​            This Sunday the incumbent State Government have got a reason to party as their party won the yesterday’s State election. They have been given a mandate to govern Victoria over the next four years. The celebratory atmosphere which dominated in their headquarters last night was the outcome of the support given them by the people of Victoria. The people who voted for them believed that the Labor would be the best option for our State. The Gospel for this Sunday hardly resembles the victorious mood we could see among the Labor supporters yesterday. Jesus is brought before Pilate. Was it an ancient summit of the Roman Empire and the heavenly Kingdom? It could have been. The powerful Roman Empire which ruled the whole known world, including the Holy Land, had a chance to converse with the King of the Universe, with Jesus Christ. However Jesus hadn’t gathered enough supporters to frighten Pilate. On the contrary Jesus’ opponents were more successful to convince the crowds to demand Jesus’ death. The Gospel reading we have just heard is part of that deliberation Pilate was undertaking in regards to Our Blessed Lord. Although he was convinced that Jesus was innocent the voice of the majority was more important than his conscience, his personal convictions or his integrity. Those who wanted Jesus dead had a reason to party. They won. At least they thought so. As we contemplate this event which happened in the Pilate’s palace we need to ask ourselves again: ‘Who won there? Did the Jewish leaders win? Or did Jesus Christ win?
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! We, the disciples of Jesus, have been in a celebratory mood, not only today as we observe the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, Universal King, but every day for two thousand years. St John in the Book of the Apocalypse called Jesus ‘the faithful witness.’ Jesus was indeed faithful to the truth. That’s what gives us a reason for celebrating. When Pilate asked the Lord: ‘Are you a king?’ Jesus answered: ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth.’ Jesus is the Truth who bears witness to the love God has for his children, that God is a loving Father who gives life and freedom.  Jesus is the Truth who bears witness to the happiness people can have when they receive this love and being transformed by it they are capable of loving others according to the measure of God’s love.
Reading the account of that time Jesus was in the Roman headquarters in Jerusalem we notice that the Governor keeps moving in and out of the building where Jesus is kept. When he speaks to Jesus he sees the Lord’s innocence and integrity, he is inspired to search for a way of freeing Jesus but when he goes out to face the Jewish leaders and the crowd he sees that the numbers are on the side of the condemnation. Eventually he gives in to the numbers. However it is not the way of Jesus.  Jesus is for the truth not for the numbers. One of the Church Fathers, Saint Augustin explained it in this way: ‘Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.’
            As I said before those who wanted Jesus’ death had a reason to party. They had achieved it. What they didn’t realize was that the true winner was the One who was crowned with thorns and raised on the cross. Jesus was like the seed sown in the ground. He died not to be annihilated but to be resurrected. His Resurrection is fulfils the hope the Prophet Daniel expressed when he said: ‘I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man. On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship.’ Because Jesus was ‘the true witness,’ in his life, in his ministry and in his passion; he is ‘the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.’ As Christians we constantly return to Jesus. From him we draw an inspiration and to him we look for hope. Even if this approach is ridiculed in our society we hold fast to it by bearing witness to the Truth and hoping that those who govern us witnessing our profound religious obedience to the Lord Jesus will have their hour of truth like Pilate did. We also pray for those who govern us, as St Paul has urged us to do, so that, unlike Pilate, they could embrace the sovereignty of Jesus and express it in the laws they make.

            When I was preparing to be a missionary priest I was also studying Theology. Among the subjects there were some on the Scriptures. One of them was on the prophets. Our lecture explained to us that there are two groups of prophets in the Bible, so called the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. I was very happy to learn that my Baptismal patron, Prophet Daniel, was among the Major Prophets. Of course it doesn’t mean that the Minor Prophets are less important but simply that their writings are not so lengthy like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Daniel. However my reverence for the Prophet Daniel is based not only become he is a major prophet of the Old Testament but because he spoke of the resurrection a long time before Jesus Christ was born.
            In the First Reading for this Mass, taken from the Prophet Daniel, we heard: ‘Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.’ For his listeners it was a difficult message. They didn’t expect that. Even today this mystery is rejected. Last year a survey was conducted in the UK which showed that half of the Brits don’t believe in the Resurrection. Some even said that it wasn’t important to believe in the Resurrection in order to be a Christian. However St Paul in the Letter to the Corinthians explains: ‘If there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ himself cannot have been raised, and if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your believing is useless.’
Last year a movie ‘The case for Christ’ was released. It was based on the book written by Lee Strobel, a once Chicago journalist, in which he wrote an account of his journey from being a sceptic and atheist to embracing Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.            The whole movie is about Lee doing his best to prove to his wife who became a Christian that she was mad. As a journalist he did his own investigation to prove that Jesus’ Resurrection was not true but after gathering all the data, after interviewing all sort of experts, Lee looks at the blackboard with his notes and says: ‘God you win.’
Lee’s acknowledgment of the truth of the Resurrection echoes our Gospel where we heard: ‘They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then too he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven.’ By the way it is the second reason I love the Book of my patron saint: Prophet Daniel. The prophet used the expression: ‘the Son of Man’ which Jesus Christ applied to himself. The Prophet spoke of the final days of the Universe. He was proclaiming the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the mysterious figure of the Son of Man. For sure he saw this figure returning to the earth full of glory and power. It was the person who was given the authority over the entire Universe but the Prophet couldn’t miss that this mysterious figure was well and truly human. We are not yet there, I mean in the times of which Prophet Daniel wrote but we know who and what make prophesy of Daniel real.
Firstly it is Jesus Christ, God who is truly divine and human. Jesus didn’t take off his humanity, like a cloak, when he ascended to heaven. He is in heaven with his humanity. He is still the Son of Man ‘who will come to judge the living and the dead.’
Secondly it is Jesus’ Resurrection which Lee Strobel tried to discredit but despite his best efforts he admitted that Resurrection is real. Those who say that there is no Resurrection are spreading fake news. Don’t listen to them. Listen to the Good News. Jesus died and rose from the dead for us and our salvation.
When Lee Strobel began his investigation into Jesus’ Resurrection he asked a priest: ‘How can you build your life on this belief in the Resurrection. It like is building on sand.’ The priest answered: ‘We have built our Christian life on that for two thousand years and we are still standing.’
My Dear Fellow believers. Believe that the Lord died and rose from the dead. Build your life and faith on that and it will not collapse. This is the Good News.

​As we receive the Gospel of Mark today we can realise that our society is different to that of pictured in the Gospel. At the time of Christ people in long robes made an impression on their fellow men and women. Their long and ostentatious prayers done in public won them people’s admiration. If I went to the Flinders Street Station dressed like for Mass I might get a few curious tourists asking to have a selfie with me but I doubt I would generate any admiration from passers-by. I believe it is a blessing. The Lord has allowed it to happen so that, as his followers, we could resemble the poor widow from the Gospel rather than the scribers. There can be among us a lot of religious display and little of living the faith.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The poor widow didn’t have anything to impress superficially religious people who flocked to the Jerusalem Temple. Her clothing was not shining. She didn’t have a support of her husband. He was dead and she was insignificant. The money she dropped into the treasury didn’t make noise to attract people attention. However in the immense crowd of the people who were in Jerusalem ready to celebrate the most important Jewish festival, the Passover, she stood out. She stood out in the sight of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus see in her offering? Our Blessed Lord saw not just money but life. Jesus said that she gave: ‘all her life.’ She had two coins. She could have kept one and give one, but she gave both coins. Because she gave both coins her gift was not about the money but about her life given to God.
How much she must have trusted God. How much those who were giving big sums ‘out of their abundance’ could have learnt about religion from that poor woman. Unfortunately they were too preoccupied with fulfilling religious obligations to please God so that they could continue making more profit that they missed an opportunity to go deeper in their faith. Let us not repeat their mistake. Let us learn true religion from the poor widow, the wisdom figure in today’s Gospel.
            When I was meditating on this Gospel I paid attention to the timing of the event. It happened during the week we call the Holy Week. It occurred to me that the great prophet John the Baptist was dead by then. The prophet who was called to point out to Jesus Christ was not there anymore. However this poor widow from this Sunday’s Gospel took on the duty of John the Baptist. By her action she pointed out to the action Jesus Christ was to do in a couple of days. What was the action? He was going to make of his own life a gift for God’s glory and for our salvation. In the Gospel of John Jesus said: ‘I lay down my life. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my free will.’ That poor widow was a prophet of Jesus’ final hours. Jesus gave his life for us. He did it to the last drop of his blood. He didn’t give something of his life, like his teaching, his wisdom or his miraculous powers. He gave all his life. When he was led through the streets of Jerusalem to the hill of Golgotha, when he was crucified on Golgotha the world didn’t stop, like the world didn’t stop when the poor widow gave to small coins. The world went on when she was making her offering. The world went on when the Son of God was making his offering on the cross.
            My dear Fellow believers! Pay attention to the person of Jesus the poor widow is pointing out to. But don’t go sentimental. Don’t go tearful. Instead imitate Jesus. The poor widow did. She gave her all life like Jesus did. She might have heard Jesus say: ‘However wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the Gospel will save it.’ Don’t look however for some big treasuries your treasury is your parish community, your treasury is your family, your treasury is your work or retirement, your treasury is your school or kindergarten, your treasury are your friends and people in need you meet. So look at Jesus offering his whole life for us and for our salvation. Meditate on the action of the poor widow and give your whole life to those treasuries I have just mentioned because in heaven you will be asked how much of your life you have spent not how much you have accumulated. Those who have spent it all for God and other people will enter the Kingdom. They will be like Jesus Christ who gave it all.

​Last year I was talking to a man whose wife died when they were still young. In the time leading up to her funeral, and after the funeral, people were approaching him to express their condolences. If someone was saying: “I am sorry you have lost your wife” his response was: “She is not lost. I know perfectly well where she is. She is where Jesus Christ is.”
I couldn’t help thinking that the man was an evangelist in mourning for his wife. His faith is Jesus Christ not only sustained him during that difficult time but it also led him to get across the Good News of Jesus Christ to the people whom he met around that time. Some people thought he went mad after the death of the woman he loved so much, however there were people who were deeply touched by his witness.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! This first Sunday of November brings us together to pray for those who have died over the last year. As Christians we believe that our deceased are well and truly alive. They have not evaporated into nothingness. We hold onto what St Paul wrote in the Letter to the Romans: ‘When we were baptized we went into the tomb with Jesus and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.’
During an interview in 2010 Lemmy, an English musician and songwriter, said:  ‘In your twenties, you think you are immortal. In your thirties, you hope you are immortal. In your forties, you just pray it doesn’t hurt too much, and by the time you reach my age, you become convinced that, well, it could be just around the corner. Do I think about death a lot? It is difficult not to when you’re 65, son.’ Although Lemmy was an agnostic in his honest reflection on life and death he shared the insight of St Paul from the First Letter to the Corinthians: ‘Our time is growing short’ and few sentences later ‘the world as we know it is passing away.’ However the difference was in the way they addressed it. Lemmy escaped into drugs and alcohol. St Paul found his strength in Jesus Christ. Today’s readings, both from the Book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Mark, confront us with the most important commandment: ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ Did you notice that the scribe from the Gospel asked Jesus for the first off all commandments? Jesus however gave him the first and the second, loving God and loving the neighbor. Why did our Blessed Lord do that? Because our love of the neighbor flows from our love of God but our love of God is real when we love our neighbor. Separating the first commandment from the second or the second from the first makes our religion and life dysfunctional.
This Sunday as we remember those people in our life who have died our presence and prayers for them are a sign of our love for them. We are here not only to share our memories of them but to pray for them because as followers of Christ we believe that with death ‘life is changed not ended.’ Gabriel Marcel, a French thinker and writer, who was a son of an agnostic and who was an agnostic himself until his conversion to the Catholic Church at the age of forty wrote: ‘To tell someone, with fullness of heart: ‘I love you,’ is virtually the same as saying: ‘You shall never die.’
The God who created the whole Universe, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who led the people of Israel out of Egypt, the God who spoke through the prophets, the God whose only Begotten Son Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, who was crucified, died, was buried and was raised to life, this God has invited first his Chosen People Israel and then the Church founded by Jesus Christ and thus all people to love him ‘with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.’ In this loving relationship we hear God say to us: ‘I love you. You shall not die. Your death will be your Resurrection. Look at my Son Jesus Christ. He is the Firstborn among the many brothers and sisters. He is the first of the many who will follow him in his death and Resurrection.’
Today we pray for the dead because we realize that our loved ones were not perfect as we are not perfect. If being in the presence of ‘the Holy, Holly, Holy Lord,’ they still acknowledge the traces of their sins stopping them from being united in the eternal happiness with God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our loving and faith filled prayers offered in the name of Jesus can contribute to their desire to be with God forever and ever. Amen.