Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - ST. FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI
[Wisdom 2:23 - 3:9 and Luke 17:7-10]God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made them. But by the envy of the Devil, death entered the world, and they are in his possession experience it. But the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed in the view of the foolish to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.
These words from the Book of Wisdom are most frequently read at funerals. One can see why. This text, which precedes the time of Jesus, really sums up our own belief in the afterworld and what awaits those who have been faithful. Since this belief developed somewhat late in the Old Testament, it was not accepted by Jewish groups such as the Sadducees who did not think there was any mention of it in the Torah, the Mosaic law. Jesus disproves this in his debate with them on the subject of the woman married to seven husbands! [Luke 20:27-38]. Our faith in the resurrection of the body is based on Jesus' own resurrection. Nevertheless, the human heart had an intuition of this prior to Jesus' coming, as this text from Wisdom indicates. God has made us to live with God in eternity. As the text says, "yet is their hope full of immortality." God 's own action in making us in the divine image is the promise of that immortality. At a funeral or in prayers for the dead, we say, "May they rest in peace!" That is our hope. AMEN
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