“That day there came to him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and asked him, saying: ‘Master, Moses said: ‘If a man die having no son, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up issue to his brother.’ Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first having married a wife, died; and not having issue left his wife to his brother. In like manner the second, and the third, and so on to the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. At the resurrection therefore whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her.’ And Jesus answering, said to them: ‘You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And the multitudes hearing it, were in admiration at his doctrine.”
The Sadducees then come, like waves trying to reach into land to break down a mighty fortress, if not by argument, then by making Jesus weary: “My soul hath slumbered through heaviness: strengthen thou me in thy words” (Psalm 118:28). The Sadducees did not only deny resurrection of the body, but also the immortality of the soul, something many non-Christian thinkers had come to accept: “Where there is no knowledge of the soul, there is no good” (Proverbs 19:2). To deny the resurrection takes away from the battle one must undergo for love, for without the condemnation of the wicked and the glorious life of the just, one then seeks justice and pleasure in this life, which leads to malice and self-seeking: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19). Now, in ancient cultures, there was a seeking of a sort of immortality by way of bearing children; such was also the appeal of glory or a good name: “A good life hath its number of days: but a good name shall continue for ever” (Ecclesiasticus 41:16), and to a culture that lived for the present life, Moses gave the precept for a brother to marry a dead brother’s wife, that his name may live on through the children born to the new spouse. The Sadducees then put forwards a ludicrous fiction as a type of thought experiment, pulling from reality in favor of obtuse questions: “But avoid foolish and old wives’ fables: and exercise thyself unto godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7), which is a lesson to you, Theophila, to seek first the truth which sets your heart aflame: “There came in my heart as a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it” (Jeremias 20:9); “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Mystically, the seven brothers are representative of the seven deadly sins, which bear no fruit, through which one passes without bearing any fruit of true love, instead living entirely for oneself: “Amen, amen, I say unto you: that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin” (John 8:34). Jesus then reprimands them for not knowing the Scriptures, for in the Scriptures is the knowledge of God, and to read them with an open heart is to let Him speak to you from His Heart: “Meditate upon these things, be wholly in these things: that thy profiting may be manifest to all. Take heed to thyself and to doctrine: be earnest in them” (1 Timothy 4:15-16); your Beloved longs to speak to you and tell you about Himself, if only you will open your ear to His words: “Incline your ear and come to me: hear and your soul shall live” (Isaias 55:3). Their view of God was also too narrow, not thinking Him to be that whose goodness surpasses all understanding; it can also mean that they did not know Jesus, who is called the power of God: “But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). They had not read the Scriptures which spoke about Him or spent time with Him, both of which are open to you, the latter being time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, both of which draw one to encounter the magnificence of His love: “And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord’s feet, heard his word” (Luke 10:39). When Jesus then says that in the resurrection men do not marry and women are not given in marriage, as the custom of the time dictated, for heaven is a perpetual contemplation of the love of God, to see the true glory of what love looks like, aflame with one’s own love and singing hymns of love to the Beloved: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come” (Apocalypse 4:8). When you are immortal, Theophila, with a glorified body and a soul entirely purified from all that is not love, then you will be rapt in ecstatic love perpetually, your mind and heart drunken on God: “Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved” (Canticle 5:1). Marriage is by all means an extraordinary good, an icon of God’s love, and filled with sacramental grace: “Marriage is honourable in all” (Hebrews 13:4), but the heavenly banquet transcends this wondrous iconography, with the true Beloved of your soul within your grasp: “For the Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb” (Apocalypse 21:22). Then, where the Sadducees had gone to the authority of Moses and denied Scriptural authority outside of it, Jesus expertly goes to Moses, that He may meet the Sadducees on their own ground and bring them the branch of truth: “And she came to him in the evening, carrying a bough of an olive tree, with green leaves, in her mouth” (Genesis 8:11). Jesus then establishes the immortality of the soul, that the God who is: “I Am Who Am” (Exodus 3:14) would not be the God of those who are not. The wording that God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, rather than grouping them together: “The Lord God of the Hebrews sent me to thee” (Exodus 7:16), this shows that God is entirely yours, loving you as if you were the only person in the world: “I to my beloved, and my beloved to me” (Canticle 6:2). It said of St. Teresa of Avila that Jesus said to her that He would remake all of creation just to hear her say she loved Him, and so it is with you; to simply rest on His Sacred Heart and whisper “I love you” to each other, or silently bask in love, this is deep prayer: “Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). You have captured the prey, o beloved of Christ, “My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart” (Canticle 2:9), therefore run to Him and feast on His love: “They shall be inebriated with the plenty of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the torrent of thy pleasure” (Psalm 35:9). Live for the love of Jesus, Theophila, and you will live a divine life. The people then sit in wonder at the doctrine of Christ, a call to realize the love and magnificence that radiates from the Scriptures: “Who have received the law by the disposition of angels” (Acts 7:53), and let them be your daily food: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was to me a joy and gladness of my heart: for thy name is called upon me, O Lord God of hosts” (Jeremias 15:16).