Marriage in Heaven

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Then some Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to him, and they put this question to him. ‘Master, Moses prescribed for us that if a man's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died, leaving no children. The second married the widow and he too died, leaving no children. With the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children.

‘Last of all, the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be since she had been married to all seven?’” (Mark 12:18-23).

Some Sadducees came up to Jesus and tried to catch Him with this trick question. According to the law of Moses, if any man died without leaving children, his brother had to marry the widow to leave descendants to his brother, and he had to give the name of the dead man to the first of his sons (Deut. 24:5 et seq.).

The Sadducees want to make any belief in the resurrection of the dead appear ridiculous. They therefore invent a clever hypothesis. If a woman marries seven times, having been left a widow by seven brothers in succession, whose wife will she be in heaven?

Our Lord answers them in a way that shows the superficiality of their thinking. “Jesus said to them, ‘Surely the reason why you are wrong is that you understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. But when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry. No, they are like angels in heaven.

‘Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead but of the living. You are very much mistaken’” (Mark 12:24-27).

By His reply, Our Lord reaffirms the truth of the resurrection of the dead. He takes a number of passages from the Old Testament, and He expounds on the properties of risen bodies. He refutes all the objections brought forward by the Sadducees.

He reproaches them for their ignorance of the Scriptures and for not acknowledging the power of God, for this truth had already been firmly asserted in what was revealed.

Isaiah had prophesied: “Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades you will let it fall” (Isa. 26:19).

The mother of the Maccabees encouraged her sons at the moment of their martyrdom, reminding them of the words of Scripture: “The Creator of the world,” it says, “…will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws” (2 Macc. 7:23).

And for Job, this same truth was to be the consolation of his unhappy days. We're told in the Book of Job: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last, he will stand upon the earth...then from my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:25-26).

We have to try and foster the virtue of hope in our souls, and in particular, the hope of seeing God. St. Josemaría, in one of his writings, says, “Those in love try to see each other. People in love have eyes only for their love. That's logical, isn't it?

“The human heart feels this need. I would be lying if I denied my eagerness to contemplate the face of Jesus Christ. ‘I will seek your countenance, O Lord’ (Ps. 27:8)” (Josemaría Escrivá, quoted in Newsletter No. 1).

In an ancient encyclical, it says, “This desire will be satisfied if we remain faithful, because God's concern for his human creatures has ensured the resurrection of the flesh, a truth which constitutes one of the fundamental articles of the Creed” (cf. Benedict XII, Encyclical, Benedictus Deus, January 29, 1336).

“But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain,’ says St. Paul (1 Cor. 15:13-14).

In 1979, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said in a document, “The Church believes in the resurrection of the dead…and understands that the resurrection refers to the whole man” (Sacred CDF, Letter on Certain Questions Concerning Eschatology, May 17, 1979).

In the Council of Toledo in the 7th century, the Magisterium has repeated on numerous occasions that it is a question of the resurrection of the same body as we had during our passage on earth, in this flesh “in which we live, subsist, and move.”

It’s interesting how the Church notes that we will get back our own bodies when we rise from the dead. We won't get back somebody else's.

Because of this, one document says, “The two formulae ‘resurrection of the dead’ and ‘resurrection of the flesh’ are complementary expressions from one and the same tradition of the early Church” and both modes of expression can continue to be used (Sacred CDF, Declaration, December 14, 1983).

The liturgy repeats this consoling truth on many occasions. We're told in one of the Eucharistic Prayers, “In him (in Christ), the hope of our resurrection has dawned, and though we are saddened by the certainty of dying, it consoles us with the promise of eternal life to come” (Roman Missal, Preface of the Dead I).

In the Preface for the Dead it says, “For those who are faithful to you, Lord, life is transformed, not taken away, and, when our dwelling here on earth decays, there is waiting for us our eternal home in heaven.”

God awaits us forever in His glory. Those who count solely on this world can only look forward to a great sadness. For it is when we know that it will be ourselves, soul and body, who, with the help of grace, will live eternally with Jesus Christ, with the angels, with the saints, giving praise to the most Holy Trinity—that brings great joy.

When we are grieved by the death of a loved one, or we are with mourners who have lost a member of their family, we can try to manifest, to them as to ourselves, those truths that fill us with hope and consolation: life does not end here below on earth; we are going forward to meet God in eternal life.

I was involved once in a family that was losing a 19-year-old girl, the youngest of the family, through leukemia. She was in the ICU.

The doctors had said it was time to turn off the machines; the end had come. The parents, or one of them, couldn't bring themselves to give that decision to turn off the machine.

A family conference was called, and I was brought in to mediate. There was a moment when I said to the parents: “What else does this world have to offer your daughter? ICUs and drips and respirators and heart monitors. This world has nothing else to offer your daughter. But what is waiting for her? Eternal happiness.”

I was very grateful to the Holy Spirit for that inspiration at that particular moment. It made me see how consoling the eternal truths of our faith can be in certain difficult moments.

After death, each soul awaits the resurrection of its own body, with which, for all eternity, it will be in heaven, close to God, or in hell, far away from Him.

Theologians say that we will get back our own body in its most perfect state. Whatever state our body may have been when we were 33 or 25 or 72 or whatever it is, we'll get back all our hair, we'll get back our skin in good shape. We'll all look very well in heaven. Another thing to look forward to.

And theologians say that in heaven our bodies will have different characteristics, but they will continue to be bodies and they will occupy a particular place, in just the same way as the glorious Body of Christ and that of Our Lady do.

We do not know where this place is, or what it looks like. Earth as we know it will be transfigured.

God's reward will come upon the glorious body, making it immortal, for mortality is a sign of sin, and creation was submitted to mortality as a result of the guilt of sin (Rom. 8:20). Everything that threatens or is inimical to life will disappear.

St. John affirms in the Apocalypse: “Those who rise unto glory shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat” (Rev. 7:16).

The sufferings listed in the Apocalypse were the ones that caused great affliction to the people of Israel as they crossed through the desert. We're told the scorching rays of the sun fell on them like darts, they rapidly became exhausted, and the dry desert wind consumed their strength (cf. Sir. 43:4).

Those very tribulations are a symbol of the sufferings that the new People of God, the Church, will have to undergo for as long as her pilgrimage towards her final home shall last.

Faith and hope in the glorification of our body will cause [us] to give it the value and respect due to it. Gaudium et spes of the Second Vatican Council says, “Man is obliged to regard his body as good, and to hold it in honor, since God has created it and will raise it on the last day.”

The cult that we see that's often given to the body in modern culture is far removed from this just valuation.

We have a duty to look after our body, to use the opportune means of avoiding illness, suffering, hunger, but without forgetting that it has to rise again on the last day.

Pope St. John Paul has given us the beautiful teaching of the Theology of the Body that helps us to see God in the human body and explains that the human body has been created to love.

What matters is that it should rise in order to go to heaven, not to hell. Over and above our health, there's the loving acceptance of God's will concerning our lives. We shouldn't have a disproportionate concern for our physical well-being.

This means that when we're told by the doctor we have to do something, we should try and do it. Or if we have to take these tablets, then, ‘let me take these tablets,’ even if it's for the rest of our lives. It's not such a big thing; it doesn't matter.

We are focused on higher things because we know this world is passing. We need to know how to put any pains and discomforts that we may suffer to supernatural use. At the same time, we serenely use the ordinary means of avoiding them.

I read somewhere once of an elderly lady saying that she was in some pain. She said, “I'm in some pain, but I don't have to be one.”

That’s a good attitude to have: to be able to take in our stride little pains or discomforts that God may send us without making a big fuss out of them.

If we manage to do this, then we’ll not lose our peace and our joy as we would if we were to put our hearts into merely relative and transitory things. Things only reach their final fullness in the glory of heaven.

One writer says, “We should not forget for a moment what it is we are traveling towards. We should not forget the true value of the things that cause us so much concern. Our goal is heaven. To be with Christ, soul and body, is what God created us for” (Francis Fernandez, In Conversation with God, Volume 3).

This is why, here on earth, “Our last word? It can only be a smile, a merry song” (L. Ramoneda Molins, Untattered Winds). On the other side Our Lord is waiting for us, with His hands held out in a welcoming gesture.

Although there's a great difference between the earthly body and the transfigured body, there is still a close relationship between them. It's a dogma of our faith that the risen body is identical in species and number to the earthly body.

Theologians say that in heaven we will get back all we need for the proper functioning of our body. We won't get back every bit of blood we may have left on rugby pitches, soccer pitches, and volleyball pitches, or the little cuts and bruises. But we'll get back what's necessary for the integrity of the body.

Taking as its basis the nature of the soul and several passages of Holy Scripture, Christian doctrine shows the fittingness of the resurrection of one's own body and of its new union with the soul.

This is so, because the soul is only a part of man, and while it's separated from the body, it can't enjoy a happiness as complete and as fulfilled as that which will be possessed by the whole person.

And also, as the soul was created to be united to a body, an ultimate separation would violate the way of being proper to it.

But a far more important reason is that it is more in conformity with divine wisdom, justice, and mercy that souls should be united once more with their bodies so that both together, the whole person—who is not only soul, or only body—may share in the prize or the punishment merited during his passage through this life on earth.

It is of faith that the soul immediately after death receives its reward or punishment while waiting for the moment of the resurrection of the body.

In the light of the Church's teaching, we can observe in greater depth that the body is not a mere instrument of the soul, although it is from the soul that it receives its capacity to act and through this to contribute to the existence and development of the person.

Through his body, the person finds themselves in contact with earthly reality, which they have to dominate, work upon, and sanctify, because God has willed it (Gen. 1:28).

Through his body, man can communicate with others and work with them to build up and develop the social community.

We shouldn't forget either that through the body, man receives the grace of the sacraments. St. Paul says, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” (1 Cor. 6:15).

Though we are men and women of flesh and blood, grace exercises its influence on the body as well, divinizing it in a certain way in anticipation of the glorious resurrection.

It will greatly help us to live with the dignity and bearing of a follower of Christ if we consider frequently that this body of ours, now a temple of the Holy Spirit so long as we are in the state of grace, is destined by God to be glorified.

Sacred Scripture teaches us that death was not part of God's original plan for mankind. It is a consequence of the sin of our first parents (cf. Rom. 5:12). Through His resurrection, Christ demonstrated His power over death.

“God our Father,” we are told, “by raising Christ your Son, you conquered the power of death and opened for us the way to eternal life.” This is part of the liturgy of the Church (Roman Missal, Easter, Opening Prayer).

With His resurrection Christ has robbed death of its sting. He has made His death an act of redemption. It is through Him and with Him and in Him that our bodies will rise again on the last day.

They will be united with our souls, which, if we have been faithful, will have been giving glory to God since the time of our death if there was no need for purification.

To resurrect means to lift something that has fallen, to bring again to life that which was dead, to restore to life that which has succumbed to dust.

The Church has always taught that the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our faith. She has also consistently believed in the resurrection of our physical bodies, in which we live, subsist, and move. The soul will then be reunited with its proper body.

The Magisterium has stated quite precisely that men and women will be resurrected in their own physical bodies (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Points 990, 997,999).

When we think about these teachings, this can help us to grasp the great dignity of each person, a dignity which is distinct and superior to that of any other being in Creation. The goats and the cows and the lions and the tigers—they will not rise again.

Man not only has free will, but “he is the divine masterpiece that is in the soul of Jerusalem, made in the image and likeness of his Creator, gifted with an immortal soul by divine gift” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis).

Man is superior to all other creatures because he can be a temple of the Holy Spirit as long as he is in the state of grace. St. Paul insisted on this with the early Christians: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?” (1 Cor 6:19), he says.

Our bodies are not some kind of prison for our souls. “We look forward, as St. Paul says, to the redemption of our bodies; they are not encumbrances which we drag about with us; they are the first-fruits of eternity, entrusted to our keeping” (Ronald Knox, The Hidden Stream).

The soul and body belong to one another in a natural relationship. God made the one for the other.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts us: “Respect your body since it is your good fortune to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not stain your body...and if by chance you have stained it, purify it right away through penance. Clean it while you still have time” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis).

The exalted dignity of man was present from the moment of Creation. It acquired full expression with the Incarnation of the Word (Tertullian, On the Resurrection).

Each and every person has been “included in the mystery of the Redemption,” said St. John Paul, “and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery.

“Every person comes into the world through being conceived in their mother's womb and being born of their mother, and precisely on account of the mystery of the Redemption is entrusted to the solicitude of the Church.

“Her solicitude is about the whole man and is focused on him in an altogether special manner. The object of her care is man in his unique, unrepeatable human reality, which keeps intact the image and likeness of God himself” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Redemptor hominis, Point 13, March 4, 1979).

St. Thomas teaches that our divine filiation, commenced in the soul through grace, will be consummated by the glorification of the body...just as our soul has been redeemed from sin, so too our body will be redeemed from the corruption of death (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans).

We can turn to Our Lady and ask her that we might get great joy and consolation from these beautiful truths, and help to spread that joy and consolation to many other people around us, so that they also can look forward with peace and joy to the eternal wedding feast.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

JOSH