Autumn is my least favorite time of the year. I much prefer warm weather, sunshine, and longer daylight hours to the cold, dreary, and shorter periods of light that will lead us into winter.
However, as the leaves fall off the trees and the grass and flowers die, I am grateful for this reminder that life is short, and my need to prepare for death. So I check my will to make sure to show my gratitude for my family, especially my sister. I also make sure that I am generous to the poor and needy, for they are God’s special friends. But most of all, I want to make sure to show my appreciation to the most important lady in my life, Holy Mother of the Church. After all, it was through her that I was born into spiritual relationship with Holy Trinity and became a friend of Jesus, nourished with Eucharist to grow stronger in the faith, healed of the spiritual illness of many sins, and called to serve the Church as a priest. I owe her everything.
Of course death isn’t the final answer. The scripture readings today remind us of that (Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14; Thessalonians 2:16—3:5; Luke 20:27-38). The mother and her seven sons had such strong faith and loyalty to God that they willingly lost their lives lest they offend the Lord, because they believed in the resurrection. As the seventh son said in his dying words, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him… ” (2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14)
And Jesus reaffirms the truth and reality of the resurrection using the words of Moses from the Bible to prove the resurrection is truly real (Lk 20:27-38). May God give us the grace to never doubt it and show that we want to be part of it along with Mary and the saints.
God bless,
Fr. Carl
“Directly anyone feels they are losing their fervour, they
should at once make a Novena to the Holy Spirit, asking
him to give them Faith and Love. ”
~ Thoughts of the Cure D’Ars
