14th Week of Ordinary Time C – Saturday

In today’s first reading from Genesis, we witness the final moments of Jacob and then of Joseph, two great patriarchs of Israel. Their words are solemn, and yet filled with a quiet hope. Jacob speaks of death not as annihilation, but as a reunion: “I am about to be taken to my people.” Joseph, too, though dying in Egypt, makes his family swear to carry his bones back to the Promised Land. He trusts that God will not abandon His people but will fulfill His oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is not yet the full light of resurrection, but it is the seed of it. The people of Israel sensed that death was not the end, though they could not yet see the full picture. Their understanding of death was still veiled—a return to the ancestors, a waiting in the shadow of God’s promise.

But in the Gospel, Jesus tears away the veil. He speaks plainly: the soul does not die. The body may perish, may even be killed by persecutors or disease or time itself, but the soul remains, held in the hands of God. No one can touch it but the Creator. And so Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Not because death is pleasant, but because it is no longer final. We are worth more than many sparrows, and not one of them falls to the ground without the Father knowing. Death, then, is not the end—it is, in God’s plan, a passage.

This is the great evolution of revelation: from a reverent hope in the shadow of death to a fearless faith in the triumph of life. The patriarchs were faithful to what was given them, but in Christ, the full mystery is revealed. Death has lost its sting—not because it has vanished, but because Jesus has passed through it and emerged victorious. How much happier ought we to be then the Old Testament people who only hoped for the blessing which we now know with greater certainty in Christ, to be given to all of God’s faithful ones? We strive therefore to number among the elect who already now, though they await the resurrection, are nevertheless either with God already in paradise or awaiting their entrance therein from blessed Purgatory.

And today, as it is Saturday, we look to Our Blessed Mother. Mary stood at the foot of the Cross and held the lifeless body of her Son. She knew the pain of death in the most intimate way, and yet she did not despair. Her faith remained, even when every earthly sign of hope seemed to disappear. Mary believed that death would not be the final word. Her silence at Calvary was not emptiness—it was trust. Her waiting on Holy Saturday was not as much a resignation as it was a readiness. In her, the courage to believe, even in the face of death, reaches its perfection.

Mary shows us how to suffer with hope and how to live with eternity in view. She reminds us that the Christian way is not to escape death but to pass through it with the grace of God. “Though I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me.” As she accompanied Jesus in His suffering and glorification, so she now walks with each of us—especially those who are afraid, those who are grieving, and those who are preparing to die.

And so today we are invited to live as Mary our Mother did in this world, as people of the resurrection, even when surrounded by the shadows of death. Like Joseph of the Old Testament, we must trust that God’s promises will be fulfilled. Like our Lord Jesus, we must speak truth without fear. Like Mary, we must ponder all these things in our hearts, holding fast to faith even when the light seems dim.

“Be glad, you lowly ones; may your hearts be glad!” For our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and even death is only a doorway into the Father’s embrace.

Amen.