Suy Niệm bài đọc thứ Tư tuần thứ 9 Thường Niên
Cuộc sống hiện tại có thể sẽ mang lại cho chúng ta những cú sốc tàn phá và những gánh nặng đau đớn. Nhiều người trong chúng ta có ít nhất một lần bị cú sốc quá đau đớn đến nổi la chỉ có muốn được chết thôi. Ngay cả cái chết nhiều khi có vẻ như là một sự lựa chọn hấp dẫn hơn là phải tiếp tục sự đau khổ. Nhưng Thiên Chúa còn vĩ đại hơn là bất cứ một sự đau khổ nào mà con người đã phải nhận. Vì Thiên Chúa rất vô cùng rộng lượng và luôn thương xót.
Như bài đọc trong sách Tôbia, ông Tobit không thể chịu đựng được cái cảnh mù loà của mình nữa và Sarah cũng đã bị áp đảo tinh thần bởi cái chết liên tiếp của bảy người chồng ngay trong đêm tân hôn. Cả hai đã cầu mong cho cái chết để cứu vãn sự đau khổ của họ, nhưng cả hai cuối cùng quay trở lại với Thiên Chúa. Ông Tobit đã được khôi phục và sáng mắt, Còn Sarah đã được cứu sống bởi Tobia và cuối cùng đã kết hôn với anh ta. Cuối cùng, họ đã ca ngợi Thiên Chúa vì lòng thương xót và lòng từ bi mà họ đã được chứng minh.
Đây là một lời nhắc nhở cho chúng ta biết là không nên dễ chán nãn bỏ cuộc hay đầu hàng bóng tối và sự tiêu cực. Sự đau khổ của con người không phải là ý muốn của Chúa, và Thiên Chúa luôn hiện diện nơi chúng ta để ban cho chúng ta lòng can đảm, niềm hy vọng, và sự chữa lành.
Chúng ta cần phải mở rộng tâm hồn và trái tim của chúng ta cho một cái gì đó to lớn hơn. Sự sống đời đời chắc chắn còn to lớn hơn những gì mà chúng ta có thể tưởng tượng và chúng ta không nên nghĩ về sự sống đời đời của chúng ta theo ý nghĩa hay điều kiện của con người trần thế. Có lẽ chúng ta có thể cho phép Thiên Chúa đến với chúng ta một cách bất ngờ và thách thức chúng ta trong việc trả lời câu hỏi về đức tin của chúng ta. Lạy Chúa, xin mở rộng long trí và trái tim của của chúng con.
Reflection SG
Life can bring us some devastating blows and painful burdens. Many people have at one time or another reached their limit and longed to have their life end. Even death sometimes seems a more attractive option than continued misery and suffering. But God is greater than any human suffering and God is infinitely merciful. Tobit could not stand his blindness any longer and Sarah was overwhelmed by the death of seven consecutive husbands on her wedding night.
Both longed for death to give them relief, but both ultimately turned to God. Tobit had his sight restored and Sarah was rescued by Tobias and finally married to him. In the end, they praised God for the mercy and compassion they had been shown.
It is a reminder to us not to give up or to surrender to darkness and negativity. Human pain and misery is not God’s will, and God is always present to grant us courage, hope, and healing. The Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with a trick question about a woman married to seven different brothers. He replied that they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God — their question showed ignorance and a lack of religious imagination. Life in God’s Kingdom is not just a continuation of our earthly life.
We need to open our minds and hearts to something far greater — eternal life is greater than we can ever imagine and we should not think of it in earthly terms. Perhaps we can allow God to surprise and challenge us in answering our religious questions. Lord, expand my mind and heart.
Wednesday 9th
Ordinary Time 2023
And these Sadducees then go on to present to Jesus a long and unlikely hypothetical scenario in which this woman eventually married all seven brothers after each one died. And at the conclusion of their hypothetical situation, the Sadducees ask Jesus, “At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?” Of course, Jesus offers them the correct answer and then also states something interesting. He tells the Sadducees that they “are greatly misled.” Just prior to this conversation with the Sadducees, the Pharisees had presented their own question to Jesus in an attempt to trap Him. The difference seems to be that the Sadducees had more sincerity in their pursuit of the truth whereas the Pharisees were more obsessed with their own authority and power.
The Sadducees were considered the more traditional of the religious leaders, in that they accepted only the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, as authentically revealed. They also did not accept the afterlife or the resurrection of the dead because they believed that the Torah did not explicitly teach those things. The Pharisees not only accepted the Torah but also the rest of what is contained in the Old Testament. The Pharisees also accepted what was referred to as the “tradition of the elders,” which meant that they paid much attention to the scrupulous multiplication of laws and regulations that other Pharisees devised, and they sought to impose those man-made laws upon the people.
In this Gospel passage, the problem with the Sadducees seems to be scrupulosity and rigidity in their approach to the faith. They clearly relied upon human reason, and they applied their human reason to the Torah. And though human reason and logical deduction are helpful and necessary in life, they attempted to solve every matter of faith by their own effort by narrowly and rigidly interpreting the Torah. They did not allow themselves to be open to the deeper wisdom of God that floods one’s human reason when one is attentive to divine inspiration and revelation. Instead, they were black and white in all of their deductions and practices. This rigidity left them “greatly misled.”
In our own lives, we can also become greatly misled when we use the gift of our human reason in a rigid and narrow way. We must never overly simplify the faith, and we must never think that we will easily be able to arrive at all the answers by our own effort. Our constant goal must be to allow our minds to become fully immersed in the deepest wisdom of God and all that He has revealed. The teachings of the Church will guide us, keeping us on the straight path, but it will be the voice of God, speaking to our minds in a real and personal way, that will help us to understand the depth and breadth of God’s Will, His Truth, and Wisdom.
Reflect, today, upon any tendency you have to be like these Sadducees. Are you rigid? Or narrow minded? Do you allow yourself to be misled into thinking you have all the answers? If so, seek humility. Humble yourself before the awesome mysteries of Heaven. Use your mind to probe the truths that God has revealed and be ready to be drawn deeper and deeper into the life of God Himself.
My Lord of infinite wisdom, You are Truth Itself, and You continually reveal Yourself to us. Give me the humility I need to always be open to all divine Truth in my life so that I will come to know You and Your holy will as You desire. Jesus, I trust in You.
Wednesday 9th
Ordinary Time 2023
Wednesday 9th
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I come before you in prayer. I am grateful for this opportunity. Thank you for your willingness to listen to me. Help me to be confident in what I ask from you and attentive to what you tell me. Increase my love for you so that my deepest desire is simply to do what you ask of me.
1. “Whose Wife Will She Be?”: “For all seven had been married to her.” In the art of debate, one of the tools employed is the reduction to absurdity; that is, you take the other person’s argument to an extreme to show that if their argument were true, it would lead to consequences patently absurd or contradictory, and thereby false. However, this approach is often reduced to the mere mockery of someone’s argument. That is what the Sadducees attempted with Our Lord. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, so to disprove arguments for the afterlife, they thought of a ridiculous example. It was not enough to raise their objection with the example of two brothers having married the woman, but seven. Theirs was more of a “gotcha” question; they seemed little open to an answer.
REFLECTION
There was a Jewish law, which stated that should a man die childless, the next oldest brother was to marry the widow. The first child of this union would legally be considered the child of the brother who had died. The Sadducees, the priests of Jesus’ day, use this law to build a fantastic story about a woman who married the oldest of seven brothers. The first brother died childless; the woman was taken as wife by the second brother, but he also died before she could conceive. And so with the rest of the seven, each of them died childless, after the woman had married each in turn.
Why did they construct this story? The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection, in life after death. Jesus did. So they figure that if they spring this story on Jesus and then ask him, "If there is a resurrection, which of the seven brothers will be the woman's husband?" Everyone, especially the people, will see how ridiculous the ideas of resurrection and immortality are.
To this, Jesus answers quite seriously, "When God spoke to Moses, he identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even though the three patriarchs had long been dead," Jesus continues, "God,
however, is the God of the living, not of the dead. If God is the God of the patriarchs, though they have died, they must still be living."
Meditation:
It has been said in various ways that a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer. Unfortunately, not all questions are asked in a pure search for truth, much less for salvific truth. So the Sadducees constructed a very unlikely story to pose a question to Jesus.
`Though Mark does not say so, we see here a pattern of people asking Jesus questions, not in a search for truth and enlightenment but in order to trap him and to have something to accuse him with. Jesus does not quite call them “fools” to their face, but he does so indirectly: “you are badly misled” and “you are very much mistaken”.
`Whenever we experience the desire or the need to ask questions about our faith or about the moral teaching of the Church, for example, let us always pause for a moment and reflect on our motivation: are we just being facetious or even derogatory, or are we really searching for the salvific truth that comes through God’s revelation, that “truth which sets us free.” (John 8:32)?
Holy Spirit, when I am led to ask questions about faith or morality, grant me the grace of honesty and a genuine desire for knowledge of the truth that sets us free.
Scripture:
Mark 12:13-17
If you believe only in death you see only death everywhere. Jesus, who is “the way, the truth and the life”, calls us to believe in life. As far as I know, no Sadducee is known by name in the New Testament; and the whole group died out after 70 AD. It was consistent with their belief in death. Like diet, it is important to pay attention to your beliefs, because you are what you believe.
Cuộc sống hiện tại có thể sẽ mang lại cho chúng ta những cú sốc tàn phá và những gánh nặng đau đớn. Nhiều người trong chúng ta có ít nhất một lần bị cú sốc quá đau đớn đến nổi la chỉ có muốn được chết thôi. Ngay cả cái chết nhiều khi có vẻ như là một sự lựa chọn hấp dẫn hơn là phải tiếp tục sự đau khổ. Nhưng Thiên Chúa còn vĩ đại hơn là bất cứ một sự đau khổ nào mà con người đã phải nhận. Vì Thiên Chúa rất vô cùng rộng lượng và luôn thương xót.
Như bài đọc trong sách Tôbia, ông Tobit không thể chịu đựng được cái cảnh mù loà của mình nữa và Sarah cũng đã bị áp đảo tinh thần bởi cái chết liên tiếp của bảy người chồng ngay trong đêm tân hôn. Cả hai đã cầu mong cho cái chết để cứu vãn sự đau khổ của họ, nhưng cả hai cuối cùng quay trở lại với Thiên Chúa. Ông Tobit đã được khôi phục và sáng mắt, Còn Sarah đã được cứu sống bởi Tobia và cuối cùng đã kết hôn với anh ta. Cuối cùng, họ đã ca ngợi Thiên Chúa vì lòng thương xót và lòng từ bi mà họ đã được chứng minh.
Đây là một lời nhắc nhở cho chúng ta biết là không nên dễ chán nãn bỏ cuộc hay đầu hàng bóng tối và sự tiêu cực. Sự đau khổ của con người không phải là ý muốn của Chúa, và Thiên Chúa luôn hiện diện nơi chúng ta để ban cho chúng ta lòng can đảm, niềm hy vọng, và sự chữa lành.
Chúng ta cần phải mở rộng tâm hồn và trái tim của chúng ta cho một cái gì đó to lớn hơn. Sự sống đời đời chắc chắn còn to lớn hơn những gì mà chúng ta có thể tưởng tượng và chúng ta không nên nghĩ về sự sống đời đời của chúng ta theo ý nghĩa hay điều kiện của con người trần thế. Có lẽ chúng ta có thể cho phép Thiên Chúa đến với chúng ta một cách bất ngờ và thách thức chúng ta trong việc trả lời câu hỏi về đức tin của chúng ta. Lạy Chúa, xin mở rộng long trí và trái tim của của chúng con.
Life can bring us some devastating blows and painful burdens. Many people have at one time or another reached their limit and longed to have their life end. Even death sometimes seems a more attractive option than continued misery and suffering. But God is greater than any human suffering and God is infinitely merciful. Tobit could not stand his blindness any longer and Sarah was overwhelmed by the death of seven consecutive husbands on her wedding night.
Both longed for death to give them relief, but both ultimately turned to God. Tobit had his sight restored and Sarah was rescued by Tobias and finally married to him. In the end, they praised God for the mercy and compassion they had been shown.
It is a reminder to us not to give up or to surrender to darkness and negativity. Human pain and misery is not God’s will, and God is always present to grant us courage, hope, and healing. The Sadducees tried to trap Jesus with a trick question about a woman married to seven different brothers. He replied that they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God — their question showed ignorance and a lack of religious imagination. Life in God’s Kingdom is not just a continuation of our earthly life.
We need to open our minds and hearts to something far greater — eternal life is greater than we can ever imagine and we should not think of it in earthly terms. Perhaps we can allow God to surprise and challenge us in answering our religious questions. Lord, expand my mind and heart.
And these Sadducees then go on to present to Jesus a long and unlikely hypothetical scenario in which this woman eventually married all seven brothers after each one died. And at the conclusion of their hypothetical situation, the Sadducees ask Jesus, “At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?” Of course, Jesus offers them the correct answer and then also states something interesting. He tells the Sadducees that they “are greatly misled.” Just prior to this conversation with the Sadducees, the Pharisees had presented their own question to Jesus in an attempt to trap Him. The difference seems to be that the Sadducees had more sincerity in their pursuit of the truth whereas the Pharisees were more obsessed with their own authority and power.
The Sadducees were considered the more traditional of the religious leaders, in that they accepted only the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, as authentically revealed. They also did not accept the afterlife or the resurrection of the dead because they believed that the Torah did not explicitly teach those things. The Pharisees not only accepted the Torah but also the rest of what is contained in the Old Testament. The Pharisees also accepted what was referred to as the “tradition of the elders,” which meant that they paid much attention to the scrupulous multiplication of laws and regulations that other Pharisees devised, and they sought to impose those man-made laws upon the people.
In this Gospel passage, the problem with the Sadducees seems to be scrupulosity and rigidity in their approach to the faith. They clearly relied upon human reason, and they applied their human reason to the Torah. And though human reason and logical deduction are helpful and necessary in life, they attempted to solve every matter of faith by their own effort by narrowly and rigidly interpreting the Torah. They did not allow themselves to be open to the deeper wisdom of God that floods one’s human reason when one is attentive to divine inspiration and revelation. Instead, they were black and white in all of their deductions and practices. This rigidity left them “greatly misled.”
In our own lives, we can also become greatly misled when we use the gift of our human reason in a rigid and narrow way. We must never overly simplify the faith, and we must never think that we will easily be able to arrive at all the answers by our own effort. Our constant goal must be to allow our minds to become fully immersed in the deepest wisdom of God and all that He has revealed. The teachings of the Church will guide us, keeping us on the straight path, but it will be the voice of God, speaking to our minds in a real and personal way, that will help us to understand the depth and breadth of God’s Will, His Truth, and Wisdom.
Reflect, today, upon any tendency you have to be like these Sadducees. Are you rigid? Or narrow minded? Do you allow yourself to be misled into thinking you have all the answers? If so, seek humility. Humble yourself before the awesome mysteries of Heaven. Use your mind to probe the truths that God has revealed and be ready to be drawn deeper and deeper into the life of God Himself.
My Lord of infinite wisdom, You are Truth Itself, and You continually reveal Yourself to us. Give me the humility I need to always be open to all divine Truth in my life so that I will come to know You and Your holy will as You desire. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I come before you in prayer. I am grateful for this opportunity. Thank you for your willingness to listen to me. Help me to be confident in what I ask from you and attentive to what you tell me. Increase my love for you so that my deepest desire is simply to do what you ask of me.
1. “Whose Wife Will She Be?”: “For all seven had been married to her.” In the art of debate, one of the tools employed is the reduction to absurdity; that is, you take the other person’s argument to an extreme to show that if their argument were true, it would lead to consequences patently absurd or contradictory, and thereby false. However, this approach is often reduced to the mere mockery of someone’s argument. That is what the Sadducees attempted with Our Lord. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, so to disprove arguments for the afterlife, they thought of a ridiculous example. It was not enough to raise their objection with the example of two brothers having married the woman, but seven. Theirs was more of a “gotcha” question; they seemed little open to an answer.
There was a Jewish law, which stated that should a man die childless, the next oldest brother was to marry the widow. The first child of this union would legally be considered the child of the brother who had died. The Sadducees, the priests of Jesus’ day, use this law to build a fantastic story about a woman who married the oldest of seven brothers. The first brother died childless; the woman was taken as wife by the second brother, but he also died before she could conceive. And so with the rest of the seven, each of them died childless, after the woman had married each in turn.
Why did they construct this story? The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection, in life after death. Jesus did. So they figure that if they spring this story on Jesus and then ask him, "If there is a resurrection, which of the seven brothers will be the woman's husband?" Everyone, especially the people, will see how ridiculous the ideas of resurrection and immortality are.
To this, Jesus answers quite seriously, "When God spoke to Moses, he identified himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even though the three patriarchs had long been dead," Jesus continues, "God,
however, is the God of the living, not of the dead. If God is the God of the patriarchs, though they have died, they must still be living."
It has been said in various ways that a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer. Unfortunately, not all questions are asked in a pure search for truth, much less for salvific truth. So the Sadducees constructed a very unlikely story to pose a question to Jesus.
`Though Mark does not say so, we see here a pattern of people asking Jesus questions, not in a search for truth and enlightenment but in order to trap him and to have something to accuse him with. Jesus does not quite call them “fools” to their face, but he does so indirectly: “you are badly misled” and “you are very much mistaken”.
`Whenever we experience the desire or the need to ask questions about our faith or about the moral teaching of the Church, for example, let us always pause for a moment and reflect on our motivation: are we just being facetious or even derogatory, or are we really searching for the salvific truth that comes through God’s revelation, that “truth which sets us free.” (John 8:32)?
Holy Spirit, when I am led to ask questions about faith or morality, grant me the grace of honesty and a genuine desire for knowledge of the truth that sets us free.
If you believe only in death you see only death everywhere. Jesus, who is “the way, the truth and the life”, calls us to believe in life. As far as I know, no Sadducee is known by name in the New Testament; and the whole group died out after 70 AD. It was consistent with their belief in death. Like diet, it is important to pay attention to your beliefs, because you are what you believe.
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