St. Maria Goretti

Today’s Gospel brings up a question that all of us wonder about from time. And I suppose it’s a question that we think more about, the older we get. And the question is “What is it going to be like after we die?” I mean, all we know is this world. What is that world to come going to be like? What are we going to be like without our bodies? What happens to us, after we die? I think we’re all going to be surprised.

Last winter, you may have read the story about a man from Seattle who went to Miami Beach for a vacation. After a brutal winter in the Pacific Northwest, the man was supposed to meet his wife there, at the conclusion of her business trip. They were both looking forward to pleasant weather and a nice time together. Unfortunately, there was some sort of mix up at the boarding gate, and the man was told that he would have to take a later flight. He tried to appeal to a supervisor, but was told the airline was not responsible for the problem and it would do no good to complain. When he finally did arrive at the hotel the next day, he discovered that Miami was having a heat wave, and it weather was almost as uncomfortably hot as Seattle had been cold. The hotel desk clerk gave him a message that his wife would arrive the next day, as planned. The man couldn’t wait to get to the pool area to cool off, and quickly sent his wife an E-mail, but in his haste, he made a mistake in the E-mail address. His message therefore arrived at the home of an elderly preacher’s wife, whose even older husband had just died only the day before. When the grieving widow opened her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out an anguished scream, and fell to the floor dead. Her family rushed to her room, where they saw this message on the computer screen:

“DEAREST WIFE, DEPARTED YESTERDAY AS YOU KNOW. JUST NOW GOT CHECKED

IN. SOME CONFUSION AT THE GATE. APPEAL WAS DENIED. RECEIVED

CONFIRMATION OF YOUR ARRIVAL TOMORROW. YOUR LOVING HUSBAND.

P.S. - THINGS HERE ARE NOT WHAT WE THOUGHT. YOU’RE GOING TO BE

SURPRISED AT HOW HOT IT IS DOWN HERE.”

There you go. Another good reason NOT to trust e-mail.

Very probably, a lot of us are going to be surprised when we die. Jesus describes for us today that things will be very different. He’s talking today to the Sadducees, these Jewish theologians who do NOT believe in life after death. And His discussion with them, give us one of Jesus’ own best descriptions of what life is going to be like, after we die. He says that we will be like the angels. We won’t be married or given in marriage. We will be children of God. And we will no longer die. In short, it will be a whole new world. Jesus reminds us that we need to be getting ready for that world that last forever, right now. For those who really follow Christ with their whole lives, our deaths and our transitions to Jesus’ Kingdom will be much less dramatic. For those of us living lives centered on God, it will be very easy. Dying will be a going home. And when we get there, we will feel more at home there, than what we do in this world. And yet, if we are living only for this world, we’ve got a big surprise coming! The message is clear. We must be preparing ourselves for that day when we die.

As we come to the end of our liturgical year and as we continue to remember the dead during the month of November, the Church is bombarding us with warnings about death and our leaving this world. It is time for us to think about these things. Time is running out for all of us. It’s time for us to think about where we are going. Thanks to Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid. But we do have to be prepared. The Gospel is right in reminding us that our God is the God of the Living, and NOT the God of the Dead. God wants us to live with Him forever. Our God has done every thing that He can to make sure that that happens. Have you done everything that you can, to make sure that that happens? We know where we are going. All we have to do is get there.

God bless us this weekend, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti …Pray for us !!!