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Contemplating today's Gospel

Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
View 1st Reading and Psalm
1st Reading (1Macc 6:1-13): As King Antiochus was traversing the inland provinces, he heard that in Persia there was a city called Elymais, famous for its wealth in silver and gold, and that its temple was very rich, containing gold helmets, breastplates, and weapons left there by Alexander, son of Philip, king of Macedon, the first king of the Greeks. He went therefore and tried to capture and pillage the city. But he could not do so, because his plan became known to the people of the city who rose up in battle against him. So he retreated and in great dismay withdrew from there to return to Babylon.

While he was in Persia, a messenger brought him news that the armies sent into the land of Judah had been put to flight; that Lysias had gone at first with a strong army and been driven back by the children of Israel; that they had grown strong by reason of the arms, men, and abundant possessions taken from the armies they had destroyed; that they had pulled down the Abomination which he had built upon the altar in Jerusalem; and that they had surrounded with high walls both the sanctuary, as it had been before, and his city of Beth-zur. When the king heard this news, he was struck with fear and very much shaken. Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed.

There he remained many days, overwhelmed with sorrow, for he knew he was going to die. So he called in all his Friends and said to them: «Sleep has departed from my eyes, for my heart is sinking with anxiety. I said to myself: ‘Into what tribulation have I come, and in what floods of sorrow am I now! Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule’. But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver that were in it, and for no cause gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed. I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land».
Responsorial Psalm: 9
R/. I will rejoice in your salvation, o Lord.
I will give thanks to you, o Lord, with all my heart; I will declare all your wondrous deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, Most High.

Because my enemies are turned back, overthrown and destroyed before you. You rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked; their name you blotted out forever and ever.

The nations are sunk in the pit they have made; in the snare they set, their foot is caught. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor shall the hope of the afflicted forever perish.
Versicle before the Gospel (2Tim 1:10): Alleluia. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel. Alleluia.
Gospel text (Lk 20:27-40): Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.”

Jesus said to them, “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. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

“He is not God of the dead, but of the living”

Fr. Ramon CORTS i Blay (Barcelona, Spain)

Today, God's word deals with the outstanding matter of the resurrection from the dead. It is peculiar that, as the Sadducees did, we keep on asking useless and pointless questions. We try to explain the substance of afterlife with world criteria, when in the world to come everything is different: “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” (Lk 20:35). Setting off from wrong judgement leads you to wrong conclusions.

If we were able to love each other on a higher level, we would not be surprised to see that in Heaven, there is not the exclusive kind of love we have here, normal because of our limitations, making it difficult to see beyond our closed minds. In Heaven we shall all love each other with a pure heart, without any feelings of envy or distrust, and, not only husband and wife, our sons or those of our own blood, but everybody, without exception: no language, country, race or cultural discriminations, for “true love attains a great strength” (St. Paulinus of Nola).

These words of the Scripture coming out of Jesus' lips are very hopeful for us. They are indeed, for it could happen to us in the maelstrom of our daily chores which does not allow us time to think, and influenced by an environmental culture that denies eternal life, we could become doubtful with regards to the resurrection of the dead. Yes, it is very encouraging that the same Lord tells us there will be a future beyond the destruction of our body and of this passing world: “That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Lk 20:37-38).

Thoughts on Today's Gospel

  • “The resurrected body cannot be aerial or ethereal: how can there be a true resurrection if there cannot be true flesh?” (Saint Gregory the Great)

  • “ But already on this earth, in prayer, in the Sacraments, in fraternity, we encounter Jesus and his love, and thus we may already taste something of the risen life.”(Francis)

  • “What is ‘rising’? (…). God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, nº 997)