LIFE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP

Are you in a relationship? Single? Married? Or is it complicated? Relationships we make change us, either for the better or for the worse. A lady becomes a wife when she is married to her man, and so does her husband becomes a groom. As a child is born of them, they become mother and father; parents to their sons and daughters. Father and son relationships will be formed then. And so, it is in other human relationships which we enter to. Through them, we receive our new identity. They become our life. Husbands and wives would do everything so that their marriage may work. Fathers and mothers are willing to work overtime so that they may give the best life they can give to their children.   

We pin our life and hope to whom we are related to; to whom we have made a connection; as they have become the source of our inspiration and meaning in life. They become our anchors in times of tumults in our journey. They are with us when life is stormed by problems and challenges. We are motivated to continue to live for them and made willing even to suffer in the name of our beloved.

Unfortunately, there is no forever in this world. None of our human relationships will last forever. None of the securities and identities they offer us will last in eternity. When we hear stories of separations between husbands and wives, when we read news about sisters fighting and maligning each other, we realize how fragile are the human relationships we establish. The Good News is, there’s a lasting relationship offered to us where forever is a reality. God offers Himself to us to be our Father, our Brother, and our Guide. And He guarantees us that this relationship with Him will change us forever. Our relationship with God will lead us to heaven; will lead us to resurrection and newness of life. That is not just at the moment. That is for eternity. There is forever in God alone.  

The seven martyrs in the Second Book of Maccabees were radically changed by their relationship with God. Their perspectives and priorities in life were changed by their relationship with God, so much so that they were willing to undergo severe pain and suffering just so they may follow God and His precepts (2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14). How our very own martyrs illustrate the same confidence, faith and hope in God as they willingly laid down their lives in the name of their faith in the God of the Resurrection. They knew eternity awaits them after the torments in this world. That understanding of the end enabled them to endure the present. The prospect of heaven, made known to them by their rich and constant relationship with God, propelled them to bear the sufferings of the present; to let go of worldly and human security, just so they can hold on to God; for to be parted from Him means total death and misery as a child is separated from his parents. Worse than physical death is the spiritual death one suffers as he departs from God's presence. With a severed relationship with God, man loses everything.     

The Sadducees in the gospel (Lk 20:27-38) are not believers of the resurrection of the dead. Being so, they only have human relationships to hold onto even to the life after the next. They thought that even in heaven, a wife will remain to be such to her husband. They are mistaken, for such relationship has no use since one is united to his or her true love; the One that completes him or her: God. No sane person will choose to be with a lesser being than the perfect God for all eternity. Human relationships, fragile as they are, passes like this world. What remains is our lasting relationship with God that will bring fulfillment and completeness in us.

A child in a marriage is sought for the sake of posterity; that the mother and father may live forever through their children who will remember them. But what could be the true source of immortality?

The life changing relationship with God begins in the here and now. In our baptism we have received eternal life. And this divine relation propels us; empowers  us to reach that day when we will be united with God body and soul in heaven; where we will be most alive.