No forced surrender

(Mk 12:28b-34)

That of the ‘Great commandment’ was the most familiar catechism rule, even to infants.

Jesus is questioned only to retort: and why do you not keep the one commandment that even God fulfils - the Sabbath rest?

The only disposition in which the Father recognizes himself is Love, not some particular precept - because only profound Quality obliges.

The spiritual proposal of the Master makes the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets its own: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God envelops the creature in every decision [heart], every moment and aspect of its concrete «life», all its resources [strength].

Mt 22:37 does not explicitly mention this last aspect, perhaps to emphasize that the Father does not absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

And Jesus adds to the nuances of authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side to those who think of love as a feeling only emotional.

The Lord suggests study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions (v.30) - the mental and deep intelligence aspect that complements Dt 6.

At first glance, it appears to be a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the wisely and personally configured existence of Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor absorb our forces or potential, depersonalising us; not even from the mental point of view.

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable, other people’s opinion.

Jesus does not speak of love for God in terms of intimacy and feeling, but of a totally involving affinity, made less oscillating precisely by the development of our sapiential measure on issues.

Here is a decisive appointment, of the Love in the round.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Lord of Heaven who does not come to meet us and instead towers over us with an objective of his own, which is extrinsic to us and makes us marginal.

Loving «How [and Because] yourself»: it is a new Genesis in the spirit of Giving.

The paradox suggested by Jesus is that we love for the care to meet - and because we love ourselves - by expanding the I into the You.

God’s «great command» affects real life and concerns not only the quality of relationship with the world and neighbour, but the reflexive global with oneself. 

We should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting the challenges even intellectual ones that call into question beliefs, works, one’s worldview, language, style, and thought itself.

All added values.

Needless to complain, if the ecclesial realities that do not update or deepen, and remain in the inherited commonplaces [or vogues] slowly decay, then disappear.

Therefore to the ancient notes of true love, the Son of God adds the ‘quality of mind’: we are not gullible, clueless, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the result of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

«Faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived» [John Paul II].

To internalize and live the message:

What is Great for you? Do you document and update yourself in order to better correspond to God’s Call?

[Thursday 9th wk. in O.T.  June 4, 2026]

The great commandment: Love

(Mk 12:28b-34)

"What is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered [...] First is: Listen Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your mind and with all your much" (vv.28-30; Deut 6:4-5).

Jesus turns what was the most banal of catechism questions into a crucial question: what is the 'great' commandment? 

Despite the different theological schools, the answer was well known to all: the Sabbath rest, the only prescription observed (even) by God.

The question put to the Master by the expert in the Law was not so innocent, but "to put him to the test" (Mt 22:35; Lk 10:25) - that is, to answer him: how then do you not fulfil the Sabbath precept?

Christ simplifies the tangle of disputes, about widening or narrowing theoretical cases, and gets to the point.

Always allergic to bickering over doctrines, he makes a proposal of life as the unifying moment of the demands of the Covenant.

All rules have an essence, otherwise they remain a scattered jumble. They find spontaneous foundation and natural meaning in the gift of self - however motivated.

But what is the solid point and context of such an invitation? A vague feeling, one emotion among many, a passing motion? Philanthropy? Or an experience?

We are thirsty for affection and grant friendship in an alternating current, so much so that love becomes a source of misunderstandings, rooted in the need to complete ourselves.

This is why the second commandment appears as an explanation of the first, not a reduction of it [Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27].

In the ancient world, it made no sense to speak of love for God, the ineffable Mystery.

It was the Most High who favoured someone by bestowing material fortune on him, and he acknowledged a duty of worship, and sacrifices.

Ditto for the unfortunate, at least to avoid retaliation (and keep it good).

With Jesus, we openly speak of gratuitousness - not mere gratitude - as the unifying core, both of the person and of salvation history.

The idea of the exchange of favours ends.

The Father has no need of anything; he does not enjoy seeing us submissive and feeling recognised [pattern of pagan religiosity] as a sovereign would towards his subjects.

The relationship with the Eternal remains concrete, but honour to the Most High is manifested by making his plan of good and growth for man his own, and recognising oneself in it.

God's plan unfolds ... with a living demand. But there is a Departure, a Centre and an Arrival. In reality, a new Genesis.

In any case, only God's initiative extracts the best from us: more talent, more desire, more interests, more unexpressed capacities, more unseen - instead of torments that hurt the soul.

It is the difference between religiosity that weakens the personality, and Faith.

Through Faith a special creative Relationship is triggered: that of the one who accepts the Call by Name, as well as the proposals of the Source of being itself - wave upon wave.

They anticipate our initiatives and infallibly guide us to the perfect blossoming of our own and others' Seeds.

Especially in Mt (22:38-39) and Mk (12:29-31), it is clear that love for one's neighbour comes from the experience and awareness of being loved first and unconditionally by God - looked upon, accepted, valued, promoted, gladdened, completed.

One loves not by effort [force is a dirigiste lever: it produces episodes that make life worse] but on the basis of how much we feel loved - and with immediacy, repeatedly, unconditionally.

One loves on the subject of the "forfeit" already experienced in one's favour by Providence, which gives meaning and value to human acts.

Not through infatuation with external, induced expectations, in any case those of others.

Even in the spiritual realm, not a few behaviours thought capable of solving problems, often chronicle them.

In this way, they rely on an idea of permanence - not on the dynamic of vocational gratuitousness, on the unimaginable Gift, to be received.

So the point is to adjust according to resources that come, or the distortion of patterns, typical of the moralist mentality.

Indeed, the scheme of omnipotence in the good, paradoxically, folds the ego and its forces, and distorts its gaze.

But beyond all nuances, we are glad that the first and second commandments are about Love: what we most desire to do and receive. It is an urgency of life.

Yet we must be wise, so that the pattern of paradigms or the stimuli of natural affection and precipitations do not overwhelm and drag away - overturning - every good intention.

Love cannot tolerate an excess of expectations, because it springs from an experience of Perfection that arrives; offered, unexpected, unpredictable. Not already set up according to concatenated and normal intentions.

If authentic, in time we will experience blossoming; not in the expectation of a return, but first and foremost in a Gift outside of time. For it has already satiated and convinced us - with contemplative amazement - and made us rejoice.

Thus the vocational and foundational Eros will continue to mould us, with its perennially explorative virtue capable of activating new Births.

Personal energy - without the usual baggage of torment, reservations, outwardness... and (again) wrath.

Great Commandment: only the profound Quality obliges

The only disposition in which the Father recognises Himself is Love, in the round and all round; not some particular precept.

For Jesus there are no rankings in the things of God and man - in fact He showed a marked tendency to summarise the many dispositions - because only profound Quality compels.

The Master's spiritual proposal appropriated the narrative of God's people and the practice of the Prophets: all heart, feet, hands - and intelligence.

Complete Love for God must envelop the creature in every decision [heart].

Likewise, in every moment and aspect of his concrete "life", as well as involving all his own resources [strength: cf. Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27].

Deut 6:5 (Hebrew text) reads in fact: "with all thy much", meaning a concrete participation in both cultic life and material fraternity - providing and helping with one's possessions.

Matthew does not explicitly mention the latter, perhaps to emphasise that the Father does not absorb energies in any way, but transmits them.

But Jesus adds to the nuances of the authentic understanding with God enumerated in the First Testament an unexpected side for those who think of love as a delicate feeling only.

The Lord suggests the study, discernment and understanding of our perceptions [Mt 22:37; Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27] accompanied by the mental aspect and deep intelligence (excluded in Deut 6).

At first glance, this appears to be a secondary facet or even a frill for the qualitative leap from a common religious sense to the wisely and personally configured existence of Faith.

The exact opposite is true: we are children of a Father who does not supplant us, nor does he absorb our potential or energy, depersonalising us.

It is a capital implication of our dignity and advancement - even human - and a specific discriminator in the discernment of Faith in Christ, as opposed to all devotional solutions in search of the Absolute (whatever).

Practicality alone makes us fragile, not very aware; and when we are not convinced, we will not be reliable either, always at the mercy of changing situations and the conformist, fashionable opinion of others.

It is not infrequent that we flee the all-embracing confrontation that would enrich everyone - precisely because of incompetence.

But let us not be one-sidedly credulous. Being attentive and up-to-date, having the capacity for even critical thinking is a required expansion in the development of one's human, moral, cultural and spiritual vocation.

Trivialities, identifications, impersonal shenanigans, and half-hearted assembly repetitions get in the way of the tide of life, this divine cascade of perennial energy that pulses and does not go out.

On the contrary, it comes with stirring appeals: it calls us to open ourselves up to new relationship attractions and other interests, even intellectual; even denominational.

Jesus does not speak of love for God in terms of intimism and sentiment, but of a totally involving affinity, made less uncertain precisely by the development of our sapiential measure, regarding matters.

Devotion swallows up everything. On the other hand, Faith does not allow itself to be plagiarised by local or external civilisation: it presupposes an ability to competently enter into personal evaluations or those inherent in the community and overall debate - historical and up-to-date.

The testimony of our Hope does not disdain to allow itself to be fertilised by dialogue with those with greater psychological or biblical expertise, specialist pastoral and social, as well as archaeological, bioethical, economic, scientific and so on.

A commitment that shows true interest in the Sacred [of course, all aspects to be evaluated not as school options].

But it must be admitted that one of the most organic expressions of great Catholic theology is what was once called the 'doctrine' of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

In the existence of Love, the primacy (also relational) of the Gift of the Spirit was recognised, which completed the possibilities of "natural" expression of the cardinal and theological virtues, leading them to fullness.

As many as four of the seven Gifts were related to a character of profound knowledge: Wisdom, Intellect, Counsel and Science.

In short: there is still a decisive rendezvous here for Love in the round.To indulge in a few jokes along believing lines is everyone's domain [individualist or circle], but the ability to enter into the matter is only of those who have been willing to sift through and experience the issues - because they are more interested in understanding the Face of God and His Design on humanity than in reiterating false narrative certainties.

It would be unnatural to recognise a Master of Heaven who does not come to meet us; as if he towered over us with 'his' objective (extrinsic to us) and thus made everyone marginal.

[In the sects - even those with a good-natured appearance - it is forbidden to go deeper, to understand: the position is already there, the candidate must 'only' adapt].

"As (and because) thou art thyself" [sense of the Greek text: Mt 22:39; Mk 12:31; Lk 10:27]: it is a new Birth of life, new Genesis in the spirit of Gift.

The paradox suggested by Jesus surpasses the ancient norm of Lev 19:18. 

We love not only the children of our people, "for the fact that" we care to meet and want to enrich ourselves together, expanding the I into the Thou.

God's "Great Command" invests real life and concerns not only the quality of relationship with the world and our neighbour, but the reflexive global self.

One should not be afraid of other doctrines and disciplines, neglecting analytical challenges beyond the 'organic' ones - the long-term ones.

All call into question beliefs, works, one's worldview; language, style, and thought itself.

We still have a great need to broaden our minds and become as vast as a panorama. And reharmonise the opposites we drag in.

Hidden Sides and Pearls to which we have not yet given breath, or visibility - and perhaps never considered Allies.

The troubled fate of the prophets remains unique, but it is not the certainties (ancient, or sophisticated, fashionable, à la page) that are the added value of the Faith in Love adventure - but rather the risk of putting oneself in the balance and the all-embracing reworking.

It is then useless to complain, if ecclesial realities that do not bring themselves up to date, and remain in inherited commonplaces, slowly decay, then disappear.

In spite of their striking heritage and fairy-tale events.

In this way, the "doctor of the law" may already be close [Mk 12:34; Lk 10:28] but he still has to keep an eye on Jesus, to understand in Him the more dilated sense of the total gift, in the specifically personalising, which is not naive.

The Lord brings the meaning of norms back to their profound and original function: to become the viaticum of every encounter that raises events, people of all backgrounds, and creation.

In conclusion, experience and ritual have their fulcrum in the reciprocity of love.

Life in all its facets becomes Liturgy more meaningful than the accredited gesture of worship; its truly broken Bread becomes a convincing call to Communion and Mission.

Even if it does not make the headlines, the authentic thermometer of our journey will not be the volume or the pile of important things we do, but a pulsing regenerated heart and mind.

This is why to the ancient notes of true Love the Son of God adds the quality of thought: we are not gullible, uninformed, one-sided.

Our outstretched hands are the fruit of free and conscious choice. No forced surrender.

"A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully received, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived" [John Paul II].

To internalise and live the message:

What is Great for you? Titles? Have, power, appear?

What in your experience of Love is the Starting Point, the Centre and the Finish?

Do you document and update yourself in order to better correspond to God's Call?

Deep Relationship

Dear brothers and sisters!

The Gospel [...] re-proposes to us Jesus' teaching on the greatest commandment: the commandment of love, which is twofold: to love God and to love one's neighbour. The Saints, whom we have recently celebrated all together in one solemn feast, are precisely those who, trusting in God's grace, seek to live according to this fundamental law. Indeed, the commandment of love can be fully put into practice by those who live in a deep relationship with God, just as a child becomes capable of loving from a good relationship with its mother and father. St John of Avila, whom I have recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, writes at the beginning of his Treatise on the Love of God: 'The cause,' he says, 'that most impels our heart to love God is to consider deeply the love he has had for us... This, more than benefits, impels the heart to love; for he who gives another a benefit, gives him something he possesses; but he who loves, gives himself with all he has, without anything else left to give' (No. 1). Before being a command - love is not a command - it is a gift, a reality that God makes us know and experience, so that, like a seed, it can also germinate within us and develop in our lives.If God's love has taken deep root in a person, that person is able to love even those who do not deserve it, as God does towards us. The father and mother do not love their children only when they deserve it: they love them always, even if they naturally let them know when they are wrong. From God we learn to always and only want good and never evil. We learn to look at the other not only with our eyes, but with God's gaze, which is the gaze of Jesus Christ. A gaze that starts from the heart and does not stop at the surface, goes beyond appearances and manages to grasp the other person's deepest expectations: expectations of being listened to, of free attention; in a word: of love. But the reverse also occurs: that by opening myself to the other as he is, by going out to him, by making myself available to him, I also open myself to knowing God, to feeling that he is there and is good. Love of God and love of neighbour are inseparable and stand in a reciprocal relationship. Jesus did not invent either one or the other, but revealed that they are, after all, one and the same commandment, and He did so not only with His word, but above all with His testimony: the very Person of Jesus and His entire mystery embody the unity of love of God and neighbour, like the two arms of the Cross, vertical and horizontal. In the Eucharist He gives us this twofold love, giving us Himself, so that, nourished by this Bread, we may love one another as He has loved us.

Dear friends, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, let us pray that every Christian knows how to show his faith in the one true God with a limpid testimony of love for his neighbour.

(Pope Benedict, Angelus 4 November 2012)

Jesus "abbreviated" the Word – he showed us once more its deeper simplicity and unity. Everything taught by the Law and the Prophets is summed up – he says – in the command: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:37-40). This is everything – the whole faith is contained in this one act of love which embraces God and humanity. Yet now further questions arise: how are we to love God with all our mind, when our intellect can barely reach him? How are we to love him with all our heart and soul, when our heart can only catch a glimpse of him from afar, when there are so many contradictions in the world that would hide his face from us? This is where the two ways in which God has "abbreviated" his Word come together. He is no longer distant. He is no longer unknown. He is no longer beyond the reach of our heart. He has become a child for us, and in so doing he has dispelled all doubt. He has become our neighbour, restoring in this way the image of man, whom we often find so hard to love. For us, God has become a gift. He has given himself. He has entered time for us. He who is the Eternal One, above time, he has assumed our time and raised it to himself on high. Christmas has become the Feast of gifts in imitation of God who has given himself to us. Let us allow our heart, our soul and our mind to be touched by this fact! Among the many gifts that we buy and receive, let us not forget the true gift: to give each other something of ourselves, to give each other something of our time, to open our time to God. In this way anxiety disappears, joy is born, and the feast is created.

[Pope Benedict, homily 24 December 2006]

With all my heart. I stress, here, the adjective "all". Totalitarianism, in politics, is an ugly thing. In religion, on the contrary, a totalitarianism on our side towards God is a very good thing. It is written: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Dt 6:5-9). That "all" repeated and applied insistently is really the banner of Christian maximalism. And it is right: God is too great, he deserves too much from us for us to be able to throw to him, as to a poor Lazarus, a few crumbs of our time and our heart. He is infinite good and will be our eternal happiness: money, pleasure, the fortunes of this world, compared with him, are just fragments of good and fleeting moments of happiness. It would not be wise to give so much of ourselves to these things and little of ourselves to Jesus.

Above everything else. Now we come to a direct comparison between God and man, between God and the world. It would not be right to say: "Either God or man". We must love "both God and man"; the latter, however, never more than God or against God or as much as God. In other words: love of God, though prevalent, is not exclusive. The Bible declares Jacob holy (Dn 3:35) and loved by God (Mal 1:2; Rom 9:13), it shows him working for seven years to win Rachel as his wife; "and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (Gen 29:20). Francis de Sales makes a little comment on these words: "Jacob", he writes, "loves Rachel with all his might, and he loves God with all his might; but he does not therefore love Rachel as God nor God as Rachel. He loves God as his God above all things and more than himself; he loves Rachel as his wife above all other women and as himself. He loves God with absolutely and superbly supreme love, and Rachel with supreme husbandly love; one love is not contrary to the other because love of Rachel does not violate the supreme advantages of love of God " (St. Francis de Sales, Oeuvres, t. V, p. 175).

And for your sake I love my neighbour. Here we are in the presence of two loves which are "twin brothers" and inseparable. It is easy to love some persons; difficult to love others; we do not find them likeable, they have offended us and hurt us; only if I love God in earnest can I love them as sons of God and because he asks me to. Jesus also established how to love one's neighbour: that is, not only with feeling, but with facts. This is the way, he said. I will ask you: I was hungry in the person of my humbler brothers, did you give me food? Did you visit me, when I was sick (cf. Mt 25:34 ff).

The catechism puts these and other words of the Bible in the double list of the seven corporal works of mercy and the seven spiritual ones. The list is not complete and it would be necessary to update it. Among the starving, for example, today, it is no longer a question just of this or that individual; there are whole peoples.

We all remember the great words of Pope Paul VI: "Today the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance. The Church shudders at this cry of anguish and calls each one to give a loving response of charity to this brother's cry for help" (Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 3). At this point justice is added to charity, because, Paul VI says also, "Private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditioned right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities" (Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 23). Consequently "every exhausting armaments race becomes an intolerable scandal" (Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, 53).

In the light of these strong expressions it can be seen how far we—individuals and peoples—still are from loving others "as ourselves", as Jesus commanded.

Another commandment: I forgive offences received. It almost seems that the Lord gives precedence to this forgiveness over worship: "So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Mt 5:23-24).

The last words of the prayer are: Lord, may I love you more and more. Here, too, there is obedience to a commandment of God, who put thirst for progress in our hearts. From pile-dwellings, caves and the first huts we have passed to houses, apartment buildings and skyscrapers; from journeys on foot, on the back of a mule or of a camel, to coaches, trains and aeroplanes. And people desire to progress further with more and more rapid means of transport, reaching more and more distant goals. But to love God, we have seen, is also a journey: God wants it to be more and more intense and perfect. He said to all his followers: "You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth" (Mt 5:13-14); "You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48). That means: to love God not a little, but so much; not to stop at the point at which we have arrived, but with his help, to progress in love.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 27 September 1978]

Today’s Gospel Reading reminds us that the whole of Divine Law can be summed up in our love for God and neighbour. Matthew the Evangelist recounts that several Pharisees colluded to put Jesus to the test (cf. 22: 34-35). One of them, a doctor of the law, asked him this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” (v. 36). Jesus, quoting the Book of Deuteronomy, answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment” (vv. 37-38). And he could have stopped there. Yet, Jesus adds something that was not asked by the doctor of the law. He says, in fact: “And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (v. 39). And in this case too, Jesus does not invent the second commandment, but takes it from the Book of Leviticus. The novelty is in his placing these two commandments together — love for God and love for neighbour — revealing that they are in fact inseparable and complementary, two sides of the same coin. You cannot love God without loving your neighbour and you cannot love your neighbour without loving God. Pope Benedict gave us a beautiful commentary on this topic in his first Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (nn. 16-18).

In effect, the visible sign a Christian can show in order to witness to his love for God to the world and to others, to his family, is the love he bears for his brothers. The Commandment to love God and neighbour is the first, not because it is at the top of the list of Commandments. Jesus does not place it at the pinnacle but at the centre, because it is from the heart that everything must go out and to which everything must return and refer.

In the Old Testament, the requirement to be holy, in the image of God who is holy, included the duty to care for the most vulnerable people, such as the stranger, the orphan and the widow (cf. Ex 22:20-26). Jesus brings this Covenant law to fulfilment; He who unites in himself, in his flesh, divinity and humanity, a single mystery of love.

Now, in the light of this Word of Jesus, love is the measure of faith, and faith is the soul of love. We can no longer separate a religious life, a pious life, from service to brothers and sisters, to the real brothers and sisters that we encounter. We can no longer divide prayer, the encounter with God in the Sacraments, from listening to the other, closeness to his life, especially to his wounds. Remember this: love is the measure of faith. How much do you love? Each one answer silently. How is your faith? My faith is as I love. And faith is the soul of love.

In the middle of the dense forest of rules and regulations — to the legalisms of past and present — Jesus makes an opening through which one can catch a glimpse of two faces: the face of the Father and the face of the brother. He does not give us two formulas or two precepts: there are no precepts nor formulas. He gives us two faces, actually only one real face, that of God reflected in many faces, because in the face of each brother, especially of the smallest, the most fragile, the defenseless and needy, there is God’s own image. And we must ask ourselves: when we meet one of these brothers, are we able to recognize the face of God in him? Are we able to do this?

In this way, Jesus offers to all the fundamental criteria on which to base one’s life. But, above all, He gave us the Holy Spirit, who allows us to love God and neighbour as He does, with a free and generous heart. With the intercession of Mary, our Mother, let us open ourselves to welcome this gift of love, to walk forever with this two-fold law, which really has only one facet: the law of love.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 26 October 2014]

(Mk 12:18-27)

The defeat of death is the cruel fate that has clouded the mind of all civilizations.

But if God creates us and calls incessantly to enter into dialogue, then what remains of us? Is the goal of all our turmoil a pit?

The Sadducees want to ridicule the doctrine of the resurrection dear to the Pharisees and - it seems - also to Jesus.

However, Master does not apply provisional categories of this world to dimensions that go beyond.

The ties also must be conceived in the relief of the divine reality.

Members of the priestly class did not believe in another life, and in the Torah it seemed to them that there was no note about the resurrection.

In short, they conceived the relationship with God in the dimension of life on earth.

In fact, the Pharisees believed in the raising of the dead in a very banal sense: a sort of improvement and sublimation of the (same) conditions of being natural.

For them, the existence of the afterlife was only an accentuated, ennobled and embellished extension of this form of our being.

Instead life «in the era, that» [LK 20:35 Greek text] is not a strengthened existence, but an indescribable and new condition - as of direct communication. Comparable to the immediacy of love.

The body decays, gets sick and undergoes dissolution: it is a natural cycle.

‘Resurrection of the flesh’ designates access to an intimate existence of pure Relationship, in our weakness and precariousness, assumed.

Evangelists use two terms to indicate the difference between these forms of life: (transliterating) Bìos and Zoe Aiònios [Life of the Eternal] which has nothing to do with the biological reality [«as angels»: v.25].

Life «in the era, that» is not an enhanced existence with respect to this mode of existence, but an indescribable and new condition - precisely, as of ‘direct communication’.

Comparable to the one-to-one of Friendship: a ‘being-with and for’ others; readily, everywhere.

Collimating with the way of existence of the Angels: they do not have a life transmitted by parents, but by God himself.

«About the bush...» - Jesus replies. He also silences the Sadducees by making them reflect; and He draws the foundation of the Resurrection (but as He understands it) precisely from Exodus.

Thus He shows that already in the Law there is a presentation of God incompatible with a destiny of humanity devoted to extermination.

The Father does not seek dialogue with the sons and then make them fall on the most beautiful.

Since creation, He takes pleasure in walking with man, and from the patriarchs he has been looking for empathy with us. His Love does not abandon.

In the archaic religious mentality the Most High was named after the region or the heights in its borders [es. Baal of Gad, Baal of Saphon, Baal of Peor, etc.].

The God of Israel already from the First Testament binds his heart to man - no longer to a territory: He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.

The Father of life arouses all understanding, Alliances, and if the ally could be annihilated, the same divine identity would be shattered.

All the Scriptures attest to this: He is a God of the living, not of dust or of the nothingness.

This is why we call our missing loved ones «deceased» or «departed» - not "dead".

[Wednesday 9th wk. in O.T.  June 3, 2026]

(Mk 12:18-27)

The defeat of death is the cruel destiny that has clouded the minds of all civilisations, infusing disorientation and anguished thoughts about the meaning of life, about why each of us exists.

If God creates us and calls us ceaselessly, to enter into dialogue with us, then what remains? The goal of all our agitation is a pit?

The Sadducees want to ridicule the doctrine of the resurrection dear to the Pharisees and - it seems - also to Jesus.

He, however, believed that the Father was far more than a Living One... who eventually resurrected corpses!

[It is the reason we call our departed loved ones 'deceased' - not 'dead'].

In the Semitic mentality, the norm of 'levirate' mirrored a feeble idea of existence after death - relegated to mere continuity of name.

The members of the priestly class did not believe in another life: they preached religion that served to obtain blessings for existing on this earth in a comfortable way - and that was enough for them.

In short, they conceived the relationship with God in the dimension of life on earth.

The Sadducees had already built their 'paradise' in the city and outside.

Their spacious villas with courtyards and private pools for ablutions were right on the hill opposite the Temple of Jerusalem, on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives (i.e. towards the west).

Their second homes - where they spent the winter - were in Jericho.

Even out of direct interest in the sacrificial activity they carried out, they still believed that the prophetic texts had no dignity as sacred Scripture: only the Law reflected God's will.

And in the Torah it seemed to them that there was no note about the resurrection of the dead.

So they also tried to frame Jesus, with an artfully constructed paradox, to highlight the contradictions of this belief - which only appeared in the 2nd century BC in the book of Daniel and in Maccabees.

They thought it absurd - so they intended to discredit the "Master" [a term by which they designate him in order to ridicule him: v.19].

Indeed the foothold was there, for the Pharisees believed in the resurrection in the trivial sense. A sort of accentuation, improvement or sublimation of (the same) natural living conditions - and bonds.

So not a final, boundless, qualitatively indestructible form.

In essence, in the 'world beyond', everyone would enjoy completely the family and clan affections of the previous life form - and so on.

The 'hereafter' was to be nothing but a sublimated, ennobled, and embellished extension of our way of existence; without disease, suffering, various problems.

[In short, life only advanced; perhaps as it was once conveyed to us by willing catechists... but little attentive to the Word of God].

Thus precisely the Sadducees - conservatives - who only accepted the Pentateuch - where they maintained that there is no mention of another, further life.

In this way, they had an easy time exposing the fragility of that popular belief, to which the leaders of Phariseeism were conversely bound.

However, the Master does not apply categories of this world, provisional, to dimensions beyond.

Even bonds must be conceived in the relief of divine reality.

In the Latin milieu, even today, the way of understanding the Resurrection is affected not a little by the representational modes of the pictorial tradition.

Reading the depictions we are used to... we notice that immediately the Risen One puts down the gendarmes and frightens everyone.

He emerges from the tomb with the banner of victory, strong and muscular. He breaks through as if coming back this way to beat his opponents.

Descriptive and naturalistic claims that do not give credit to the Faith and almost ridicule the Gospels.

Conversely, in Eastern icons, the Resurrection is understood and depicted in a substantial, mysterious way: the Descent to the Underworld.

It is not a triumph of God, who imposes himself on the world. He has no need of it.

Rather, the theological event remains in support of the victory of his children, who receive life directly from the Father.

Here is the redemption of the ordinary woman and man [Adam and Eve] who are drawn from the tombs by the divine - not natural - power of the Risen Christ.

The definitive world overturns the idea of the Sheôl and totally disrupts it, clearing away the darkness - and that great drama of humanity.

One enters God's world; one does not return this way - perhaps to live better: rejuvenated and healthy rather than sick, in a villa with a garden rather than a studio apartment.

Life "in the age of the one" (Lk 20:35 Greek text) is not an enhanced mode of existence, but an indescribable and new condition - as of direct communication.

Comparable to the immediacy of love: a being-with and for others. Collimating to the Angels' mode of existence (v.25): they do not have a life transmitted by parents, but by God Himself.The body decays, falls ill and goes into dissolution: it is a natural cycle.

'Resurrection of the flesh' designates access to an intimate existence of pure relationship, to the very intimacy of God - in our weakness and precariousness, assumed.

Obviously we cannot believe that we are being brought into the Divine Condition if during our earthly course we have not experienced a constant existential death-resurrection vector.

It is the experience of gain in defeat; in particular, the discovery of an unthinkable life, which made us rejoice with Happiness. For Amazement: in the providential transmutation of our weak and dark sides, from sluggish appearances to strengths.

We become evolutionary, perhaps the best of us.

The evangelists use two terms to indicate the difference between these two forms of being: (transliterating from the Greek) Bìos, and Zoe Aiònios.

The Zoe, Life itself of the Eternal, is acutely relational and experienceable - but it has nothing to do with biological existence and our carcass ["like angels": v.25].

What does not die is not the DNA of the body, but the heavenly DNA, which we have received as a gift from the Father.

Divine Gold dwells in us and - if we wish - can already surface, in a full existence, of realisation of one's Vocation, in an atmosphere of Communion.

Life 'in the age of that' is not an enhanced existence compared to this mode of existence, but an indescribable and new condition - as in direct communication.

Comparable to the tête-à-tête of Friendship: a being-with and for others; readily, everywhere.

Collimating to the Angels' mode of existence: they do not have a life transmitted by parents, but precisely by God Himself.

"About the bush..." - Jesus replies.

He also dumbs down the Sadducees, making them reflect, treating them as incompetent.

He draws the foundation of the 'doctrine' of the Resurrection [but as He understands it] precisely from the book of Exodus.

Thus he shows that ever since the scrolls of the Law there has been a presentation of the Eternal One incompatible with the destiny of a humanity doomed to extermination.

The Father does not seek dialogue with His children only to have them fall away at the most beautiful moment.

Since creation He has delighted to walk with man, and since the patriarchs He has sought empathy with us.

His Love does not abandon.

In the archaic religious mentality, each sanctuary was named after the deity, specified by its territory or the heights within its borders [e.g. Baal of Gad, Baal of Saphon, Baal of Peor, etc.].

An ugly pagan vice that we have unfortunately inherited.

The God of Israel since the First Testament binds His heart to man - no longer to a territory: the 'God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob'.

It was possible for the three patriarchs to have descendants, not by natural concatenation.

In that mentality, the only way to perpetuate life from generation to generation was to be able to transmit one's name to the first-born male child.

This happened instead by intervention from above, while the wives were barren [infertile matriarchs: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, long without heirs].

The Father of life gives rise to every understanding, to covenants, and if the ally could be annihilated, the divine identity itself would crumble.

All Scripture attests to this: he is a God of the living - not of the dead (of dust, of insubstantiality, of nothingness).

Whoever believes will have eternal life (cf. Jn 3: 36). In faith, in this "transformation" that repentance brings, in this conversion, in this new way of living, we arrive at life, at real life.

At this point two other texts come to mind. In the "priestly prayer" the Lord says: this is life, knowing you and your Anointed? (cf. Jn 17: 3). Understanding the essential, knowing the decisive Person, knowing God and the One whom he has sent is life life and understanding the understanding of the realities that constitute life. And the other text is the response of the Lord to the Sadducees regarding the Resurrection, when, using the Books of Moses, the Lord proves the Resurrection as a fact, by saying: God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob (cf. Mt 22: 31-32; Mk 12: 26-27; Lk 20: 37-38). God is not a God of the dead. If God is the God of these, then they live. Whoever is inscribed in God's name participates in God's life, and lives. Therefore to believe is to be inscribed in the name of God. Thus we are alive. Whoever has a share in God's name is not dead but rather belongs to the living God. In this sense we should be able to understand the dynamism of faith, which entails enrolling our names in the name of God and in this way entering into life.

Let us pray the Lord that this may come about and that today, with our own lives, we may truly come to know God, so that our name enter into God's name and our existence become true life: eternal life, love and truth.

[Pope Benedict, homily of 15 April 2010]

1. We resume today, after a rather long pause, the meditations which we have been holding for some time and which we have called reflections on the theology of the body.

In continuing, it is worthwhile, this time, to refer to the words of the Gospel, in which Christ refers to the resurrection: words that have a fundamental importance for understanding marriage in the Christian sense and also "the renunciation" of married life "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven".

The complex casuistry of the Old Testament in the field of marriage not only prompted the Pharisees to come to Christ to put to him the problem of the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:3-9 ; Mk 10:2-12 ), but also, another time, the Sadducees, to question him on the law of the so-called Levirate (this law, contained in Deut 25:7-10 , concerns brothers living under the same roof. If one of them died without leaving children, the brother of the deceased was to take the widow of the dead brother as his wife. The child born of this marriage was recognised as the son of the deceased, so that his lineage would not be extinguished and the inheritance would be preserved in the family [cf. Deut 3:9-4:12 ]). This conversation is reported in agreement in the Synoptics (cf. Mt 22:24-30 ; Mk 12:18-27 ; Lk 20:27-40 ). Although all three redactions are almost identical, nevertheless some slight but, at the same time, significant differences are noticeable between them. Since the colloquy is referred to in three versions, those of Matthew, Mark and Luke, a more in-depth analysis is required, as it includes contents that are of essential significance for the theology of the body.

Next to the other two important conversations, namely: the one in which Christ refers to the "beginning" (cf. Mt 19:3-9 ; Mk 10:2-12 ), and the other in which he refers to the intimacy of man (to the "heart"), pointing to the desire and concupiscence of the flesh as the source of sin (cf. Mt 5:27-32 ), the colloquy, which we now propose to analyse, constitutes, I would say, the third component of the triptych of Christ's own utterances: a triptych of essential and constitutive words for the theology of the body. In this colloquy Jesus refers to the resurrection, thus revealing a completely new dimension of the mystery of man.

2. The revelation of this dimension of the body, stupendous in its content - and yet connected with the Gospel reread as a whole and to the core - emerges in the colloquy with the Sadducees, "who affirm that there is no resurrection" (1); they came to Christ to present him with an argument that - in their opinion - validates the reasonableness of their position. This argument was meant to contradict the "resurrection hypothesis". The reasoning of the Sadducees is as follows: "Master, Moses left us written that if the brother of one dies and leaves his wife childless, the brother shall take his wife to give offspring to his brother" ( Mk 12:19 ). The Sadducees refer here to the so-called law of Levirate (cf. Deut 25:5-10), and referring to the prescription of this ancient law, they present the following "case": "There were seven brothers: the first took a wife and died without leaving any offspring; then the second took her, but died without leaving any offspring; and the third likewise, and none of the seven left any offspring. Finally, after all died also the woman. In the resurrection, when they rise again, to which of them will the woman belong? For seven had her as a wife" ( Mk 12:20-23 ). The Sadducees, addressing Jesus on a purely theoretical "case", attack at the same time the primitive conception of the Pharisees on life after the resurrection of bodies; in fact they insinuate that belief in the resurrection of bodies leads to the admission of polyandry, which is contrary to the law of God).

3. Christ's answer is one of the key-answers of the Gospel, in which another dimension of the question is revealed - precisely from and in contrast to purely human reasoning - namely that which corresponds to the wisdom and power of God himself. Similarly, for example, the case of the tribute coin with the image of Caesar and the correct relationship between what in the sphere of power is divine and what is human ("Caesar's") (cf. Mt 22:15-22 ). This time Jesus replies as follows: "Are you not in error, since you do not know the Scriptures, nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they will not take wives or husbands, but will be as angels in heaven" ( Mk 12:24-25 ). This is the basic answer to the 'case', that is, to the problem enclosed within it. Christ, knowing the conceptions of the Sadducees, and intuiting their authentic intentions, later takes up the problem of the possibility of the resurrection, denied by the Sadducees themselves: "Concerning the dead who must rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, concerning the bush, how God spoke to him, saying: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and Jacob? He is not a God of the dead, but of the living" ( Mk 12:26-27 ). As we can see, Christ quotes the same Moses to whom the Sadducees referred, and ends by stating: "You are in great error" ( Mk 12:27 ).

4. This concluding statement Christ also repeats it a second time. In fact, he first pronounced it at the beginning of his exposition. He then said: "You deceive yourselves, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God": so we read in Matthew ( Mt 22,29 ). And in Mark: "Are ye not in error, since ye know not the scriptures, nor the power of God?" ( Mk 12,24 ). On the other hand, Christ's own reply, in Luke's version ( Lk 20,27-36 ), is devoid of polemical accent, of that "you are in great error". On the other hand, he proclaims the same thing insofar as he introduces some elements into his answer that are not found in either Matthew or Mark. Here is the text: "Jesus replies: the children of this world take a wife and take a husband; but those who are judged worthy of the other world and of the resurrection from the dead, take neither wife nor husband: neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and being children of the resurrection, they are children of God" ( Lk 20,34-36 ). Concerning the very possibility of the resurrection, Luke - like the two other synoptics - refers to Moses, that is, to the passage in the Book of Exodus 3:2-6, where it is narrated that the great legislator of the Old Covenant heard from the bush, which "burned in the fire and was not consumed", the following words: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob" ( Ex 3:6 ). In the same place, when Moses had asked the name of God, he had heard the answer: "I am he who is" ( Ex 3:14 ).

Thus then, speaking of the future resurrection of bodies, Christ refers to the very power of the living God.

[Pope John Paul II, General Audience 11 November 1981]

The Gospel (cf. Lk 20:27-38) presents Jesus confronted by several Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection and considered the relationship with God only in the dimension of earthly life. Therefore, in order to place the resurrection under ridicule and to create difficulty for Jesus, they submit a paradoxical and absurd case: that of a woman who’d had seven husbands, all brothers, who died one after the other. Thus came the malicious question posed to Jesus: in the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be (v. 33)?

Jesus does not fall into the snare and emphasizes the truth of the resurrection, explaining that life after death will be different from that on earth. He makes his interlocutors understand that it is not possible to apply the categories of this world to the realities that transcend and surpass what we see in this life. He says, in fact: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (vv. 34-35). With these words, Jesus means to explain that in this world we live a provisional reality, which ends; conversely, in the afterlife, after the resurrection, we will no longer have death as the horizon and will experience all things, even human bonds, in the dimension of God, in a transfigured way. Even marriage, a sign and instrument of God in this world, will shine brightly, transformed in the full light of the glorious communion of saints in Paradise.

The “sons of heaven and of the resurrection” are not a few privileged ones, but are all men and all women, because the salvation that Jesus brings is for each one of us. And the life of the risen shall be equal to that of angels (cf. v. 36), meaning wholly immersed in the light of God, completely devoted to his praise, in an eternity filled with joy and peace. But pay heed! Resurrection is not only the fact of rising after death, but is a new genre of life which we already experience now; it is the victory over nothing that we can already anticipate. Resurrection is the foundation of the faith and of Christian hope. Were there no reference to Paradise and to eternal life, Christianity would be reduced to ethics, to a philosophy of life. Instead, the message of Christian faith comes from heaven, it is revealed by God and goes beyond this world. Belief in resurrection is essential in order that our every act of Christian love not be ephemeral and an end in itself, but may become a seed destined to blossom in the garden of God, and to produce the fruit of eternal life.

May the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, confirm us in the hope of resurrection and help us to make fruitful in good works her Son’s word sown in our hearts.

[Pope Francis, Angelus 6 November 2016]