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Sunday,
November 2, 2003 Readings: John
14: 1-6 is part of Jesus’ great parting discourse throughout
chapters 13-17. It consists of three parts: chapters 13-14,
spoken in the house where Jesus founds the new community,
chapters 15-16, pronounced outside the house, where He speaks
of the future mission of the community in the world and chapter
17 where we have Jesus’ final prayer. John 14: 1-6, therefore,
is part of an ecclesiological discourse of Jesus, founding
a new community. We must look at this text within the context
of chapters 13-14. Resurrection
takes us beyond death but not beyond history. In the Father’s
house, where we will all exist as children and brothers and
sisters of Jesus, there are many rooms. This means it is a
large house, with room for all. There is space for all cultures,
peoples, generations and genders. It is a house without exclusions. In
dying Jesus abandons us but by resurrecting comes to take
us to the House of the Father. Death means changing houses.
We are going to a big house where we will all meet. Our own
death and that of others frightens, disturbs and worries us,
but today’s gospel gives us a new view of death as an encounter
in the house of the Father. We will overcome our fear of death
if we place our trust in Jesus and in God. The
second reading of today’s liturgy is the hymn to God’s love,
which ends chapter 8 of the letter to the Romans (8: 31-39).
Here the author poses several questions: Who could be against
us? Who will accuse us? Who will condemn us? Who can separate
us from the Love of God manifested in Christ? The answer is
without question: no one and nothing. This assurance comes
from our faithfulness to the Spirit, which makes us move from
death to life. The other option is faithfulness to the law.
Those who place their trust in the law (in any law: of the
market, contracts or private property) will not be able to
prevent the passage from life to death. Those who absolutize
the Law end up sacrificing life to honor the law. Faithfulness
to the Spirit opens us up to the Love of God and God’s Love
in us is indestructible. There is no human or transcendent
situation that can separate us from this Love of God. Neither
suffering nor death, neither angels nor powers, neither the
heights nor the depths can separate us from the Love of God.
That is why we can face death with assurance and trust. Faithfulness
to the Spirit guides our lives unequivocally towards Life,
even beyond death Faith
in the Resurrection is what gives meaning to prayer for the
deceased. This is what today’s first reading shows us: 2 M
12: 43-46. We are not really praying for the dead but for
those who have already achieved the plenitude of Life. In
our prayer today we show our faith in Jesus as the Way, Truth
and Life, that Freedom and faithfulness to the Spirit allows
us to move from death to Life and that nothing and no one
can separate us from the Love of God that has manifested itself
in Christ. Words that should
be with us throughout the day:
What a joy to
live this day, we and our departed, in the house of the Father
where there are many rooms…Our loved ones are in that house,
and we are all there also in the Spirit. Death
is the most serious reality of life. Living is to move inevitably
towards death. Is death, the fact of my future death, close
or distant, uncertain at any rate, a reality I keep in mind?
Or am I one of those who never think about it and do not make
this real dimension of their existence part of their daily
lives? For
the Group’s Consideration Read and comment
on these two thoughts:
For
the Prayer of the Faithful
For
the Community Prayer Eternal
God, limitless Mystery, creative Force, without beginning
or end, hidden Wisdom: Teach us to count our years, so we
may acquire a sensible heart and help us to feel, in faith,
the spiritual presence of our brothers and sisters, who have
gone before us in existence and in love. You who live and
make us live, forever and ever. Amen. |
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