As people arrive in their cars for a funeral they are often asked, “Are you going to cemetery?” And although sometimes we say, “No,”: the truth is that sooner or later all of us are going to the cemetery. No one here, none of us, are not going to die one day.

One unfortunate aspect of our culture is the way we try to deny the reality of death.
• We speak of it in euphemisms — “passed away;” “gone on;” or “is no longer with us.”
• We put off writing wills or planning funerals because that is a clear reminder that one day we will die.
• We refuse to talk about death, or talk about the deceased with survivors.
• We segregate our elderly in nursing homes, high rises, and retirement communities.

While we may hesitate to talk about death, the Bible does not. In our first reading we hear of courageous the martyrdom and death of faithful Jews in the second century before Christ. In today’s gospel we meet some Sadducee Jews who did not believe in life after death.

So that raises an important question. What do we Catholics believe about death?
• First, we believe that through his death and resurrection Jesus overcame and conquered the power of sin and death. Saint Paul wrote that just as sin and death entered the world through one man – Adam – so, too, did salvation.
• Second, we believe in life after death for us. As one of the prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayer at funerals puts it, “For the Christian, death means life is changed, not ended.”
• When we die, we will be judged by God on how well we lived as Jesus lived, loved as Jesus loved, and gave as Jesus gave. Some will go to hell, others to purgatory where their sins will be purged and then to heaven.
• Fourth, faith in the resurrection does not take away our need to grieve. We weep at the death of a relative or friend even as Jesus must have cried when Joseph died and John the Baptist was beheaded. The Gospel of John tells us Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus.
• Finally, we need to live lives as faith filled, loving, and giving disciples. God has to be part of our lives here and now if we want to be with God forever. In one chilling passage in the gospels, Jesus declared that he would say to some when they are judged, “Away from me. I do not know you.”

Don’t forget this absolute truth: If eternity is as long as the drive from here to Myrtle Beach, our life on earth would be only the teeniest tiniest fraction of inch measured by the most powerful microscope.

But its what we do during this time on earth that will determine whether we end up in heaven or hell.