My dear friends, in today’s first reading we once again reflect on how our Lord Jesus is the key to paradise hereafter which the first reading so beautifully tells us, a “great cloud of witnesses” already enjoy with him and await our arrival with eager anticipation. The homily today will be a bit lengthier due to a subject matter which is multi-faceted and too profound to be expounded upon through a five-minute reflection.

When we think of the great cloud of witnesses as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews describes, what comes to mind? The possibilities can be many. Imagine a hockey team, with five players on the ice while an arena full of people spectate, or “witness” from their seats and react to everything happening on the ice. Then there’s also their fellow team mates who cheer them on. But there’s also the opposing team and their fans. Well, the angels and saints in heaven are the witnesses the author is speaking about in this passage, and they witness all that happens and all the ways we respond to God’s grace. One inference that is being made is that we should conduct ourselves appropriately and respond to the good news since we have so many people watching and also depending on us, as are souls in purgatory awaiting our prayers and sacrifices on their behalf for as we read in the Book of Maccabees: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins” 2 Maccabees 12:46.
There’s also another way, more refreshing in my estimation, with which we can read this passage. Perhaps we shouldn’t so much think of this cloud of witnesses as a group of judges who assess our every move, but rather, as teammates who are cheering us on to reinforce the good we do, and excite us for what is yet to come through the hard work our faith will entail. And the captain of this team is Jesus. Jesus Who tells us that our greatness moving forward will be in our capacity to trust in him for the strength, and to use that strength to better the lives of others through self-emptying and disinterested love and service—to do what is right in the eyes of God.
One might ask, “Why would I do something that is good and just, only because God sees it?” to which I would reply in the words of Saint Paul, because “without faith, it is impossible for a man to please God” Hebrews 11:6. In other words, yes, we do good for the sake of good and because it is what we simply ought to do. Plain and simple. The only difference is, that while an atheist can do the exact same good but never credit God for it, we on the other hand, credit all good things that comes from us to God and his grace. We acknowledge God in all we do. We thank him, rely on him, praise his holy name, and give him what is owing – our everything. He deserves all, because all exists and is sustained through him. This is the difference. And we should always remember, that it isn’t God who needs us, but we who need him. God is perfect, he lacks nothing. Using the Fourth Common Preface of Holy Mass, the priest addresses Almighty God in this way: “For, although you have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation, through Christ our Lord.” Here, together with the priest, we acknowledge both God’s greatness and perfection, while recognizing that it is our response to what Jesus alone was able to accomplish on the Cross for our Salvation. He is the source not only of our every healing grace, but of all things that are good.
In the gospel today, we have a number of examples of this divine fountain of mercy and healing by our Lord. First, a woman who suffered for many years with a blood hemorrhage and spent all she had on doctors, who also put her through a difficult time, but she caught wind of the Divine Doctor, put her trust in him, and because of her faith, was healed. Then we have Jairus, the synagogue official, who pleads with Jesus to go and heal his dying little daughter. Jesus begins making his way to the house where she lay, with a huge crowd following him, but when they arrive they inform Jairus that his daughter has passed. Bring on the trauma, and the heartbreak of losing a child. And just as they’re wailing and the professional mourners which were a part of their tradition back then, begin crying out loudly, Jesus says, “Wait. She’s only sleeping.” The people mock and scoff at Jesus and yet he goes into the place where they laid her and raises her from death. But what of Jesus’ actual words that she was only sleeping? You see my friends, in actuality, at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, we close our eyes in this world, and open them in the next. Death is like a sleep for the body. Our soul goes to God, but the body rests until it is raised up again, exactly like Talitha, this “little girl” whom Jesus makes a source of hope for all of us to look forward to. In other words, if you think that this world, this earth, is the be all and end all of your existence, think again, and rejoice, because God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. “The body goes back into the ground from where it came…” where it rests, “… but the spirit returns to God who gave it,” to be immediately judged in what we call the particular judgment. And again, if we live in a state of grace, and we try to build a beautiful relationship with our Lord, we will not fear judgement as a person who has not received Jesus, for example. We should fear it nevertheless, because to stand before God is no joke, and we should never be presumptuous, but neither should we fear or mourn the way non-believers and pagans do. Again, when it comes to the sleep of death, Saint Paul admonishes us in one of his earliest letters: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as indeed the rest of mankind do, who have no hope” 1 Thessalonians 4:13. Again, death here is described exactly the way the Lord spoke of it: sleeping. For the believer it’s sleeping. For the atheist and the rest of the world, it’s annihilation and no hope.
My dear friends, let us therefore rejoice today, because everything you consider wonderful, beautiful and holy in this life, will not only NOT end when your time is up, but it will be enhanced for you with Jesus in paradise, in a way that is beyond anything you can presently imagine. Courage, be of heart, for the One Who has mastery over death and has defeated its sting, is the same Lord who took upon his shoulders my sins and yours, so as to make our journey towards him in heaven possible and the way there unshackled and lighter. To him be all glory, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
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