In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, Jesus says that God is “not God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38). You might think that’s a pretty obvious statement. But it has profound implications for how we live as Christians because this reality underlies something at the heart of Catholic teaching—the Communion of the Saints.

The saints, those who have died and gone before us in faith, remain connected to us through Jesus Christ. They aren’t detached spirits floating about in some mystical realm but fellow members of Christ’s body who remain deeply concerned about God’s plan for salvation here on earth. They have been through the same struggles we have and they now stand before God’s throne in heaven, cheering us on as we live out our lives and missions here on earth. They are alive in the body of Christ, just as we are.

Because they are alive in Christ, we can ask them to pray for us and intercede for us. This is our basic understanding of the Communion of Saints—through Jesus, we are all “in communion” with each other. We can ask the saints, as our brothers and sisters in heaven, to lift us up to our God and intercede on our behalf. The readings for today reaffirm that belief by reminding us that God is indeed the God of the living—those of us still on earth as well as those who now live directly in the Divine Presence.

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There’s certainly not a hint of complacency in 2 Maccabees. The oft-noted influence of persecution may account for some of the fierce resistance to idolatry that this Jewish woman and her seven sons show to the decrees of Anitiochus IV Epiphanes, the Hellenic king. During his reign, the Temple in Jerusalem was turned into a temple to Zeus and pigs were sacrificed on its altars. Ritual prostitution was also conducted in the courts of the Temple of God. The insult to Jewish sensibilities was far more than what would be ordinary to a foreign occupation. Anitiochus had profaned the holiest spot in the world!

In the several centuries before the coming of Christ, idolatry, polygamy, and other violations of God’s plan for Israel had become very rare in what seems to have been a real growth in the collective spiritual maturity of the Jewish people. That could’ve been a response to the loss of national sovereignty, but many centuries of meditating on God’s Word and deeds may have matured God’s people to the point that some were willing to die for the one who would eventually come and die for them.

 

St. Paul speaks of an “everlasting encouragement and good hope” granted to the Thessalonians by God; confident that these will “strengthen them in every good deed and word.” And indeed, the infant Church will, before very long, be tested in many places in just the same way as the Jews were in the time of the Maccabees.

In every age there are “perverse and wicked people” who oppose God’s work and the people who do it. To carry on that work, constancy in faith and confident hope are essential. Without the belief that God will strengthen and guard us “from the evil one,” it would be impossible to persevere in the Christian apostolate. St. Paul’s short exhortation here can be just the thing to revive us; even when it’s only the little pressures of our daily walk in faith that oppress us.

 

The Sadducees were a party of uncertain origin. Although they had clear religious affiliations, they might best be described as cultural Jews. They were disinterested in devotional Judaism but wanted to maintain their social status as leaders in the Jewish community. They were extreme religious conservatives in the sense that they denied the canonical character of everything in the Hebrew Scriptures except the first five books called the Torah or Pentateuch.

Although Jesus’ teaching would’ve been far from the materialist doctrine of the Sadducees, he meets their criteria for valid argument by only referring to the Mosaic text in proving the immortality of the soul. Jesus overcomes what the Sadducees would’ve thought of as an unanswerable objection to the belief in the afterlife. The fallacy in the Sadducees’ position is that life after death must be entirely different from life here. One of the aims of marriage is the propagation of the species. But, if there’s no more death, there would be no further need for propagation either. Extinction is no longer a possibility in an eternal life and so the marital relationship would be drastically altered.

 

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Mediation

In today’s readings, we reflect on the fact that God is the God of the living, and therefore, we can have a special connection with the saints who are spiritually alive with God in heaven. Who are some of your favorite saints?

The Church is not just those of us who are living now here on earth, but all those believers who have gone before us and are now in heaven, the Communion of Saints. These saints, both those with a capital “S” who are officially recognized by the Church and those with a small “s” like when we sing “When the saints go marching in,” are part of this greater Communion of Saints.

How does the idea that there are “fellow pilgrims” in heaven interceding with the Father on your behalf make living a holy life easier? How can the realization that the Father listens to the pleas of the saints enable you to have greater trust that you do not have to “do it alone,” but have a whole group of “cheerleaders” to assist?

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Opening the Word offers prayers and insights for the Sunday Scriptural lessons. Watch the video presentation that accompanies this reflection FREE at  Formed.org.