Adoption into the life of God

Resurrection of the body is a belief we Catholics profess when we make our profession of faith or creed. I wouldn’t know about other beliefs or cults who might not have the same creed. However, we might conjecture from their way of treating their dead. We have the pyramids of Egypt which have withstood the test of time. In there are preserved the Egyptian mummies of pharaohs who have died thousands of years ago. That’s their way of perpetuating them, Many pagans in Asia bury their dead with all their jewels, material possessions like fineries, textiles, gold, silver, money, etc. The belief might be that bodily, these dead go someplace and they would carry those things with them.

First to be considered when we think of the last things like death and resurrection is eternal life. We were created by God with an existence made up of a physical body and spiritual soul. It is our soul which makes up the self which is a potentiality of existence to be realized (or lost) in the deeds and decisions of life, with relations in life different from that of a thing. One only exists as one is in relation to other persons or even things, and such relations are possible only through the body. To exist is to be in a world and it is only by having a body of some sort that one can be in a word. What are we to understand by eternal life?

We must take our clue from the way in which the self transcends the succession of "nows". This is already to have, so to speak, a "taste" of eternal life and since presumably every human being will at some time attain enough of selfhood to have such a taste, then, as has often been argued, man already has in him the quest for an "eternal" destiny and cannot be satisfied with mere transient goods. It we take this approach to the meaning of "eternal life", it is understandable how such life can be accessible to us here and now.

Obviously, however, the full meaning of "eternal life" must go far beyond what is, after all, the universal human experience of transcending or going beyond mere accomplishments in our earthly life. The limit of selfhood is Christhood, for Christ is the one who brought to fulfillment all the possibilities of selfhood. Christ is the one who by utter self-giving is taken up into Godhood, or – alternatively expressed – He is the Incarnate One in whom manhood and Godhood converge.

To attain "eternal life" is to be adopted as sons with Christ into the life of God. Christ is rightly called "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" but who will "in Christ.. … be made alive" (I Cor 15:20-22). When we conform our lives to that of Christ, we follow the way of His Incarnation, His Cross and His Resurrection. This is the resurrection about which Jesus said: "…those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and of the resurrection of the dead …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" (Lk 20:35-36).

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Luke 20:27-38

Ephpheta Foundation will be celebrating its annual Christmas Party for Blind on Friday December 17, 2004 with Holy Mass & lunch for 500 blind and their spouses. An estimated 500 gift bags worth P500.00 each will be distributed to them. We would appreciate your assistance/donation (in cash or in-kind), however small. Please call the local Funding Office at 440-48-57 or 913-97-89 and look for Ms. Norie Pruedo-Condez.