Sunday Readings for November 10, 2019.

I enjoy laughing at the clunky way that TV, movies, and other media depicts Catholicism. Sometimes a character or church reflects more of what I find authentic Catholicism to be. More often than not, Catholics on the screen is curmudgeons old priests, crabby nuns, and dusty statues of long dead saints in empty, dark churches. (Some weeks I would prefer this Catholicism to what I experience daily, but I digress.)

I think the reason that this is the way that Catholicism is expressed on the screen is that most people see God as the God of the dead. Religion is for the dead or nearly dead. Religion is old and tired. Saints are literally dusty relics of a long gone era. 

In our gospel this Sunday, when Jesus is confronted with a question about resurrection, he explains that to God all are alive. Our God is a God of the living, not the dead. That those who die with Christ, rise also with him. The purpose of baptism and Christianity is to to inoculate us to death. 

The purpose and good news of belief in Jesus Christ is that he beat death for ever and we can beat death too!
Sometimes we get caught up in all the ways we live that reality out. Certainly we should help others and have good liturgy. We should teach the faith and learn the faith. We should have good community and even better celebrations. But all of that, all that the Church does is to participate in the death beating, life saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. 

The purpose of the Church is make disciples of Jesus so that each and ever soul might be saved and spend eternity with God forever. Nothing short of Life over Death is the whole story. 

LIVE IT: Listen to John Mark McMillan’s song “Death in Reverse.” You have to follow along with the lyrics because they are poetic and hard to understand. It’s one of my favorites and all about Life overcoming Death.