Daily Catholic Lectio
Saturday, 25 November 2023
Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
1 Maccabees 6:1-13. Luke 20:27-40
All are living!
‘We, who are children of the living God, shall embrace the culture of life.’
The Sadducees ask Jesus, ‘In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife?’
The Sadducees, in the time of Jesus, were a group of people who had religious and political powers. They accepted the first five books (the Pentateuch) of the Bible. That’s why Jesus quotes from the Exodus when answering their question. The Sadducees did not believe in heaven, life after death, bodily resurrection, or angels.
Their question on the resurrection is in the background of levirate marriage, whereby according to Mosaic Law (cf. Debt 25:5-10), when the husband dies without offspring, the brother of the husband could marry the wife and may bring forth children for his brother.
Jesus’ answer consists of three elements:
(a) They neither marry nor are given in marriage.
Marriage is for making offspring. We become immortal through our offspring. At the resurrection, we become immortal; therefore, there is no need for marriage or the making of offspring.
(b) They will be like angels.
The risen ones will go beyond gender discrimination and bodily boundaries.
(c) They will be children of God.
They become the offspring of God. They begin to live with God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who lived in space-time, live with God.
What is the lesson that we draw from this text?
Death gives meaning to our lives. Death makes us live our lives effectively and well. Life after death gives hope to our lives before death. Jesus makes the Sadducees have this hope.
‘We, who are children of the living God, shall embrace the culture of life.’
In the first reading, we hear about the last days of Antiochus. Antiochus, who brought a lot of disaster to the people of Israel, experiences pain and suffering at the end of his life. He sees his suffering as a punishment for doing evil. The idea behind it is that we will reap the fruits of our actions in this world itself.
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The Catechism of the Church announces that we believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfilment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh” (cf. n. 1015).
Fr. Yesu Karunanidhi
Archdiocese of Madurai
Missionary of Mercy
Yesu Karunanidhi 
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