32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C (2022)

Mass Readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

• First Reading – 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14: “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”
• Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 17: “Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.”
• Second Reading – 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5: “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.”
• Gospel – Luke 20:27-38: “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.”

Themes for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C ask us how far we are willing to go in practicing our faith and also ask us to consider what the next life will be like. In the first reading a mother and her sons endure torture and death rather than violate the law. The psalm sings ” Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.” In the second reading Paul prays that we may have the endurance of Christ. In the gospel Jesus answers a question about the resurrection.

• The Resurrection
• Heaven
• Being faithful in times of trial
• Endurance in the spiritual life

See the Homilies and Reflections section and the More Thoughts section for further expansion on these readings and some reflection questions for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C.

What Is the Paschal Mystery?

The Paschal Mystery is God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, as fulfilled in the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has shown us that death does not have the final word.

The Resurrection of the Body

Both our first reading and Gospel for today present the distinctively Biblical view of what happens to us after we die. We do not so much escape from the body as begin to live in a transformed and transfigured body, what Paul calls a “spiritual body.”

Eternal Life

Also from Bishop Barron. Today’s Gospel reading tells us about the Sadducees trying to lead Jesus into a ridiculous conclusion. To them the Jewish teaching on marriage seems irrational. However, Jesus shows us that not everything that appears cloudy to our intellect is sub-rational. Rather, some times it may be supra-rational – beyond the finite intellect – making it rational, but the rationality of another dimension. The claims of Faith may not be comprehensible to our intellects now, but we believe that they will once we are in his eternal presence.

To Rise Again

From Scott Hahn. With their riddle about seven brothers and a childless widow, the Sadducees in today’s Gospel mock the faith for which seven brothers and their mother die in the First Reading. The Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection because they can’t find it literally taught in the Scriptures. To ridicule this belief they fix on a law that requires a woman to marry her husband’s brother if he should die without leaving an heir

The Hope of Heaven

Jeff Cavins encourages us to believe in the resurrection of the dead and live with the hope of heaven.

The Martyrs and a Higher World

Also from Bishop Barron. We can talk about heaven, we can speculate about it, we can write learned treatises about it, and we can hope for it. But up and down the centuries, it is the martyrs—from the ancient Maccabees to the Christians slain by ISIS—that most vividly witness to the promise of heaven. They literally bet their lives on it.

Will My Pet Be in Heaven?

The question addressed in this video runs much deeper than the cartoon classic All Dogs Go to Heaven. Fr. Mike Schmitz ventures into the theology of the matter, even taking some words of wisdom from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Paul.