The Hope That Is Ours

Voice over by Gracie Aye Chan May

2Macc 7:1-2.9-14; Psalm: 16; 2Thess 2:16—3:5; Lk 20:27-38

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, in a world so often marked by suffering, injustice, and the finality of death, the Word of God today speaks a powerful, counter-cultural word of hope. It is not a naive optimism, but a hope forged in the fires of persecution and grounded in the very nature of the living God—a hope that assures us our suffering is not meaningless and our end is not the grave.

The first reading from the Second Book of Maccabees plunges us into the brutal reality of religious persecution. A mother and her seven sons are tortured for their fidelity to the Law of God. Their courage is breathtaking. The second brother, his tongue cut out and his hands severed, declares, “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” This is not a hope for a disembodied, spiritual existence. It is a hope for the resurrection of the body. The fourth brother echoes this, stating he is “dying at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him.” Their hope transforms their horrific suffering into a witness, a martyrdom, confident that the God who gave them life can and will restore it.

This steadfast hope is precisely what Saint Paul prays for in his letter to the Thessalonians. He asks God to “encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.” He knows that the Christian life is a battle against “the evil one.” Our own endurance is not a product of mere human willpower; it is a gift from God. Paul’s prayer reveals the source of the Maccabean martyrs’ strength: “The Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” Our hope is not in ourselves, but in the faithfulness of the God who has called us.

This hope finds its ultimate foundation and explanation in the person of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel, the Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, present Jesus with a convoluted scenario about a woman married to seven brothers. They attempt to reduce the hope of the resurrection to an absurdity. But Jesus reveals that their error is a failure to understand both the Scriptures and the power of God. He declares that the risen life is a transformed reality; it is not a mere continuation of earthly relationships, but a participation in the life of the angels, a state where we are “children of God” and “children of the resurrection.” Then, He provides the definitive proof: God identifies Himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” The patriarchs are not dead memories; they are alive in God. Our hope, therefore, is not for a future resurrection alone, but is anchored in the present, dynamic reality that the God who holds us in being is the God of Life.

This is the beautiful, cohesive truth of the Catholic faith. The hope of the Maccabee martyrs, the strength prayed for by Paul, and the theological truth proclaimed by Jesus are the same. We believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. As the Catechism affirms, “God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by uniting them to our souls” (CCC 997). This transforms everything.

This World offers us immense comfort and spiritual strength. When we face our own forms of suffering—be it illness, loss, or the daily dying to self—we do not face it alone or without purpose. We can unite our pain to the Passion of Christ, trusting that it has redemptive value. We can face the death of loved ones not with the despair of finality, but with the hope of reunion in God. We can live with a freedom that the world cannot understand, because our ultimate treasure is not in this passing world.

As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”

So how do we apply this? We live today as “children of the resurrection.” We treat our own bodies and the bodies of others with dignity, as temples of the Holy Spirit destined for glory. We courageously uphold our faith in the public square, even when it is inconvenient. We comfort the grieving with the sure and certain hope of eternal life.

May the heroic witness of the Maccabean martyrs and the consoling truth of Christ’s words fortify our hearts. Let us place our hope in the God of the living, who strengthens us in every good deed and word, and who will, on the last day, raise us up to live with Him forever. Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.