About life after death. Death is not the end but a transition to a better state of being.

We are living on the last day of the church year. We survive him with the thought of death. The hope is that death is not the end of life but quite the opposite: death is a transition to a new, qualitatively better life. Thanks to this, we had the opportunity to learn during the year that there is more that death gives than it takes away. Even today’s gospel gives us hope. After all, if you “Watch all the time…” (Lk 21:36), we too will live forever if we live for God, with and in God.

If we were to read the events before today’s state, we would find out that Jesus’ teachings, in the Jerusalem temple and outside, were interrupted by many to catch him in his speech. Jesus knows the thinking of their hearts, and even in the dispute about the tax to the emperor, no one managed to convict him of anti-state activity. Who were the Sadducees? In the time of Jesus, it was a very influential party of some Jews. Some high priests also belonged to it. It was a party of gentlemen who allowed themselves a more accessible, more secular life and did not recognize life after death or resurrection from the dead. Calmly and without embarrassment, Jesus explained things clearly. Here on earth, in earthly life, there is dying and death. But dying and death do not exist in the other world. A clear answer from Jesus should strengthen today’s belief in life after death. Today, many people are losing faith in life after death.

For example, the latest poll in France found that half of the people there do not believe in life after death. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus confirms life after death with his word. First, he explains that life after death does not extend earthly life. After all, precisely because many people imagine and paint life after death as an extension of earthly life, they do not desire life after death and then do not even believe in it. Many people here on earth experience various difficulties, troubles, disappointments, and sufferings; how could they wish for such a life to continue even after death?! Therefore, in the Gospel, Jesus first radically rejects imagining eternal life after death in earthly terms.

Then he tells us that in the next world, we will be like angels and like sons and daughters of the heavenly Father. We will be caught up in God’s infinite love, beauty, joy, and bliss that infinitely surpasses all the bliss of this earthly life. That is why the apostle Paul wrote: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has entered into what God has prepared for those who love him” (Cor 2:9). So, according to Jesus, heaven is not life in some beautiful hall, or in some royal palace, heaven is life in the eternal love of God. Heaven is the blessed fellowship of those who live in God’s infinite love. And only he who has love in himself can be admitted to God’s eternal love.

The Lord Jesus requires us to cultivate love in our hearts here. Love of God and neighbor. This is because only love here on earth is the only way to eternal love in heaven.