Being Alive in God:

         

The Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 

November 8, 2026

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Wisdom 6:12-16; Psalm 63; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

 

 

While the Gospel passage on the five wise virgins models for us the attentiveness needed for discipleship, the first reading focuses on the value of wisdom who likewise keeps vigil. It is wisdom special love for the Lord that makes her always watchful and filled with hope. This is the hope that comes through in the reading from Paul to the Thessalonians. A believer filled with wisdom always has hope.

 

We are in the month of All Souls when we commemorate our deceased loved ones, and we reflect upon our lives as we know that each of us will experience death. Death asks the question: In what do we hope? For a Christian, we know that while we are alive to God today, we will be alive to God after our death. What does that mean? Because of the death and resurrection of Christ, death no longer has the final word. Our relationship with God is not destroyed by death, and those who die in Christ are always remembered. 

 

When a loved one dies, we might wonder about these types of questions. Will I see my parents, spouse, children, or friends once again? What happens to my body? Will I still be myself after death? What happens to a person after a lifetime of suffering, disability, or illness? How does God treat the person who was hurtful to me? What happens to those people whose faith was uncertain? These are natural questions to ask. Jesus revealed to us that God seeks us, forgives us, loves us, and has altered the state of death when God raised Jesus to new life. The resurrection reveals God’s intention for humanity – not abandonment, but communion, not destruction, but transformation, not the finality of death, but the fulfillment of life in God. We trust that this God will be faithful to us beyond the limits of our earthly lives.

 

During times of death, we ask, “What will happen to our loved ones,” and maybe we can ask, “What does it mean to be alive to God today?” Our destiny is to live in the fulness of God’s love, and we are called to start living this way right now. We are called to become more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving, and more generous. God’s life becomes visible in our own. Our earthly lives are the beginning of a life that is meant to grow in love, and we learn to live in a way that reflects God’s values. We live in God’s grace, and we must respond to that grace. When we do so, our lives become increasingly receptive to God’s love. The love we have given during this lifetime matters. Death does not wipe out or make the goodness of our lives meaningless. The lives we have touched matters. The goodness we received and passed on matters. We trust that God who has been drawing us deeper into divine life will bring to fulfillment what God has begun. 

 

Naturally, we do not want to encounter death, and death of a loved one brings much loss and pain. For a believer, death cannot separate us from the God who loves us or from our loved ones. Love is an unknown power whose strength is greater than death. Our hope is based on the God that was revealed in Jesus Christ. Our loved ones are held within God’s love as we will be – warmly, tenderly, gently cherished. God, who is at work in us now calling us to a fulness of life, will bring the promise of the resurrection to fulfillment. 

 

We do not know everything about what happens when we die, but we trust that the God who has given us life and drawn us into love will remember us and give us an even fuller life. We have comfort in the assurance that our final destiny rests in the hands of our God who is faithful, loving, and the source of all life. We are alive to God now, and we place our hope in being fully alive to God forever.