Have you ever seen the falling leaves in the sad autumn evening—they are like souls dying; one day one of those will be you."

Homily for Luke 20:20-38 Thirty-second Sunday, November 7th 2010.

As we see the rest of the leaves of the trees fall and the cold weather coming, we realize that this is year is rapidly drawing to a end. We see starting already, ads and displays for Christmas, even though Advent is still a few weeks away. The Church, in choosing the readings for this time of year, is helping us to look towards the last things of this life, the time that each one of us will experience as we stand before the Jesus when He comes again as judge of the living and the dead. We, of course, will speak much more of the Second coming of Christ during the Advent season; but, we are being prepared now for this focus with our readings today.

Holy Mother the Church, like a good mother, wants us to realize that nothing, nothing in this life is more important than our faith in Jesus Christ. And nothing is more important, than living that life in faithfulness to Him as a preparation to meet Him face to face at the end of our life. I read recently the following in an article on death....Have you ever seen the falling leaves in the sad autumn evening—they are like souls dying; one day one of those will be you." And then the article gave the following information, ( 2 souls fall, that is die each second, 110 per minute, 58million each year).

To emphasize the importance of our faith in our need to be ready, Holy Mother Church, in today’s first reading , gives us the incredible, moving and true story of another mother, a mother who realizes the importance of faith before even life, the life of her children. This mother is an image of the Church. She was willing to see all seven of her sons killed before her eyes rather than deny their faith; she like a good mother loved her sons enough to know that their eternal salvation, in other words, their eternal life was more important than their physical life in this world, or anything this world as to offer.

Sometimes we dismiss this idea for our times, perhaps because it has been much too easy for us to practice our faith. Our Holy Father Benedict remind us that martyrdom is always a distinct possibility for the true believer in any age, and most especially in our age, which is the age of the Martyr. He end by saying, “The possibility does not seem to be immediate (to us), however; how we should be prepared to die for Christ. Benedict then emphasized that in our preparation, it is the way we live our faith each day that is most important.

It is the way we live our faith each and every day that is most important. We should be willing to live a martyrs life for the sake of love. Love always, dies to self in order to give the whole self to the one it loves. We should struggle with God's grace to have this love for our God and for our neighbor. This is the key to our existence, to sacrifice oneself for love of the other...first for God, then for our neighbor and his eternal life.

This is the point that Jesus is trying to teach us in our Gospel today. Jesus corrects the Scribes and Pharisees because they failed to see how important is the way that we live our life here and now, with regards to how and where we spend eternity. The question regarding marriage in the afterlife was asked to Jesus- who of the seven husbands would the one woman belong to? Jesus tells them that they missed the point- the way we live today in our life of faith will be the way we will live life forever. In other words, how we live today will determine how we will live in the next.

Today the Church as our mother, is even more concerned about the eternal salvation of her sons and daughters, each of us, than the mother in our first readings; The Church wants us to realize what this life is really all about, preparation for the life to come. Today she is reminding us that the most important thing in this life of preparation is our beautiful Catholic faith and our living it out each day faithfully in love.

Like any mother, the Church doesn’t want to instill in us fear about death. She doesn’t remind us about the last things, death, judgment, heaven, hell to instill fear; fear doesn’t lead to freedom and so fear doesn’t lead to true love. No, she wants us to realize that Faith is not about fear, but about love; first and foremost our love for God our Father, desiring always to make Him pleased with us. What child doesn’t want his daddy happy with him. And second, faith is about our love for God shown in our love for one another, desiring one another's eternal salvation.

And so, Mother Church wants us to realize that what is needed is responsibility and accountability shown in our concern for our salvation and the salvation of the souls of our neighbor whoever they may be. In fact, Holy Mother Church’s prime consideration, the reason for her very existence and for everything she does, is to glory God and for the Salvation of Souls (Cannon 1752).

As with the Church, this has to be the primary purpose of this parish. The glory of God, and the salvation of souls. Without this, we become just like any other social organization. But with this in mind, through the power of Christ's cross we are more and more transformed from a natural community of man, into a supernatural community of the Church.

In this parish family we have to learn our to love one another, to give of ourselves for each person, each family of this parish. We have to become more and more a family of families helping one another get to heaven. This should be our most important focus...This why we have to take an full, active, conscious and fruitful participation in the life of this parish family.

St. Jose Maria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei once said, “Time is our treasure, the “money” with which to buy eternity.” And so next week we will spend time speaking about our treasure, our time, our talent, and yes, our treasure... and how best to use these precious gifts from God with our eternal end in sight. These things are the "money" with which to buy our eternity and other's as well...because how we used them will determine our eternity and the eternity of countless others...Are we using our time, talent and treasure primarily for the glory of God and for the sanctification and salvation of souls. If we have this end in sight, if we have eternal salvation as our primary concern, not only for ourselves but for our neighbor, everything else will fall into place. Jesus says, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all else will be given unto you."

Let us ask our Lady to help us to offer ourselves in love at this Holy Mass, both for love of God and love of our neighbor, especially all the members and families of this parish family. Sweet heart of Mary, be our salvation...Amen.