Monday, October 30, 2006 Alipio: Getting beyond sentimentality By Fr. Jose Alipio Lifelines
Mk 12:18-27
THIS passage of scripture reminds us how far the popular religious imagination has drifted from its biblical moorings. We think of heaven in very concrete terms. Many of us believe that people who go to heaven are exactly the same people they were before they died. They will be the same age, have the same looks, belonged to the same family as they did while they were alive on this earth. Perhaps, there is some comfort in these popular images of the after-life.
These beliefs reassure us that the person that we love has not simply ceased being that self-same person. But a moment's thought will tell us that there is something wrong with this picture. Would we want an aged parent who died broken in body and mind to be the same person in heaven? Would we want our little baby to remain a little baby forever?
These words of Jesus compel us to go beyond our sentimental notions of the after-life. "You are badly misled, because you fail to understand the Scriptures and the power of God. When people rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but live like angels in heaven."
The apostle Paul echoed the same viewpoint in his first letter to the Corinthians: "Our lives in the world to come are going to be immortal rather than mortal. They are going to be spiritual rather than material. They are going to be angelic rather than earthly." What that means for us is far from clear. But we can be assured that whatever form our existence takes in the world to come, we live forever with God. That is our consolation and our inspiration to begin that kind of life by living for God here and now.
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