Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C
Commentary of the day
Theodore of Mopsuestia (?-428), Bishop and theologian
Commentary on Saint John's Gospel, Book 2
"He is not God of the dead, but of the living"
At the basis of our present condition is Adam, but of our future life, Christ our Lord. For just as Adam was the first of mortal men and, consequently, all are mortal because of him, so Christ is the first to rise from the dead and has given the seed of resurrection to those who would come after him. We come into this visible life through birth in the body, which is why we are all perishable beings. But in the life to come we will be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit, which is why we shall rise up again imperishable.
This won't happen until that little seed of life has passed away. However, in this present time Christ our Lord has desired to bear us there in a symbolic way by giving baptism to us, that new birth into him. This spiritual birth is already the prefiguration of resurrection and the regeneration that is to be fully realized in us when we pass into the life there. This is why baptism is also termed regeneration...
When the apostle Paul speaks of the future life he wishes to reassure his hearers with these words: “Not only creation but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for the redemption of our bodies” (Rm 8,23). For if we have received the firstfruits of grace even now, we are waiting to receive it in its fulness when we are given the happiness of resurrection.
1) Life is not taken away from us but it is transformed
In today’s gospel, some Sadducees[1] go to Jesus (Lk 20:27-38) to put him against the Bible, but perhaps also because their hearts were attracted to Jesus. All approach Him even if with different intents. In today’s liturgy the affiliates to this religious movement in order to defend their interpretation of the Bible, ask an important question regarding the resurrection from the dead. The case in question concerns a woman who had married seven brothers. One after the other the husbands had died and she had no children[2]. This widow, who had been taken and left alone seven times, was not only barren but was condemned to an uncertain and sterile life. The conclusion of the Sadducees is ironic and terrible “You say that there is resurrection. What will happen to this woman? She had seven husbands. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?”
With patience typical of the ones who love, Jesus answers widening the perspective and taking them little by little to the logic of Life. The criterions of earthly life cannot by applied to the life in the otherworld because the difference is substantial. “Is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit” (see Rm 14:17). It changes completely the dimension where “on every instant gravitates the Eternal” (Ada Negri). “Man’s greatness, his glory and his majesty are in knowing what it is truly great, in attaching to it and in asking glory from the Lord of glory” (see Saint Basil the Great - Homily 20- chapter 3).
In his answer Jesus quotes the Bible, but surprisingly he quotes Exodus 3:6 which is a text on God not on the resurrection “That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out '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” Where is the proof that the dead will rise? If God describes himself “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” and he is a God of the living not of the dead, then that means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive somewhere even if, when God speaks of them to Moses, they have been dead for a long time.
In answering to the Sadducees Jesus takes the opportunity also to correct the belief of those Pharisees that understood the resurrection in material terms exposing themselves to the irony of the liberals. It is the same irony we find in today’s Gospel “A woman had seven husbands, at resurrection whose wife will she be?” Jesus says that the life of the dead is not like the one on earth; it is a different life because is divine and eternal. We could compare it to the one of the angels (see Lk 20:36).
The angels[3] are not the gentle and evanescent creatures we imagine. In the Bible they have the power of God, a dynamism that goes above, rises and enters and flies in light, in love and in beauty. Their duty is to guard, to illuminate, to govern and to make love beautiful. The angels that perpetually contemplate God, are the ones to whom the celestial pity has given custody of us. They illuminate us, protect us constantly in our life and guide us along the Master’s ways toward the everlasting home. We area called to angelical life now here and for eternity.
The ephemeral[4] becomes eternal. With his Cross, Christ didn’t get rid of the ephemeral in order to “escape“ towards eternity, but has put the seed of eternity in the world to let the Kingdom of God grow and to introduce angelic life into the world.
2) The angelic life of the consecrated life
Before saying how consecrated life is angelic life and transforms the ephemeral into eternity, I’d like to point out that the ones who claim that matrimony has no consequences in heaven make a wrong interpretation of Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees. By stating that “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage;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 20:34-35), Jesus rejects the spoofy idea that the Sadducees present of the otherworld as if it were a simple continuation of the earthly relationship between spouses, and doesn’t rule out that they could find in God the union that united them on earth.[5]
Beside the family there is another “place” that is school of love, that is consecrated life that “teaches” by transforming the existence of the consecrated people into a pure hymn to the Lord like the life of the saints and of the angels. To make this happen it is necessary to tune the harp and to gain purity of heart. The consecrated persons do so with the vow and the practice of chastity. Nature demands that man writes something eternal on something that is ephemeral. Through the Eucharistic the ephemeral bread and wine become eternal.
The same happens in the virginal consecration when the virgins consecrate their ideal, ”truly lofty in itself, demands no special external change. Each consecrated person normally remains in her own life context. It is a way that seems to lack the specific characteristics of religious life, and above all that of obedience. For you, however, love becomes the sequel: your charisma entails a total gift to Christ, an assimilation of the Bridegroom who implicitly asks for the observance of the evangelical counsels in order to keep your fidelity to him unstained (cf. RCV, n. 26). …. I urge you to go beyond external appearances, experiencing the mystery of God's tenderness which each one of you bears in herself and recognizing one another as sisters, even in your diversity” (ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESSBENEDICT XVI TO THE PARTECIPANT IN THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS-PILGRIMAGE OF THE ORDO VIRGINUM, Thursday, 15 May 2008) Doing so they testify that the tender grace of God is worthy more than life (see Ps 62/53, 4)
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Roman Rite
XXXII Sunday in Ordinary time – Year C- November 10, 2013