In this month of November—
adorned with falling leaves,
and begun with the commemorations
of All Saints and All Souls—
the Church turns our attention
to the passing away of this world
and our hope for the world to come.
But what is it that we hope for?
Certainly, we hope that
whatever has given life in this world
meaning and joy
will be somehow continued
beyond this world,
that the things and people
in whom we have delighted in this life
will continue to delight us in the next.
adorned with falling leaves,
and begun with the commemorations
of All Saints and All Souls—
the Church turns our attention
to the passing away of this world
and our hope for the world to come.
But what is it that we hope for?
Certainly, we hope that
whatever has given life in this world
meaning and joy
will be somehow continued
beyond this world,
that the things and people
in whom we have delighted in this life
will continue to delight us in the next.
But in today’s Gospel
Jesus seems to throw cold water on those hopes.
Asked whether those
who will be raised from the dead
will still be married,
Jesus responds, “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.”
Jesus seems to suggest that marriage
is a temporary provision
necessitated by the fact that we all die,
and if we did not procreate
the human race would die with us.
His words also suggest that all those relationships
that are so important to our life in this world
are perhaps simply temporary provisions
and will no longer be relevant in the life to come.
Jesus seems to throw cold water on those hopes.
Asked whether those
who will be raised from the dead
will still be married,
Jesus responds, “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.”
Jesus seems to suggest that marriage
is a temporary provision
necessitated by the fact that we all die,
and if we did not procreate
the human race would die with us.
His words also suggest that all those relationships
that are so important to our life in this world
are perhaps simply temporary provisions
and will no longer be relevant in the life to come.
Maybe to think that God’s kingdom
involves having husbands or wives
or parents or children or friends
is simply a failure of imagination
and an inability to grasp
how different eternal life will be,
where we will no longer die,
and will be like the angels,
who know and love God
in a direct and unmediated way.
Perhaps to mourn the passing of those loves
is to be, as the philosopher Eleonore Stump suggests,
“like a child who reacts with dismay when he is told
that he won’t be sucking his thumb when he grows up.”
or parents or children or friends
is simply a failure of imagination
and an inability to grasp
how different eternal life will be,
where we will no longer die,
and will be like the angels,
who know and love God
in a direct and unmediated way.
Perhaps to mourn the passing of those loves
is to be, as the philosopher Eleonore Stump suggests,
“like a child who reacts with dismay when he is told
that he won’t be sucking his thumb when he grows up.”
Is it simply the case
that the loves forged in this life
vanish into the love of God—
are something that we, as it were, outgrow?
Do we forget the personal histories
by which we became who we are,
in which spouses and parents
and children and friends
played vital, irreplaceable roles?
Is all of this simply swallowed up
when God becomes all in all?
that the loves forged in this life
vanish into the love of God—
are something that we, as it were, outgrow?
Do we forget the personal histories
by which we became who we are,
in which spouses and parents
and children and friends
played vital, irreplaceable roles?
Is all of this simply swallowed up
when God becomes all in all?
Maybe this is not the whole picture.
If our Gospel suggests that the life of the world to come
is radically different from our life in this world,
our first reading suggests that even in this radical difference
there remain threads of continuity
between this life and the next.
We hear in this reading a part of the story
of the torture and execution
of seven brothers and their mother
during the Greek persecution of the Jews
who remained faithful to the Law of Moses.
Our lectionary spares us
the gruesome details of their dismemberment,
but we do hear the words of the third brother,
who, as he extends his tongue and hands to be cut off,
says to his tormentors,
“It was from Heaven that I received these;
for the sake of his laws I disdain them;
from him I hope to receive them again.”
If our Gospel suggests that the life of the world to come
is radically different from our life in this world,
our first reading suggests that even in this radical difference
there remain threads of continuity
between this life and the next.
We hear in this reading a part of the story
of the torture and execution
of seven brothers and their mother
during the Greek persecution of the Jews
who remained faithful to the Law of Moses.
Our lectionary spares us
the gruesome details of their dismemberment,
but we do hear the words of the third brother,
who, as he extends his tongue and hands to be cut off,
says to his tormentors,
“It was from Heaven that I received these;
for the sake of his laws I disdain them;
from him I hope to receive them again.”
This story gives us an example
not simply of faith and courage,
but of hope as well.
Read alongside Jesus’s words in the Gospel,
it suggests that the life from God for which we hope
is somehow in continuity with the life
that we have already received from God,
and yet it is unimaginably more;
it is a blessedness toward which
the blessings of this life gesture,
but which they ultimately cannot express.
not simply of faith and courage,
but of hope as well.
Read alongside Jesus’s words in the Gospel,
it suggests that the life from God for which we hope
is somehow in continuity with the life
that we have already received from God,
and yet it is unimaginably more;
it is a blessedness toward which
the blessings of this life gesture,
but which they ultimately cannot express.
In the case of the blessing of marriage,
St. Paul tells us in the letter to the Ephesians
that the love of husband and wife
is not only for the sake of procreation,
but is also a sign of the love
between Christ and the Church.
Even amid struggle and misunderstanding,
the sorrow and the loss,
that seem to mark all our loves in this life,
our faithfulness to the bond of marriage
gestures to the ultimate union with Christ in love
that we hope for in God’s kingdom come.
But in the blessedness of God’s kingdom
we will no longer need signs,
we will no longer need to gesture,
because we will possess that love in its fullness.
St. Paul tells us in the letter to the Ephesians
that the love of husband and wife
is not only for the sake of procreation,
but is also a sign of the love
between Christ and the Church.
Even amid struggle and misunderstanding,
the sorrow and the loss,
that seem to mark all our loves in this life,
our faithfulness to the bond of marriage
gestures to the ultimate union with Christ in love
that we hope for in God’s kingdom come.
But in the blessedness of God’s kingdom
we will no longer need signs,
we will no longer need to gesture,
because we will possess that love in its fullness.
And yet, while the sign of the marriage bond will pass away,
surely the love that forged that bond will not.
In this life, the bond of love between spouses,
always faltering and imperfect,
is a sign by which we orient ourselves in hope
toward the unimaginable love of God;
when we possess that divine love in its fullness,
surely we will find encompassed within it
the love had by spouses in this life,
no longer marked by struggle and misunderstanding,
no longer afflicted by sorrow and loss,
no longer faltering and imperfect,
but gloriously transfigured by the light of Christ.
surely the love that forged that bond will not.
In this life, the bond of love between spouses,
always faltering and imperfect,
is a sign by which we orient ourselves in hope
toward the unimaginable love of God;
when we possess that divine love in its fullness,
surely we will find encompassed within it
the love had by spouses in this life,
no longer marked by struggle and misunderstanding,
no longer afflicted by sorrow and loss,
no longer faltering and imperfect,
but gloriously transfigured by the light of Christ.
And so too with all our loves forged in this life:
the love of parent and of child and of friend.
Our hope is that they too
will be present in the life to come,
no longer as signs and gestures
that dimly hint at the love of God
but healed, perfected, and transformed by the light
that streams forth upon them from the very heart of God.
the love of parent and of child and of friend.
Our hope is that they too
will be present in the life to come,
no longer as signs and gestures
that dimly hint at the love of God
but healed, perfected, and transformed by the light
that streams forth upon them from the very heart of God.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel that our God
“is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
So as our minds turn,
“is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
So as our minds turn,
amid November’s falling leaves
and remembrances of the dead,
to the passing away of this world,
let our hope be renewed
that the loves with which God has blessed us in this life
will not finally pass away but be restored to us,
for these loves are eternally alive
in the God of love who is their source,
from whom we have received them,
and in whom we shall possess them in eternity.
and remembrances of the dead,
to the passing away of this world,
let our hope be renewed
that the loves with which God has blessed us in this life
will not finally pass away but be restored to us,
for these loves are eternally alive
in the God of love who is their source,
from whom we have received them,
and in whom we shall possess them in eternity.
