare. Millions of others starved, were maimed or died of disease.
Today, historians look back upon this tragic time and wonder why it all happened. It happened because of human bad judgment, human greed and disregard for human life. Humans can make life bad for themselves and for others, especially when they ignore or disobey God.
Evidence of this same reality is seen in the story of the Maccabees. The mighty Antiochus brought death and anguish. In the end, however, the just triumphed, not the king. We celebrate the Maccabees. For the Thessalonians, imperial Rome brought terror and agony. The just triumphed. We honor them today. Imperial Rome is gone.
These readings remind us again that peace, justice and security come only when humans respect God. They also warn us of the allurements that so often drive humans to hurt themselves and others inevitably will pass away.
Without God, we are doomed, condemned by our own human inadequacies. Again and again in history, we find proof of this fact. †