By Fr. Andrew Kelly
THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY ORDINAL TIME – NOV. 10, 2013
There is the first breath of birth and the last breath of death. No human being is exempt from the mystery of life’s beginning and end.
Since the very beginning both believers and non-believers have reflected and speculated about what happens after the last breath of life. But to date no one really knows for sure what happens. All people do know for sure is that that death does happen.
For believers the mystery of life is lived within the embrace of the mystery of the eternal God who gave the first breath of human life and will receive the last breath.
In Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 20:27-38) Jesus assures the believing community: “Now God is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to God all of them are alive.”
For believers God is eternal and cannot die. Believers believe their relationship with God is also eternal and cannot die just as God cannot die. So as believers take their last human breath they are swept up into the eternal breath of God who simply breathes on and on for all eternity. Truly a mystery to be breathed in every day and forever into all eternity.
(Father Andrew Kelly is a retired priest of the Diocese of Davenport.)
Scripture Readings for Nov. 10-17
Sunday
2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14
2 Thes 2:16-3:5
Lk 20:27-38 or LK 20:27, 34-38
Monday
Wis 1:1-7
Lk 17:1-6
Tuesday
Wis 2:23–3:9
Lk 17:7-10
Wednesday
Wis 6:1-11
Lk 17:11-19
Thursday
Wis 7:22b–8:1
Lk 17:20-25
Friday
Wis 13:1-9
Lk 17:26-37
Saturday
Wis 18:14-16; 19:6-9
Lk 18:1-8
Sunday
Mal 3:19-20a
2 Thes 3:7-12
Lk 21:5-19
