Gospel and Thought for the Day - Vatican News

 Nov 22 Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

Gospel and Thought for the Day - Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/word-of-the-day.html 

Reading of the day

A reading from the First Book of Maccabees

6:1-13

As King Antiochus was traversing the inland provinces,

he heard that in Persia there was a city called Elymais,

famous for its wealth in silver and gold,

and that its temple was very rich,

containing gold helmets, breastplates, and weapons

left there by Alexander, son of Philip,

king of Macedon, the first king of the Greeks.

He went therefore and tried to capture and pillage the city.

But he could not do so,

because his plan became known to the people of the city

who rose up in battle against him.

So he retreated and in great dismay withdrew from there

to return to Babylon.

While he was in Persia, a messenger brought him news

that the armies sent into the land of Judah had been put to flight;

that Lysias had gone at first with a strong army

and been driven back by the children of Israel;

that they had grown strong

by reason of the arms, men, and abundant possessions

taken from the armies they had destroyed;

that they had pulled down the Abomination

which he had built upon the altar in Jerusalem;

and that they had surrounded with high walls

both the sanctuary, as it had been before,

and his city of Beth-zur.

When the king heard this news,

he was struck with fear and very much shaken.

Sick with grief because his designs had failed, he took to his bed.

There he remained many days, overwhelmed with sorrow,

for he knew he was going to die.

So he called in all his Friends and said to them:

"Sleep has departed from my eyes,

for my heart is sinking with anxiety.

I said to myself: 'Into what tribulation have I come,

and in what floods of sorrow am I now!

Yet I was kindly and beloved in my rule.'

But I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem,

when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver

that were in it, and for no cause

gave orders that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed.

I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me;

and now I am dying, in bitter grief, in a foreign land."

Gospel of the day

From the Gospel accoording to Luke

20:27-40

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 '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,

for to him all are alive."

Some of the scribes said in reply,

"Teacher, you have answered well."

And they no longer dared to ask him anything.

The words of the Popes

With this response, first and foremost, Jesus invites His interlocutors — and us too — to consider that this earthly dimension in which we now live is not the only dimension, but that there is another, no longer subject to death, which will fully manifest that we are children of God. It is of great comfort and hope to listen to this simple and clear word of Jesus about life beyond death; we need it very much especially in our time, so rich in knowledge about the universe but so lacking in wisdom about eternal life. (…) Jesus responds that life belongs to God, who loves us and cares very deeply about us, to the point of linking His name to ours (…)  Life exists where there is [a] bond, communion, brotherhood; and it is a life stronger than death when it is built on true relationships and bonds of fidelity. On the contrary, there is no life where one has the presumption of belonging only to oneself and of living as an island: death prevails in these attitudes. It is selfishness. If I live for myself, I am sowing death in my heart. (Pope Francis, Angelus, 10 November 2019)