“Hope Full Of Immortality”

November 2: Feast of All Souls

Wisdom 3:1-9; Psalm 27:1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 13-14; Romans 5:5-11; Matthew 11:25-30

Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time:

Malachi 1:14-2:2,8-10; Psalm 131:1, 2, 3; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9, 13; Matthew 23:1-12

Click here for the complete text of today’s readings.

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship?

(To support  Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life ... Step Five )

“Hope Full Of Immortality”

“I believe that I shall see” (Psalm 27:3).

We are “stewards of the truth” about life and death. Our life is something we all have “from one father. One God created us all. Why then are we faithless to one another?” (Malachi 2:10). Death appears to be “an affliction, utter destruction.” But it isn’t. The dead are alive and “in peace.” And “the Lord will be King forever” (Wisdom 3:2).

We are stewards of this truth, “hidden from the learned” (Matthew 11:25). We are the “little ones” charged to make what we know about death the foundation for life—our own and that of our society. We who “believe we shall see good things in the land of the living” need to make living in this land a preview of them.

We know this “hope does not disappoint” because we taste its fulfillment now in “the love of God poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). This love impels us to “live it and give it.” It becomes most visible when “the greatest among us is the one who serves the rest” (Matthew 23:10).

For Christians, life is a “yoke.” We have to pull our weight. But it is “easy.” And although we carry the “burden” of inevitable death, it is “light.”  In life and death, Jesus says, “Come to me!” (Matthew 11:25).

PRAY: “Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit; now and forever.”

PRACTICE: Live to die; die to live.