St. Charles Lwanga & Companions, martys

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

2Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12

From Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

for the sake of his promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus, to my dear son Timothy. May grace, mercy and peace be with you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. 

God did not give us a spirit of bashfulness I give thanks to God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly, day and night, in my prayers. For this reason I invite you to fan into a flame the gift of God you re­ceived through the laying on of my hands.

For God did not confer on us a spirit of bashfulness, but of strength, love and good judgment. Do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of seeing me in chains. On the con­trary, do your share in laboring for the Gospel with the strength of God. He saved us and called us—a calling which proceeds from his holiness.

This did not de­pend on our merits, but on his gen­erosity and his own initiative. This calling given to us from all time in Christ Jesus has just been mani­fested with the glorious ap­pearance of Christ Jesus, our Lord, who de­stroyed death and brought life and immortality to light in his Gospel. 

Of this message I was made herald, apostle and teacher. For its sake I now suffer this trial, but I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is capable of taking care of all I have entrusted to him until that day.

 

Ps 123:1b-2ab, 2cdef

To you, O Lord, I lift up my eye.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Mark 12:18-27

The Sadducees also came to Jesus. Since they claim that there is no resurrection, they questioned him in this way, “Mas­ter, in the Scriptures Moses gave us this law: ‘If anyone dies and leaves a wife but no children, his brother must take the wife and give her a child who will be considered the child of his deceased brother.’ 

Now, there were seven brothers. The first married a wife, but he died without leaving any children. The second took the wife and he, too, died leaving no children. The same thing happened to the third. Finally the seven died leaving no children. Last of all the woman died Now, in the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife? For the seven had her as wife.”

 Jesus replied, “You could be wrong in this regard because you understand neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. When they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry but are like the angels in heaven.

Now, about the resurrection of the dead, have you never reflected on the chapter of the burning bush in the book of Moses? God said to him: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob Now, he is the God, not of the dead but of the living. You are totally wrong.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

One of the biggest difficulties encountered by many individuals during Jesus’ time was that they have “put God in a box”. they thought that they had him all figured out.

Were they not, after all, the Chosen People, the children of Abraham? Were they not the descendants of those God had freed from slavery in Egypt? Surely they knew everything they had to know about him.

And so when his only Begotten Son came, looking like them, being one of them, immersing oneself in their ordinary lives, they could not accept him, nor his teachings.

How could they, when they knew everything that had to be known of him? Again and again, Jesus sought to correct them, revealing to them that there is tremendous mystery in God, that – as he says in the Gospel – he is the “God of the living and not of the dead”.

Their structures, ideas, concepts, labels and categories cannot ever fully capture the fullness of who and what God is, nor the full reality of what he is capable of.