One song in Spanish says, "Si el grano de trigo no muere, si no muere solo quedara, pero si muere en abundancia dara un fruto eterno que no morira".

Sorry, I don’t have Frank Sinatra’s voice. I can’t sing in English. The words mean: If the grain of wheat does not die, it will be alone. If it dies, it will give an eternal fruit that will never die.

The Liturgy of the Word this week reminds us of the resurrection. Our faith proclaims that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

St. Paul says, " If we don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, our faith is in vain".

The Resurrection is a major foundation of our Faith.

In the first reading from the Second Book of Macabees, we heard how seven brothers and their mother were killed because they would not disobey God’s Law. They trusted in the Resurrection.

They answered, "You are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world to come will raise us up forever". The last brother said, "It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope of being raised by God; but for you there will be no resurrection to life".

Today our problem is not thinking whether or not to believe in the resurrection or how to explain the resurrection scientifically. I think that our problem is that we are losing our Faith. We are not living our Faith. We are afraid to give to our children our religious and ethical values.

Perhaps we are thinking more of our bodily health and material things. This prevents us from thinking of heavenly things. We run the risk of losing our faith in the resurrection when we accept the ideas of the "New Age". For an example: reincarnation.

This is very dangerous. Be careful!

In the Gospel Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees was, "In heaven we will be angels as children of God, because we are the ones who rise. Our God is not a God of the dead but of the living. For Him all are alive.

How can we live this truth? It is not enough to proclaim our faith in the resurrection. We need to testify to it with our lives. It means that we need the dead to rise up.

As the grain of wheat does not die, it will give no fruit; so we need to die to give fruit in abundance.

Everyday we need to die to our own self, to our whims, and finally to our own sins. This is a way to prepare us to rise.