11th Sunday after Pentecost 16 Aug 2020 Sermon

 

11^th Sunday after Pentecost 16.8.20 Resurrection

We are still in the afterglow of yesterday’s feast of the Assumption, when we celebrated Our Lady’s glorious entry into Heaven.

 That event could also be called Our Lady’s Resurrection, as it was her glorified body which entered Heaven.

The epistle of today’s Mass gives us further occasion to consider our hope of resurrection.

Some have trouble believing in the resurrection because it is not an everyday event – whereas dying is! Funerals, cemeteries, news of people dying – it is around us all the time. But who ever hears of someone rising from the dead?

If we cannot see it happening then maybe it is not real – so says our overly scientific citizen. They have to see it to believe it.

Against which we can say that sense perception is not everything.

There are many things we cannot see but they still exist and act in our world. Not least, Almighty God Himself; or angels and saints; or grace and mercy.

And Resurrection. We do not see it often, but we will see a great deal of it on the Last Day, when every person who has ever lived will be brought back to physical life, reunited with their souls.

We might prefer more direct proof of resurrection but God's wisdom always knows best what to reveal to us.

The way things are arranged, we need faith to believe, and hope to sustain us. We learn to trust God in spite of sense experience.

If God made the world He can control the timing of His interventions and the workings of natural processes. If we believe in God it is not a great leap to believe in the resurrection of the body.

Believing and hoping, we also rejoice that things are heading towards a much happier state than we have now.

And for this life a firm belief in the Resurrection enables us to bear adversity and remain cheerful in all circumstances.

Our faith is not just external observances, but internal concord with all that God intends.

Our unruly flesh comes into submission to our spirits, which in turn submit to the Holy Spirit, making an orderly continuity, with every part in place and acting in unison with each other.

What a strange world where the most enlightened creatures are the most rebellious – namely angels and humans!

It is not wise to go against the One who has put all this in place and promises so much more.

This is what sin amounts to, and it brings death into the world. The wages of sin are death – of which we have seen so much evidence.

Now is the time to leave death behind and discover resurrection instead.

We are preparing for our final resurrection by already seeking union with the Risen One, with God Himself.

We start to rise as soon as we let God influence our minds and hearts.

We do not worry about the delay in time before we see the general resurrection. That delay is to give sinners time to repent, and the righteous time to grow in virtue (cf parable of the Talents, Mt 25,14-30).

The delay in time in no way diminishes the promise.

We experience a glorious liberation in bringing the flesh under control, ending the rebellion within.

Then, better still, eternal life.