Whether We Live or Die, We are the Lord’s"

Today's Mass Readings

“For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord,” says Paul in today’s powerful first reading. We are the Lord’s. The gospel reflects a similar theme of belonging to God. Jesus uses two parables – one about a lost sheep, and the other about a lost coin. It is hard to say whether these stories would have seemed commonsensical or ironic at Jesus’ time, and scholars argue both sides of the issue. Either way, Jesus seems to be saying that God’s love for each individual person is overpowering. So much so that 99 sheep can be left behind to find the one that has strayed, and a great celebration held to rejoice in having found a single coin! We are the Lord’s, and, even if we run away, he will seek us out.

Returning to Paul’s letter to the Romans, then, we see the implications of belonging to God. We are called to live for the Lord and to die for the Lord. What does this entail? Paul asks how those belonging to the Lord can judge each other and look down upon each other. In truth, living for God means not judging others, but rather praising God. From this genuine worship flows a life lived for the Lord. In so doing, all of one’s life becomes praise to God, every action a sign of God’s grace.

Living and dying for the Lord turns us into both a living prayer and a living sign. It is a prayer because everything is directed to God. It is a sign because others can witness this total self-gift. And indeed, God is the Lord of both the living and the dead. She who lives a life that is a prayer and sign continues that way after death. In other words, he that is holy can rejoice in heaven with all the angels and saints, and, moreover, their lives will not be forgotten. In this month when we remember the dead, we might think of all the saints who have modeled for us how to live and die for the Lord, how to give over our lives entirely to God, to become a living prayer and a living sign. Such holy people are not only models for us, but they are also members of our Church who continue to pray for us. They give us confidence to say with today’s psalm, “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.” This is what they experience now, and it is what we hope to experience after our deaths.

Let us pray, along with the saints, that we may live and die for Christ, not judging others but rather praising God continually. We are the recovered sheep or coins that have been found! May our lives and our very selves, then, become prayers to God and signs of his love for us, that we may belong every more fully to God.

- Maria Morrow