Word to the Wise
Saturday, November 22, 2014 - Saturday in the 33th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rev 11:4-12 and Luke 20:27-40,574]The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. [Luke]
NOVEMBER 22 ST. CECILIA [virgin and martyr]
The setting for this incident is in Jerusalem after Jesus' triumphal entry in Holy Week. The Sadducees are the questioners. They represented the aristocratic establishment with a cozy relationship with Roman authorities - "live and let live." By asking an absurd theoretical question about Jewish marital law, they are seeking some way to bring a charge against him. (Remember the question about paying taxes to Caesar?) The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead because they did not think there was any reference to it in the Torah (the Pentateuch), which was the only scripture they recognized. Jesus dispatches them by saying their question is irrelevant because marriage is an earthly reality, and God did indeed reveal an afterlife by referring, in Exodus 3, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as if they are still "alive."
Questions about the afterlife are difficult because we want to think that the best we have experienced in this life will be available in heaven! Our spouses, friends, pets, belongings, etc. can enter into this speculation! The most that the Church can say is that heaven is not a place, it is a relationship with God. This is called the "beatific vision" and it replaces all other joys. Jesus says that we become "like angels" and "children of God." This may not answer questions about continuing relationships "in heaven", which can be absurd like the Sadducees' dilemma, but Jesus' promise is a powerful one that offers eternal hope. That's where our focus needs to be! AMEN
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