+ The first reading today from the second letter of St. Paul to
St. Timothy is magnificent in its apostolic fervor and
sense of right order and administration of the newly fresh fallen power and
confidence in the things pertaining to Christ the Lord and his commission to
spread his newly configured Mystical Life to the ends of the earth.
Paul communicates to Timothy –
by the imposition of hands – what he himself received from the Lord both from
the Cross, from the Resurrection and from the Ascension and Outpouring of the
Holy Spirit: which is the Baptism of the Spirit which jettisoned the Church
into existence.
This same “Baptism in the
Spirit” is available to anyone at all because the Father and Jesus can decide
to give it to anyone at all – anytime at all – for any reason at all. The
linking of it with Timothy’s ordination as a bishop is a natural part of the
transmission of the apostolic line of succession. But I would ask, how many
successors of the apostles – through the imposition of hands – know and claim
the power and efficacy of this magnificent baptism with fire and power and love.
The face of the administration of dioceses throughout the world would be radically
different if they knew about and used the wide parameter of these gifts.
The gospel passage talks about
the resurrection of the dead – and the relationships that might endure beyond
death. Jesus tells the Sacdducees who do not believe in such resurrection from
the dead that God can only be a God of the living – so that all those created
living persons with whom he interacts throughout their lives on earth, must
still endure beyond the separation of the soul from the body. The resurrection
of the dead actually is to mirror Christ’s own resurrection to a newness of
life. Jesus was not just resuscitated to resume the life he had, oh no, he rose
with the power of the Holy Spirit to a newness and fullness of life which
jettisoned human existence to the next level because we all are to share in it:
we too are destined to have risen, glorified bodies, with an array of new
powers and presences that we can scarcely imagine: science-fiction does not
even come close.
He tells us plainly that while
persons will endure, the temporary relationships which were a means to the goal
(eternal life), like marriage have no need of enduring after death – where
everyone will simply be brothers and sisters of Christ the Bridegroom and
children of his Mother Mary. The only connection that will endure is that that
the solemnly, perpetually vowed, religious make: nuns and monks and the like who
literally “marry Christ” in a Mystical sort of way: the union these people
attain on earth, simply endures forever – as the seek the Face of God always –
and behold it unlike any others on earth – and so this “marriage will endure”
because it is a direct prophetical manifestation of the great Wedding and
Perpetual Marriage of the Lamb of God: Jesus, the Lion of Judah! to the
Mystical Body of Christ, his Bride forever.
Just to know that this lies
ahead ought to give us great peace this day, great joy, and a great desire to
begin to act in earnest with all we meet today as real, authentic and genuine
brothers and sisters.
Alleluia!
I am the resurrection and the life, says the lord: whoever believes in me will
never die! Alleluia!
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