3rd JUNE.WEDNESDAY IN WEEK 9

READINGS

1.Tobit 3:1-17

2.Gospel: Mark 12:18-27

REFLECTION ON THE READINGS

Marriage and Family

From the readings today we hear Jesus responding to the controversy that arose between two parties, that is the Sadducee, those who do not believe that there is life after, and the existence of angels and the Pharisees who believed in the doctrine of life after. The Sadducee recognized only the first five books of the Bible, that is the Pentateuch as the sacred scripture and in those five books the saw no evidence suggesting life after (life beyond naked eyes). In this perspective, Jesus they knew suggested to them another reality beyond their imagination, the reality that was to be understood through an act of faith, that belief in the resurrection and life after. The kind of thinking the Sadducee put to Jesus is that for them they understood that heavenly life is an extension of earthly life. Jesus in replying their quest suggests otherwise, he suggests that the state of life after death is not the continuation of the same state of life in heaven.

Furthermore, he suggests that when people rise from the dead do not marry, he says that they are like angels in heaven. St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians speaks of death in terms of transformation, “we shall be changed”, in the same letter he state that love endures into eternity. Our love for the Lord and the love that is expressed in strong marriage bond will be expressed in a very different way to how it is expressed on earth.

From the gospel reading we learn a lesson that in life after, there is no thing called marriage due to reason that there death will be no longer prevailing ( there is no dying again). Marriage here on earth is necessary for it keeps the generation ongoing as when one generation departs one is required to succeed it. In heaven there won’t any liability of dying and decaying. In this reading it is an invitation to each one of us to make a move beyond sensual thinking and feeling; we are all invited to move beyond flesh thinking to spiritual thinking.

Jesus clarifies that God is God of the living and not of the dead. This has been testified from the scriptures, i.e. Exodus 3:6 God calls himself God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God was close to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when they lived on earth. This relationship could not cease with death.