They Can No Longer Die

I am currently on a break during the Busted Halo retreat at the Mount Paul Retreat Center in north central New Jersey. (Yes, they have wifi here.) One view of the scenery at Mount Paul is pictured at right. The grounds of the retreat center, complete with a lake, are stunning.

Weather update: we've had more than flurries. Last night and this morning, we had a picturesque view of the first real snowfall of the season (less than an inch that melted quickly).

While I had a few minutes, and since I'm in a reflective state of mind, I thought I would post the Gospel for this Sunday's Mass. In it, we find Jesus being quizzed by the Sadducees.

From Luke Chapter 20:

Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, 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 but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. 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. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.

"That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called out 'Lord, ' the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, to him all are alive."