--- title: Daily Readings Reflection for 11/07/10 description: Daily Readings Reflection for 11/07/10 --- [![catholic-mom-logo-v2](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/images/catholic-mom-logo-v2.svg "catholic-mom-logo-v2")](https://www.catholicmom.com/) [![facebook](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/icons/social-icon-facebook.svg)](http://www.facebook.com/CatholicMomCommunity) [![twitter](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/icons/social-icon-twitter.svg)](http://twitter.com/CatholicMomCom) [![instagram](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/icons/social-icon-instagram.svg)](http://instagram.com/catholicmomcommunity) [![youtube](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/icons/social-icon-youtube.svg)](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAuUqHCVPDzyMgSMaMZxxug?view_as=subscriber) [![search-icon](https://www.catholicmom.com/hubfs/_catholicmom/icons/search-icon.svg)](https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/2010/11/07/daily-readings-reflection-for-110710#) # Daily Readings Reflection for 11/07/10 Nov 7, 2010 1:00:16 PM  |  by [Guest](https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/author/guest) **Reflection on Today’s Daily Readings by Fr. Bertrand Buby, SM ** [Today’s Readings](http://www.usccb.org/nab/) Scripture: Lectionary 157. 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14. Psalm 17:1.5-6.8.15. II Thessalonians 2:16-3:5. Luke 20:37-38. Two themes mesh today in our liturgical readings: eternal life through the mystery of rising from the dead which is seen in our first reading and in the Gospel. The other theme is common to the epistles of Paul and it supports the first theme since it is the dynamism of the living word of God that endures forever. II Maccabees chapter seven contains the whole account of the martyrdom of this Israelite woman with her seven sons. We have the words of the first four sons in this selection from the Septuagint, therefore, II Maccabees is a deutero-canonical writing that is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures nor accepted into the inspired scriptures by Protestants who follow the Hebrew canon. This book was used by Greek speaking Jews about 150 years before Jesus was born and it witnesses to life after to death and even to praying and offering sacrifices for the dead in I Maccabees, therefore, is used in our teaching about purgatory. Catholics accept the divine inspired nature of these books among the seven that are called deutero-canonical, that is, a second "canon or rule" for divinely inspired scripture. It is in every Catholic Bible. Now that the apocrypha and pseudoepigrapha are being more and more researched these books take on added value for those who are not Catholic. II Maccabees is a power-filled drama of the mother of seven sons who are facing execution because of their fidelity to observing the ritual law of not eating pork either as a sacrificial offering to a god of the executioners or simply not eating it because it is forbidden. They will die because of their faithful observance of the ritual law. They are able to make the sacrifice of their lives for the first four explain how they are convinced of a far greater after-life than the present one. They believe firmly in bodily resurrection. The first four sons will explicitly state their faith and their belief from different perspectives. The mother too will be martyred seven times through their death and then put to death. They demonstrate their holiness or righteousness by this act of courage for their faith believing that their death is the key to eternal life. Jesus is confronted by the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection. They adhere only to the Torah and its laws but do not read it as Jesus would who gives us the deeper spiritual interpretation whenever he is accepting their confrontation as a challenge. He always wins his case in the New Testament Gospels, but he also will be put to death dies because of his convictions and way of living out the word of God. The confronters use an absurd example of a woman who loses her husband and then according to the levirate obligation for the next of kin takes her as wife; this continues with the rest of the clan till she has married seven of them! Jesus sees through their weak example that they are making fun of him and his teaching. He then goes on to show them what Pharisees and he believe about the after-lfe--no marrying but a different level of existence far superior to the fragile limits of our life here on earth. This example of the Sadducees is a far cry from the excellent example of the first reading where the mother has seven sons martyred and not the death of seven husbands. She is convinced of the resurrection; the Sadducees are only convinced of their clever but faulty argumentation. Jesus trumps them. After this life we are compared to heavenly beings called angels or are the "children of God" no longer sons or daughters of humanity. The Patriarchs of our faith are considered to be alive and well in the presence of God. Luke and John both bring this out. They are among those who are intimately connected to the presence of God and are his saints and friends. Their bodies have been transformed into a higher state of being and living. Jesus himself will attest to the resurrected body that is his after his suffering and death. Again, we call to mind the wonderful insight of Fr. Brown who says,"It is disturbing to hear from Catholics the facile claim 'My faith in the Resurrection would not be disturbed if Christ's body were found in Palestine.' Much more to the point is whether the faith of the Eleven would have been shaken by such a discovery." Many Christians have doubts about the bodily resurrection. They may follow the philosophical position that sees afterlife as the immortality of the soul without bodily resurrection. This is a Greek philosophical reasoning and not similar to what the mother of the seven sons is attesting to through her children. Nor is it what the Gospels are saying about the Risen One. Paul adds strength to the resurrection narrative in his own way of explaining it to the Corinthians in his first letter to them in chapter fifteen. Thomas Aquinas reasons to the absolute uniqueness of each individual person that comes about through their body (matter) and soul (form) being united and made in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:27). Fr. Roland Faley, T.O.R. in his homiletical interpretation for the Sunday readings comments on our passage from Luke with these remarkable words: What we do know about our future life with God is that it is not only superior to the present life, it is also vastly different. Discussion about that difference is not particularly fruitful. Paul himself found discussion about the resurrected body of little profit. It is as different from the present body, he said, as the full grown plant is from the seed that produces it. The central joy of heaven is life in and with God with no fear of loss. There is the further belief, rejected in II Thessalonians, that we will be reunited with those who have gone before us. And while it may be said that there is considerable discussion about what it will be like, there is no discussion about the basic fact. Eternal life is a gospel given,a New Testament datum. Yes, there are moments when many of us have doubts. And there is nothing unusual about that. With Paul we simply pray to be strengthened, with the firm conviction that the God who is faithful will bring us home." (Footprints on the Mountain, p.724). 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