All Souls Day - November 2, 2019
Wisdom 3:1-9; Romans 5: 5-11; Luke 7:11-17
What does it mean to be a Christian, especially today? What is the difference you find in your life as a Christian, from a life lived by one of your friends, supposedly a non Christian! What is the difference between a Christian and an unchristian outlook on anything?
It is hope. It is hope that makes us see a possibility even in the worst of our daily problems. Hope gives one the serenity and tranquility to approach every day problems with grace. Can anyone in this life claim that he or she has absolutely no problem? There are just two kinds of people: those who approach their problems with positivity and those with negativity - naturally Christians have to be in the former category by all means.
Speaking of problems... one big unsolved question for the whole humanity is how to understand the end of life and beyond. For a Christian, life is changed, not ended, says the preface of the Mass for the dead. Jesus' resurrection fills us with hope and that hope does not disappoint us. The hope is towards eternal life, it is the eternal destination that characterises the culmination of this journey on earth.
Death is just the horizon beyond which we are not able to see what really exists; for if we see, there is no more place for hope (Rom 8:24). All that we see is the Risen Lord, who lives with us and lights our path. And in the Risen Lord is our hope. We hope to see every one of our brothers and sisters gone before us, united in the Risen Lord, as do the saints we celebrated yesterday and our prayer today is that these brothers and sisters of ours join their ranks and that we, at the end of our journey, join that wonderful family, the family that is founded on faith, united in love and kept alive in hope!