FAITH & HOPE, COURAGE IN SUFFERING AND TRUST IN ETERNAL LIFE: 32nd Sunday C

Send us Fan MailBrothers and sisters, the readings today offer faith and hope, courage in suffering, and trust in eternal life. They ask us how far we are willing to go in practicing our faith and to consider what the next life will be like. Our faith teaches us that we are immensely loved by God  who demonstrated this love in the most extraordinary fashion. But how do we respond to this love?In the first reading, the seven brothers and their mother endured tortue and death rather than violate the law. As a response to Gods love, they had to ask themselves a question and it wasn’t  “Do I love God more than I love pork?” Rather, they asked, “Do I love God more than I love life itself?In the Gospel, Jesus affirmed that God “is not a God of the dead, but of the living”. Let's consider for a moment what God has gifted us in this present life: If He has done all these in this life, what must he have in store for us in the next? The answer can merely be summarized in this one word, heaven. In order to attain heaven, we are therefore called to make the most of this brief stint here on earth. To nurture the presence of Christ within ous & make Christ present to others whatever the cost like the brothers and their mother did. Like St Paul in the second reading let us pray for the grace & courage to allow God to perfect his life in us. May we have the endurance of Christ and with his grace endure all the hardship along the way as we match in hope towards the place he has prepared for us in his heavenly kingdom. AMEN Support the show