Gospel according to Saint Luke 20:27-38
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to him, 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 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.”
Two worlds, two kingdoms, two lives
Luis CASASUS President of the Idente Missionaries
Rome, November 09, 2025 | XXIII Sunday in Ordinary Time
2Macc 7:1-2.9-14; 2Thess 2: 16-3,5; Lk 20: 27-38
The Sadducees’ question to Jesus: Whose wife will she be in the resurrection, since she had seven husbands? It is more than a trap set for the Master and more than contempt for women, which is clear to our current mindset.
It represents, at its core, our central problem in moral life, which manifests itself as a Dominant Defect, linked to Attachment to the world and a lack of Abnegation. This “triple alliance” is not always perceived by us. Many experienced and holy moralists have spoken about the root of sin and have given diverse, but not contradictory, opinions about what that root of sin is, or the most radical, most destructive sin; but in any case, they have taught us how instinct, personality, and malice of spirit intervene.
A notable example is that of St. Paul, who, after a long personal struggle and having shed many tears for the communities of various cities, says in 1 Tim 6:10 that the root of all sins is concupiscence or greed.
Malice of spirit in Christian morality refers to a deliberate inner attitude of rejection of good, a voluntary disposition toward sin and harm, which directly opposes God’s love and truth. Thus, malice is not only an external act of wickedness, but a conscious intention to do evil, even knowing that it is contrary to the divine will.
It is the rejection of good by choice: The malicious person not only commits evil acts, but embraces evil as a way of life, rejecting grace and truth, which is undoubtedly a formidable obstacle to conversion, as it prevents repentance and blocks the action of the Holy Spirit.
Our Founding Father explains it this way: Malice of the spirit is a more essential (ontological) degradation and occurs when human beings, in the exercise of their freedom, choose lies when they could choose truth; choose evil when they could choose good; choose ugliness when they could choose beauty.
It seems that this was the case with the Sadducees in today’s incident, but it is not for us to judge them, but rather to meditate on whether there are times when the complexity of my soul rebels against the best that the Holy Spirit inspires in my heart.
In that sense, my life would be a sadly accurate image of a Sadducee: a person who is well-off (financially, religiously, or emotionally); more or less unconsciously exploiting others, like them, who negotiated in the Temple with the good faith of those who saw them as intermediaries with God. Wealth and prestige dazzled them and made it difficult for them to think about the God that Jesus brought: the God of the living, not of the dead.
Christ’s message was clear: it is not a resurrection as proclaimed by the Pharisees, that is, a return to this world, but without problems, wars, illnesses… only a new earthly existence full of happiness and joy. Jesus’ last words about God are totally revealing: for Him, everyone lives. Those who received divine life no longer die. Now, in this world, we also have another form of life, which of course will disappear, as happened to the dinosaurs, mice, or people who have already died.
The life that awaits us after we have passed through this world is too different; we cannot comprehend it. As St. Paul says: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no mind has conceived that God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9). In reality, although it causes us understandable curiosity, we do not need to understand it, just as a fetus does not need to and cannot understand what its life will be like after birth; its world does not yet have room for that idea.
In any case, Christ himself gives us a preview with his appearances after the Resurrection. Not only that, but each of us has an intimate certainty that “something” in us cannot die, as artists have so often expressed in their music, speaking of eternal love.
The First Reading is a moving example of this profound certainty; the seven Maccabean brothers face torture and death with a strength that was not of this world and that surprised everyone. As Pope Francis said:
God is always greater than we imagine; the works he performs are surprising in relation to our calculations; his action is always different, always exceeding our needs and expectations; and that is why we must never stop seeking him and turning to his true face (DEC 11, 2022)
—ooOoo—
Once again, I would like to remind you how powerful the divine presence is in our lives, not only to be sure that He is preparing an eternal dwelling place for us… after death. I am referring to the awareness that He protects us, that the past experience of having been forgiven guarantees that He will do so again. We are privileged in the midst of suffering, for those who have not received the gift of faith do not have the same experience. From children we can learn that it is not necessary to constantly receive gifts from our parents, that surely the most beautiful and comforting gift is their presence.
In some African cultures, a person becomes an adult through so-called initiation rites. When a boy between the ages of twelve and fifteen feels he has reached the age to become an adult, he enters the preparatory phase of these rites. During the final phase, the hunters and warriors of the village ceremoniously blindfold him and take him into the forest around 10 p.m. They leave him in the middle of the forest blindfolded for the rest of the night. The hunters return to the forest early in the morning to judge whether or not the child has removed the blindfold. If they observe that the child has removed the blindfold during the night, he is disqualified from adulthood and will be considered a baby or a small child for the rest of his life. If the child has complied with the rules, the hunters and warriors will ceremoniously take him to the village and initiate him into adulthood.
A man who went through this rite of passage shared his story. He recounted how the hunters and warriors took him into the forest and left him there all night. He said, It was the longest night of my life. He recounted how he could hear every leaf that fell in the forest. Many times, he was tempted to remove his blindfold and see what was happening around him, but when he thought of the shame he would suffer for the rest of his life, he gathered his courage and remained calm. In the morning, the hunters and warriors returned to the forest, removed his blindfold, and took him back to the village, where he was ceremoniously initiated into adulthood.
After completing the initiation rites, one of the warriors explained that he had not been alone in the forest, that his father, who was also a hunter and warrior, had been well armed and had sat beside him all night.
When he heard that his father had been at his side all night, he regretted having spent it awake, filled with fear and anxiety. He said, I wish someone had told me I wasn’t alone; I wish someone had told me that night that my father was sitting beside me, I would have slept like a baby. What a wasted night! I spent it in panic, not knowing that my father was protecting me. What a wasted night!
This is also our story. At the end of our time here on earth, by God’s grace, when we arrive in heaven, the blinders will be removed from our eyes, and then the things that are now invisible to us will become visible. Then we will be able to look back and see that in the moments when we thought we were alone on earth, we were not alone; God was with us. We will discover that on the nights when we thought we were alone in the darkness, God was with us.
Then we will understand the words of Psalm 139: You surround me from behind and before, you lay your hand upon me. Then we will understand how much time, energy, and prayer we wasted worrying while God the Father was protecting us.
Then, perhaps, we will say through our tears: What a wasted life! If someone had told me I was not alone, I would not have given in to depression, I would not have given in to anxiety; I would have made the most of my life on earth. That, probably, will be our moment of Purgatory.
But all this is not a threat, but a call to be awake, unlike the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, the foolish virgins in the parable (Mk 13:35-36), or the negligent servants who do not take care of their Lord’s house (Mk 13:32-37). Too many examples of spiritual slumber…
Because we always have the opportunity to wake up, even if we have wasted a lot of time. Every moment, every minute that God gives us is unique and allows us to do something good that cannot be repeated: Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light (Eph 5:14). Apparently, the Sadducees did not want to wake up from the illusory world they had created for their pleasures and luxuries, and history even records their sad end, as a lesson for all, in the year 70 AD.
May our intimate lesson today be to follow St. Paul’s desire in the Second Reading:
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the patience of Christ
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In the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Luis CASASUS
President
