32nd Sunday in Ordinary time, 6/11/2022, Lk 20 , 27-38
Throughout life we go through a series of deaths and resurrections from child to teenager, teenager to adult, adult to elderly, even if we do not use that language. Medicine has always recommended positive thinking as a help to being cured and we have heard stories of people who were told they were going to die recovering. Some call this the power of positive thinking. Any athlete who has won a medal will testify to this.
Ronald Rolheiser puts it something like this:
There is a belief that if you think positively, good things will happen to you. If you believe strongly enough in something, it will happen. If you persevere long enough in hope the good thing wished for will be given you. Faith, hope, and positive thinking make good things happen and resurrect life from its many deaths. This is a basis for many self-help philosophies and a many religious groups. The Christian, however, believes not only in the power of the human spirit but also in the power of God’s grace. In other words, the power of God is a miraculous energy, an energy that can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves; energy that can do for us what nature, on its own, cannot do. The resurrection is about power entering our world and our lives from beyond, from God.
If we are able to reflect on our lives in this way, the power of God bringing about the impossible, the easier it will be for us to welcome and embrace the Resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. We will also believe that those who have departed this life live on and continue to love, support and sustain us, communicate with us and watch over us; and, most of all, that we will meet again.
by Fr Thomas O'BRIEN a.a