Overview:

The Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

“‘Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
For all seven had been married to her.’
Jesus said to them,
‘The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.’” (Lk 20:33-35)

Find today’s readings here.

I, for one, would not want to marry my fiancé’s brother if he were to die young. That feels rather incestuous in this day and age! But for the Israelites, a law dictated that if two brothers owned land together and one died, the second married the first’s wife. It was more a practical solution than anything, so that one could keep the property and children in the same family and lineage. 

In today’s Gospel, the Sadducees attempt to trick Jesus by presenting him with this problem: If spouses remain married in heaven, how does the situation work if a woman ends up marrying seven brothers of the same family? She cannot be married to all of them in heaven; that would be polygamy! The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection (and that is why they’re sad, you see), so the question of who would be married to whom in the afterlife did not affect their faith life, and their goal was to goad him into saying something contradictory.

Jesus rebukes them, because life in heaven is not like the world, and whether someone is widowed once or twice or seven times does not matter for their heavenly existence. We know this; we know that our professions, races, connections, even our bodies on earth are not present in heaven. There is no 9 to 5 or vacation, just like there are no children who are begotten in heaven. 

We can often have a naive view of heaven like the Sadducees do—how, after all, are we supposed to comprehend something that no person has returned from? Is it a some-where, a some-thing or a some-when? All and none of the above. So on the one hand, the Sadducees’ question about a woman being married multiple times in heaven is meant to trick Jesus into betraying the law of Moses. But on the other hand, we who read the Gospel 2,000 years later can earnestly ask similar questions. Jesus’ answer, however, remains the same. Those who are in heaven are those who “will rise,” and they are living because they have experienced the resurrection. 

In posing difficult questions to Jesus and being stumped by his answers, the Sadducees proved that Jesus has greater teaching authority than themselves. But their trick question has a usefulness for us, too, as we wonder how heaven will be. Nevertheless, we do not have to worry about marrying any brothers or sisters-in-law, not on earth and especially not in heaven.

Jill Rice is a 2022-23 O’Hare Fellow at America. She is now the SEO and Analytics Associate at America. She graduated from Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus and majored in classical languages and comparative literature.