Overview:

The Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,
came to Jesus and put this question to him, saying,
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
If someone’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.
Now there were seven brothers.
The first married a woman and died, leaving no descendants.
So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants,
and the third likewise.
And the seven left no descendants.
Last of all the woman also died.
At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?
For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them, “Are you not misled
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When they rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but they are like the angels in heaven.
As for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 
and the God of Jacob?
He is not God of the dead but of the living.You are greatly misled.” (Mark 12:18-27)

Find today’s readings here.

Humans have long wanted to know what heaven is like. Artists through the centuries have painted a very broad but oftentimes specific picture of our good afterlife: fluffy clouds, white robes, choirs of angels with harps and trumpets, St. Peter welcoming you at the pearly gates. Later on, particularly in the 20th century, you would start to see more humorous depictions of heaven riffing on what had been so thoroughly codified in Christian imagery: escalators leading up into the sky, working stiff angels that punch clocks and—like in The Simpsons—neverending parties and fiestas (at least for the Catholics).

Of course, these depictions of heaven are guesswork, pure speculation on the part of the various artists that dreamed them up. For Catholics, the Kingdom of Heaven is one of the great mysteries that await us. All that we really know is that heaven is the full embrace of God’s eternal love. 

We can say with some certainty that the saints and angels are up there. We can say that Mary, Queen of Heaven, is there along, of course, with the triune God. But ultimately we do not know exactly what is up there, what it is like. What we can say, based on the words of Jesus, is that it is very different from life here, with very different rules and conceptions of reality.

Jesus reminds us in this passage from Mark, when a number of Sadducees inquire about what seems to me like a hyperbolic story: Who is a wife “really” married to in heaven if she had multiple husbands over the course of her life? 

Jesus does not get bogged down or take the bait, though, and instead reminds us that heaven is a great mystery—one in which earthly attachments like marriage and even family will be rendered less meaningful. He even points out that God is the God of the living, shepherding those on Earth. Once we are in heaven, we will be living in perfect harmony with God, and human matters will no longer matter. In essence, Jesus is saying that hierarchy and societal structures will be erased in heaven. Everyone will be equal. 

I don’t know about you, but given how fractured and divided our world is today, that sounds pretty good to me.

Kevin Christopher Robles is the studio production associate at America. He was previously an O'Hare Fellow and intern.