Saturday, September 17, 2016

1 Corinthians 15: 35-37, 42-49

Brothers and sisters:
Someone may say, “How are the dead raised?
With what kind of body will they come back?”

You fool!
What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies.
And what you sow is not the body that is to be
but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind.

So also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible.
It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious.
It is sown weak; it is raised powerful.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one.

So, too, it is written,
“The first man, Adam, became a living being,”
the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
But the spiritual was not first;
rather the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, earthly;
the second man, from heaven.
As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly,
and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.

How fitting this reading comes for me today. Today is the first anniversary of my mother’s passing. She left us last year after a long and painful battle with COPD and other lung related diseases. My mother was born on the seventeenth day of February and died on the seventeenth day of September. These days stuck in my mind as historically important. Then I realized, these were the days the bible tells us that the great flood started and ended.

“It came about after the seven days, that the water of the flood came upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”

“In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.”

But September is the ninth month…

Actually, September used to be the seventh month (‘sep’ means seven). It only became the ninth month after July and August were added to the calendar to honor Julius and Augustus Caesar. Historically speaking, the calendar that we go by today is really only about 150 years old. The symbolism of this is not lost on me, a man who lives for symbolism in a Church rich with it.

My mother came into this world like a mighty flood and departed when it was  time for new life.

Our earthly bodies are nothing more than seeds for the next life. Inside a seed is everything needed to create a new plant. When it germinates a new life is set free. These bodies contain our soul, incarnate. Once planted we will germinate into the next life into an incorruptible, eternal, and perfect body.

Through Adam we have our earthly body and through Jesus we have our heavenly body.

Pray for the repose of my mother. Pray that through the mercy of God she is given a place in his heavenly Kingdom where she can flower with all her beauty.