Word to the Wise
Saturday, November 24, 2018 - Saturday in the 33th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rev 11:4-12 and Luke 20:27-40]"The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called 'Lord' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." [Luke]
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2018 STS. IGNATIUS DELGADO, OP, VINCENT LIEM, OP, DOMINIC PHAM TRONG KAM, OP - bishop, priest, lay Dominican - Martyrs in Vietnam.
[Roman calendar: Revelation 11:4-12 and Luke 20:27-40,
Dominican calendar: Wisdom 3:1-9 or 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 and Matthew 10:18-22]
Those who attend Mass today at a parish that follows the Roman calendar (most Latin rite parishes) will see the names St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions, martyrs in Vietnam. Pope St. John Paul II canonized a group of 117 Christian martyrs of Vietnam who lost their lives over a period of years. In that group were some Dominicans. So, we Dominicans give them first place in the observance today and the scriptures may differ. I have quoted from the Roman rite gospel scripture today because the incident seems appropriate to the day for the reasons that follow.
A week ago, a priest with an interesting ministry visited our university parish here at Texas Tech. He travels from place to place with a collection of 150 relics of various saints. He gave a [long] talk in the church which was followed by a display of these relics at the Catholic Student Center. Nearly 400 people showed up at the center to see the relics. The atmosphere was quiet and reverent. The students seemed especially impressed. These relics connected them with the reality of holiness and the Communion of Saints, as well as with the possible cost of earthly life as a result of being faithful.
Jesus' response to the Sadducees' absurd question about the woman who married seven brothers in sequence and the resurrection points out something that we mention every Sunday in the Nicene Creed: the Communion of Saints. All the faithful are alive to God whether alive on earth or deceased. Those relics connected the students to the faithful of the past, but they also challenged them to be faithful now and in the future. AMEN