Nov 7th Mass Rdgs & Reflection

November 7, 2010 ~ 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Liturgical Year C, Cycle II


First Reading: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15
Second Reading: Second Thessalonians 2:16-3:5
Gospel: Luke 20:27-38


Reflection Questions

1. Paint the scene in this Gospel: What kind of a threat do you think Jesus posed to the Sadducees? Why do you think they wanted to trip Him up? What kind of an answer do you think they thought they'd get from Him?
2. What is your biggest question about what heaven will be like? Complete the following statement: Heaven would be really cool if it had __________.
3. Pretend for a minute that you are a defense attorney: How would you defend the teaching of the bodily resurrection to a non-believer?

Summary of the Gospel


Talk about cool under pressure: Our Gospel reading for this Sunday gives us another example of Jesus responding to those who would trap Him. St. Luke has Jesus interacting with a Jewish religious group of His time known as the Sadducees, who denied the bodily resurrection and the afterlife. They wanted to confront Jesus on this belief, and Jesus didn't back down from their challenges, even though they were the so-called religious 'experts' of His day. He took the time to answer them and to defend His positions with the truth. The Sadducees were trying to humiliate Him. They wanted to show that His belief in a resurrection of the dead was absurd. The reason that they denied the resurrection was because that they only followed the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. They claimed that the existence of a resurrection, along with the belief in angels, demons, and an afterlife, was not present in those books. Jesus pointed out to them not only their error, but how the Bible is consistent from beginning to end with regards to its teaching on the afterlife.


Let's examine what Jesus said to them: First, He contrasts people of 'this age' (who live on earth as we know from our experience) from people of the 'coming age' (the state of those who live in heaven). Those who get to heaven are 'deemed worthy' (which means that they could have been deemed unworthy). They will find their existence in heaven to be like the existence of the angels, who are spirit-beings, as opposed to their earthly experience, in which humans are body-spirit beings.


The Church teaches that we will receive our bodies back at the end of time: In heaven, we will be spirits who once had bodies who are waiting to get our bodies back. God fully intends to gives us our bodies back in a glorified state, a state that will be just like Jesus' glorified body after the Resurrection. Jesus shows how our relationship with God, even after death, is a living relationship with Him.


Eventually, Jesus had the last laugh with the Sadducees, as He showed in His very flesh that bodily resurrection was a fact, intended by God as a gift to all humanity who pass the test of holiness on earth. The Sadducees left Jesus without a response, and were ultimately put in their place by Jesus' words. Many people struggle with Jesus, and want to fight Him on everything - even up to their death. May we have the grace to submit to Jesus on everything, and trust Him with our entire lives. If we do so, we will be deemed worthy, and will be with Him forever in the coming age.