11th Sunday Ordinary Time, Year B, 2nd Reading (2 Corinthians 5:6-10)

⁶ Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷ For we live by faith, not by sight. ⁸ We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹ So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. ¹⁰ For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

This Sunday’s second reading comes from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. In the passage just before this one, Paul contrasts our earthly body, which he calls a “tent” (and thus impermanent), with the future “building”, “the eternal house in heaven” (our permanent dwelling place) that God will give us. We suffer in this life and long for that heavenly future. We can believe this will happen because God has given us the Spirit as a “guarantee”. As Christians, we try to follow the Spirit by imitating Jesus and refining our experience in the Church.

And so we reach this Sunday’s second reading where Paul tells us we can always be confident. Essentially he wants us to know that, while things like suffering or early death may make us question the truth of Christianity, they do not invalidate it. A Christian bases their life not on how things appear to be in this world but on how Jesus taught us to live. We must trust in the Lord and obey his word in the hope of the eternal joy ahead. As Paul puts it in one of his most poetic passages: “we live by faith not by sight.”

Living on earth in a physical body does, to some degree separate us from Christ, and we shall have complete unity with him only after death. Naturally, given our often dark experiences of this world, we would prefer to be in that future state of happiness and unity. But, whatever happens, we remain confident that nothing can separate us from Christ, not suffering and not even death. Indeed, death is simply the transition that we want so desperately, that will lead us to unity with Christ. However, while in this world we remain accountable for our actions for, as Paul tells us at the end of this passage, we must all face judgment. And so we must live our lives with faith, hope and love in expectation of a glorious future.