Spiritual Zombies

First Reading:  2 MC 7:1-2, 9-14

It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law.  One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said: “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us?  We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”

At the point of death he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.  It is for his laws that we are dying.”

After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man's courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way.

When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”

Responsorial Psalm: PS 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15

Second Reading: 2 THES 2:16-3:5

Brothers and sisters:

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may speed forward and be glorified, as it did among you, and that we may be delivered from perverse and wicked people, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.  We are confident of you in the Lord that what we instruct you, you are doing and will continue to do.  May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ.

Reflection: LK 20:27-38

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us,

If someone's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless.

Finally the woman also died.  Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?

For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.

That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out ‘Lord,’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Reflection 
By Carlo Alexis Malaluan

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive (Lk 20:38). 

Years ago, my grandfather died of cardiac arrest. To be honest, it was my first time to see someone in our family fighting for his life in the clutches of death. ‘He’s dead. He is no longer with us. He’s gone.’ Those were the words my grandmother, widowed by the passing of his husband, kept repeating. She was engulfed with great sorrow and grief. I hugged her tight and said, No, ‘nay. He is not dead. He is alive…with God! Death is an inevitable part of our human nature. Death is the result of our weakness and frailties, of our sins and transgressions. We can say that death marks the end of our earthly pilgrimage, but I dare to say, not all living is alive.

There is a popular trend in the film industry nowadays which highlights the existence of zombies, they are living persons who continue to exist, walk and feed but are technically considered dead. But this is not only confided in the corners of the showbiz industry rather it is also relevant in our Christian life. Let us reflect and look within. Are we truly alive or are we ‘spiritual zombies’? In today’s Gospel, Our Lord was confronted by the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection. For them, the written law is the basis of their lives that they miss the very essence of the life itself. They are like zombies; they continue to exist but are not totally alive.

Resurrection on the other hand is the prize of redemption. It is the result of God’s unfailing and unending mercy and compassion for the ailing humanity. Jesus reprimanded the Sadducees’ insincere query and told them that Resurrection is not for everyone but for ‘those judged worthy of a place in the age to come’. We are all going to die. Fact. But not all of us is worthy of Resurrection.

Now you ask me, what does it take to be truly alive? The only answer is to love. God is Love. This is what Saint John the Evangelist tells us in one of his letters. And if we are truly Children of the Living God, it means we are also children of love and mercy. God commanded us to love one another. When we fail to help someone who is knocking at the doors of our hearts, asking for a simple thing from our enormous ‘storage room’, we let our souls to die. When we fail to be merciful to others, we let our hearts to die. But if we do random, good, and noble things especially to those persons who cannot repay us back, we are truly alive. If we can love the unlovable, the neglected, the sorrowful, the broken – we are truly alive. Let me end my reflection by these words of the poor man from Assisi: "In giving we are receiving and in dying we are born into Eternal life".

Prayer

Lord, the Fountain of Life, grant us the grace to become fully alive. Grant us the grace to give our lives in the service of others that by doing so, we are partaking into Your resurrection. Lord, allow us to embrace the life You have given unto us and help us to bring others to the fullness of life that someday we may be together in Your kingdom in heaven. Amen.