Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

The burning bush is one of the most important images of God throughout revelation.  Marriage is the most fundamental institution created by God: before even the fall of humanity.  Jesus draws a striking parallel between the two when he explains the resurrection to the Sadducees.  The resurrection is fullness of life, life beyond death, life that defeats death entirely.  Marriage is seen as this kind of fullness of human life – as full as we can understand it here below.  The Sadducees would argue that if marriage no longer makes sense at the resurrection, then there is a fullness of life that can never be recovered after death.  Marriage is supposed to produce a certain oneness: “the two shall become one flesh.”  But when one dies, the other does not necessarily die and must continue living their human life as best they can – sometimes remarrying in an attempt to recover that fullness of life.  What institution will replace marriage for the resurrected?

The burning bush gives us an image of God that may perhaps be used to evoke the institution of the resurrected.  Marriage limits intimacy because as human beings with limited life spans, attention spans, and energy supplies, depth and meaning in human life require fidelity and commitment.  Love both gives us strength and uses it up here on earth – we can “burn out.”  In the resurrection we will be like the burning bush, constantly burning without being consumed and without burning out.  Marriage understood as the union between Christ and His Church show us that in the resurrection we will love each person with what makes spousal love perfect.  The limits we understand as necessary in this life for meaningful relationships and friendships are based on the weaknesses of our flesh.  In heaven our resurrected flesh will be like the burning bush: aflame with love and bursting with energy while nothing is used up.

CHRYSOSTOM:

Those born of us physically are not loved purely on account of their virtue but out of the force of natural affection. But those born of us of faith are loved on account of nothing but their virtue [in Christ], for what else can it be?¹

CASSIODORUS:

When writing to Timothy he put at the head of the letter, “To my dearly beloved son,” for he had begotten him, not in body but in faith.²

CHRYSOSTOM:

For it requires much zeal to stir up the gift of God. As fire requires fuel, so grace requires our alacrity, that it may be ever fervent.… For it is in our power to kindle or extinguish this grace.… For by sloth and carelessness it is quenched, and by watchfulness and diligence it is kept alive. For it is in you indeed, but you must render it more vehement, that is, fill it with confidence, with joy and delight. Stand manfully.³

CASSIAN:

[…] he is instructing us to pass from the fear of punishment to the fullest freedom of love and to the confidence of the friends and sons of God. And the blessed apostle, who had long since passed beyond the degree of servile fear, thanks to the power of the Lord’s love, disdains lower things and professes that he has been endowed with greater goods.⁴

CHRYSOSTOM:

For the Spirit that makes us cry, “Abba, Father,” inspires us with love both toward him and toward our neighbor, that we may love one another. For love arises from power and not from fearing.⁵

TERTULLIAN:

To Christians, after their departure from this world, no restoration of the carnal aspect of marriage is promised in the day of the resurrection, translated as they will be into the condition and sanctity of angels.⁶  In the day of resurrection no dilemma arising from sexual jealousy will injure any of her so many husbands, even in the case of her whom they chose to represent as having been married to seven brothers successively.⁷

AUGUSTINE:

So let your faith speak of this [the Resurrection] to you, since your hope will not be disappointed even though your love may be put to the test.⁸

TERTULLIAN:

All the more we shall be bound to them [our departed spouses], because we are destined to a better estate, destined to rise to a spiritual partnership. We will recognize both our own selves and those to whom we belong. Else how shall we sing thanks to God to eternity, if there shall remain in us no sense and memory of this relationship? Or if we shall be reformed only materially, but not in consciousness? Consequently, we who are together with God shall remain together.… In eternal life God will no more separate those whom he has joined together than in this life where he forbids them to be separated.⁹

1. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 1.  Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 230). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
2. EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 101.29.  Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 230). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
3. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 1.  Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 232). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
4. CONFERENCES 11.13.3–5.  Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 232). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
5. HOMILIES ON 2 TIMOTHY 1.  Gorday, P. (Ed.). (2000). Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon (p. 232). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
6. Cf. Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; Lk 20:36.
7. TO HIS WIFE 1.1.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 161). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
8. LETTER 263, TO SAPIDA.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 162). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
9. ON MONOGAMY 10.  Oden, T. C., & Hall, C. A. (Eds.). (1998). Mark (Revised) (p. 162). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.