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]

What Uniqueness characterizes it?

(Mk 12:13-17)

After the expulsion of the salesmen and the accusation of thievery hurled at the leaders, as well as the parable of the murderous vinedressers (also referring to the élite), here is another clash between Jesus and the religious and political bosses.

Jesus [present in his intimates] systematically dismantles the traps set up by the authorities and the experts.

With tested double-dealing, they approach Him trying to stroke his self-love [v.14a: situations that also often occur to critical witnesses].

The interest of the clever clashes, however, with the focus of Christ on the real good of people and respect for the intelligence of things - not to eagerness for approval or opportunism.

Right in the Temple (Mk 11:27) - the eminent Abode of the one Lord God - these gendarmes provoke the new Rabbi about paying taxes to the Romans (12:14b).

We know what was at stake: the accusation of not being a prophet according to divine right, or [vice versa] that of collaborationism with the occupiers.

The Master does not allow himself to be fooled by the ostentation of closeness to the God of Israel - which is false because it is externally sought - and He plays them all off easily.

In the Temple of Jerusalem, it was forbidden to carry Roman coins, which depicted imperial profiles and insignia contrary to the Commandment 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any image'.

He asked for them, however, because He did not actually have any.

But the paladin saints themselves hand Him one.... The scene borders on the ridiculous.

Drawing the forbidden coin from the pouch concealed under the cloak, the very chiefs reveal their true god: self-interest, well concealed under devout and ostentatious manners, which only act as a smokescreen.

Christ invites us not to allow ourselves to be flattered by the exhibitionist duplicity of the “signs”: what is important is not to deceive people by using pious forms as theatrical masquerades [v.15 Greek text].

The à la page or purity fanatics live only the epidermic angle; and they rely on it: they not infrequently hide well the very material passions they disdain.

It does not work with Christ.

It is a primary element of the testimony of authentic Faith - not the flaunted one.

Not parading dissimulation and material intrigue is crucial. It is also so in difficult, unstable, or seductive situations.

Each one is called to «return» to his true Lord the indelible «image and likeness» engraved on him.

So let the coin be «given back» to its 'master'. This remains essential for anyone to be fully realized, and to flourish.

Woman and man - creatures in whom the «image and likeness» of God is imprinted - have to «render» themselves to the Creator (v.17) who dwells in their essence as persons.

Humanity is sealed by far more intimate and natural affiliations than those of convenience.

[Tuesday 9th wk. in O.T.  June 2, 2026]

"Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God," was the response of Jesus when asked about paying taxes. His questioners, of course, were laying a trap for him. They wanted to force him to take sides in the highly-charged political debate about Roman rule in the land of Israel. Yet there was more at stake here: if Jesus really was the long-awaited Messiah, then surely he would oppose the Roman overlords. So the question was calculated to expose him either as a threat to the regime, or a fraud.

Jesus’ answer deftly moves the argument to a higher plane, gently cautioning against both the politicization of religion and the deification of temporal power, along with the relentless pursuit of wealth. His audience needed to be reminded that the Messiah was not Caesar, and Caesar was not God. The kingdom that Jesus came to establish was of an altogether higher order. As he told Pontius Pilate, "My kingship is not of this world."

The Christmas stories in the New Testament are intended to convey a similar message. Jesus was born during a "census of the whole world" taken by Caesar Augustus, the Emperor renowned for bringing the Pax Romana to all the lands under Roman rule. Yet this infant, born in an obscure and far-flung corner of the Empire, was to offer the world a far greater peace, truly universal in scope and transcending all limitations of space and time.

Jesus is presented to us as King David’s heir, but the liberation he brought to his people was not about holding hostile armies at bay; it was about conquering sin and death forever.

The birth of Christ challenges us to reassess our priorities, our values, our very way of life. While Christmas is undoubtedly a time of great joy, it is also an occasion for deep reflection, even an examination of conscience. At the end of a year that has meant economic hardship for many, what can we learn from the humility, the poverty, the simplicity of the crib scene?

Christmas can be the time in which we learn to read the Gospel, to get to know Jesus not only as the Child in the manger, but as the one in whom we recognize God made Man.

It is in the Gospel that Christians find inspiration for their daily lives and their involvement in worldly affairs – be it in the Houses of Parliament or the Stock Exchange. Christians shouldn’t shun the world; they should engage with it. But their involvement in politics and economics should transcend every form of ideology.

Christians fight poverty out of a recognition of the supreme dignity of every human being, created in God’s image and destined for eternal life. Christians work for more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources out of a belief that, as stewards of God’s creation, we have a duty to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. Christians oppose greed and exploitation out of a conviction that generosity and selfless love, as taught and lived by Jesus of Nazareth, are the way that leads to fullness of life. Christian belief in the transcendent destiny of every human being gives urgency to the task of promoting peace and justice for all.

Because these goals are shared by so many, much fruitful cooperation is possible between Christians and others. Yet Christians render to Caesar only what belongs to Caesar, not what belongs to God. Christians have at times throughout history been unable to comply with demands made by Caesar. From the Emperor cult of ancient Rome to the totalitarian regimes of the last century, Caesar has tried to take the place of God. When Christians refuse to bow down before the false gods proposed today, it is not because of an antiquated world-view. Rather, it is because they are free from the constraints of ideology and inspired by such a noble vision of human destiny that they cannot collude with anything that undermines it.

In Italy, many crib scenes feature the ruins of ancient Roman buildings in the background. This shows that the birth of the child Jesus marks the end of the old order, the pagan world, in which Caesar’s claims went virtually unchallenged. Now there is a new king, who relies not on the force of arms, but on the power of love. He brings hope to all those who, like himself, live on the margins of society. He brings hope to all who are vulnerable to the changing fortunes of a precarious world. From the manger, Christ calls us to live as citizens of his heavenly kingdom, a kingdom that all people of good will can help to build here on earth.

[Pope Benedict, article for the Financial Times 20 December 2012]