First Reading
2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
1. Who are “resurrection people” for you? Jesus, of course. Archbishop Romero? All the martyrs in El Salvador? Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85 yr. old French priest, killed by ISIS on 7/26/16? The ones who died to bring social justice to their country like Rev. Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta of southern Mexico, whose death is one of the latest in a series of abductions, attacks and highway robberies against Roman Catholic clerics in the state which is dominated by drug cartels? Who else?
2. What are some burdensome earthly trials besides martyrdom that people might be able to endure because of the hope of the resurrection? What suffering could such hope allow you to endure?
Second Reading
2 Thessalonians 2:6-3:5
1. Does Paul pray that his ministry and that of his friends speeds forward or that the Word of the Lord does the same through their efforts? Discuss. What is the difference?
2. Are you saving the world in your ministry? Are you part of God’s plan to save the world? How might this happen?
Gospel
Luke 20:27-38
1. When you encounter Christ in the Sacraments, in your fellow human beings, in community, might you get a taste of eternity? If God is love, when you experience real love might you get a taste of the risen life?
2. The Sadducees thought the present life was the standard for eternity. What does Pope Francis say God has in store for us, that turns the Sadduccees’ way of looking at eternity on its head?
This is why Jesus affirms: “he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: for all live to him” (Luke 20:38). And the most important tie is with Jesus: he is the alliance, he is the Life and the Resurrection, because with his crucified love he defeated death. In Jesus God gives us eternal life: he gives it to everyone, and everyone can, thanks to him, hope to live a life even more real than this one. The life that God has in store for us is not simply a better version of this one: it goes beyond our imagination, because God continually surprises us with His love and mercy.
