Eternal Life - Eternal Love

          Sisters and Brothers in Christ, our Readings today as is our Liturgy of the Holy Mass are those of the 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time since the setting of the sun of Saturday is already considered by us Christian Catholics, as our elder brethren the Jews before us, part of Sunday, of the dies Dominica, the Lord’s Day.  But let us focus our attention not so much on the Readings but on the particular theme given to us today: ETERNAL LIFE, especially in the creedal formulation in the 11^th and 12^th articles.  We pray and later on we will pray that “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come…”  Our topics today are the following: THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD and THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME.  These topics together with the topics of heaven, hell, purgatory and the particular and universal judgments are also called in Catholic Teaching as novissimi.  We will see that these topics need not be considered in fear and trembling but may even be contemplated with excitement and love; and that our topic may very well be considered in the perspective not only of eternal life but of eternal love.

          Novissimi is in Latin and the English translation would be “the last things”, as in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 10, verse 31, when Jesus said: multi autem erunt primi novissimi et novissimi primi, but many that are first will be the last; and the last first.  The play with the Latin words primi and novissimi, with the words first and last, gives us the idea that creation, life, death and afterdeath may also be seen as death, after death and everlasting life.  Indeed the last become the first and the first last.

          Our Catholic Faith teaches us, as we have received it from the Holy Spirit through our parents, relatives, teachers and friends, that we are created by God.  Everything that we are and have comes from God the Father.  Our Faith teaches us further that we breathe and live and die thanks to the Father’s Divine Providence and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling in us so that all our glory comes from the Glory of God and as the Father of the Church St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote: “Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei”: For the Glory of God is the living human being; and human life consists in the vision of God.  It is on the Cross of the Son that we were all glorified and are glorified and will be glorified.  Jesus saves us from sin so that together we might live with Him, and with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  So when our natural life ends, so starts our supernatural life with God who gave us this life in the first place, but continued to support it for us and now awaits our return from whence we came.  The final outcome of our life depends upon us: if we have lived and have decided all along that we are of God and have accepted and enjoyed our identities as daughters and sons of God then heaven awaits us; even if for a time we have to stay in the Purgatory where we are cleansed of the stains of our sins, we ultimately proceed from Purgatory to Heaven; but if we have lived and have decided that we are not of God and have rejected and forsaken our identities as children of God then God, who, as the great Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine of Hippo wrote: Qui creavit te sine te, non salvabit te sine te; God who created you without you, will not save you without you, He will not force us to be with Him and love Him, hence Hell.  We are judged immediately after our death and we are judged definitively when this world ends.  Our actions will be weighed and judged depending on how much we have loved God and our neighbors.  Indeed with Alfred Lord Tennyson we may say: I hold it true, whate’er befall;¶ I feel it, when I sorrow most;¶ ‘Tis better to have loved and lost¶ Than never to have loved at all.  So too we read and pray with St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 13, verse 13: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

These will be the last; faith, hope and love may also be somewhat considered as novissimi.  And among these novissimi the greatest is love.  And so if we go back to our topic: Eternal Life may be considered also as Eternal Love.  From Love we come, through Love we live and in Love we die and rise again to live Love forevermore.  John the Beloved Apostle writes to us in his First Letter chapter 4, verse 16: God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  The consideration of the last things, with this perspective, will very well be contemplated not with fear or trembling for death and decay naturally lead man to fear and tremble.  The consideration of the novissimi may now be contemplated with faith, hope, and indeed with excitement and love, hence eternal life is eternal love.  Amen.