All are Alive and One in the Kingdom

Sunday Gospel Reflection
32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 20:27-38 | November 6, 2022

All are Alive and One in the Kingdom
Carlo S. Dureza

Upon reflection on the Gospel today, one could perhaps immediately wonder about the relevance of its content to our actual, daily lives. It seems there isn’t any existing relatedness between the Gospel story and real marital situations in our society.

Unlike broken marriages that lead to legal separation, divorce, or annulment or natural death of a spouse that voids the marriage, the Gospel presents a woman married seven times over to seven brothers consecutively upon the death of one after the other. Is this a case of life stranger than fiction? Unbelievable.

Customs or tradition may play a part here. Maybe in cultures during biblical times, the Gospel story is symbolic of what could have transpired in families. But for us Filipinos, could we relate to this scenario? Do we feel comfortable to say, “yes, this is true,” or “yes, this happens”? We may just pass this off as one of Sacred Scripture’s hyperbolic Gospel teachings.

A thorough perusal of this passage on the Resurrection and Marriage, however, may convince us that its meaning and significance lies beyond the remarrying of the woman to seven brothers. Maybe our attitude should not be to literalize to a life-story, but to view it as representative of God’s will for us in the Resurrection.

The Mosaic Law, the Torrah, and the Korban may have decreed that “a man leaves his mother and father and lives with his wife and the two shall become one,” or “what God has put together, let no man asunder” or “let us give man a companion…bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh…and the two shall become one…”

From here it could be gleaned that there is a certain binding force, an exclusive partnership forged between two people subject to a set of obligations as husband and wife, that they submit to each other, surrender their respective freedoms to each other within the context of marriage with God as the chief witness.

Here on earth, laws on marriage particularly, are upheld because of humans’ propensity to sin. Vows are made to safeguard the sanctity of the Sacrament of Matrimony. No matter how many times one marries, one would always be held accountable for one’s vows.

In the resurrection however, no laws would govern marriage, because we would all be free and sinless in heaven. There would be no limitations, boundaries, or the inclination to error. Nobody would be married to anybody in the afterlife.

In the Kingdom, there are no exclusive relationships. There would no longer be marital vows. “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage”. We would all be brothers and sisters with one Father, our Lord God. “They can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

Marriages end in death as the loyalty pledge goes, “‘till death do us part.” But when we rise again, there would no longer be an end to human union or limits in relationships because all of us would be alive as one loving community forever—united, pure of heart, serving each other, with our Lord in heaven.

In the resurrection, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”

Happy Sunday! God bless! 😀❤

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