Luke 20: 27-40
The Resurrection and Marriage
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[a] 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”
39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” 40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
This Gospel Passage has nothing to do with the Memorial of the Presentation of Blessed Virgin, but I include it here for those who want to continue reflecting on these chapters from Luke which we have been following each day.
The Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the temple by her parents Anne and Joachim as a tangible act of gratitude for becoming parents in their advanced years seems out of place in the sequence of passages we have been reading these past weeks, but it serves as a stimulus for the upcoming Solemnity Christ the King, tomorrow and the week of readings on the Last Judgement before we begin Advent. Although there is no scriptural basis for this feast, it stems from the Apocryphal Scriptures, which appeared along side the formally approved Inspired Scriptures, adding flesh to the sketchy accounts we have of the family of Jesus.We see the preparation for the birth of Mary which falls in line with the births of other GREATS in the Scriptures: the barren couple, praying for and being promised a child, and offering that child to God, as with Samuel and John the Baptist, for example. Anne and Joachim, mother and father of Mary, do the same, and formally present her in the temple at an early age. There she learns how to pray and reflect on the Scriptures, a gift which made it easier to accept the "marvels" proposed to her by the angel Gabriel, and to walk with Jesus through his life and do the same with us today. Her openness to Gabriel's message serves as a lasting model for us when we are asked to do something we think is far beyond our capacity or power to accomplish. May we take sometime today to put ourselves in Mary's shoes, and ask her for the help we need to "present ourselves unconditionally" to the God who never seems to stop calling us to what we might think is beyond our ability to achieve. If Mary did it, so can we.
Bro. Rene
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