June 3, 2026
Memorial of Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs
Lectionary: 355
Reading 1
Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God
for the promise of life in Christ Jesus,
to Timothy, my dear child:
grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am grateful to God,
whom I worship with a clear conscience as my ancestors did,
as I remember you constantly in my prayers, night and day.
For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame
the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.
For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.
So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord,
nor of me, a prisoner for his sake;
but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel
with the strength that comes from God.
He saved us and called us to a holy life,
not according to our works
but according to his own design
and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began,
but now made manifest
through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus,
who destroyed death and brought life and immortality
to light through the Gospel,
for which I was appointed preacher and Apostle and teacher.
On this account I am suffering these things;
but I am not ashamed,
for I know him in whom I have believed
and am confident that he is able to guard
what has been entrusted to me until that day.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (1b) To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
To you I lift up my eyes
who are enthroned in heaven.
Behold, as the eyes of servants
are on the hands of their masters.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
As the eyes of a maid
are on the hands of her mistress,
So are our eyes on the LORD, our God,
till he have pity on us.
R. To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord;
whoever believes in me will never die.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection,
came to Jesus and put this question to him, 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 and died, leaving no descendants.
So the second brother married her and died, leaving no descendants,
and the third likewise.
And the seven left no descendants.
Last of all the woman also died.
At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?
For all seven had been married to her."
Jesus said to them, "Are you not misled
because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?
When they rise from the dead,
they neither marry nor are given in marriage,
but they are like the angels in heaven.
As for the dead being raised,
have you not read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God told him,
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob?
He is not God of the dead but of the living.
You are greatly misled."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060326.cfm
Commentary on 2
Timothy 1:1-3,6-12
For the remaining four days of this week we will be reading
from the Second Letter to Timothy, one of the so-called “Pastoral Letters”.
(The First Letter of Timothy is read during Weeks 23 and 24 in Cycle I of
the First Readings.)
There are questions about the letter’s real authorship, but
it is presented as a letter from the Apostle Paul to one of his most faithful
assistants and companions, Timothy, who came from the Roman province of Galatia
in what is part of Turkey today. In the opening of today’s letter Paul
refers to Timothy as “my beloved child”. There was, indeed, a large age
gap between them.
Paul calls himself an ‘Apostle’, one specially commissioned
by Christ, putting him on the same level as the Twelve who accompanied Jesus in
his public life. And his mission is for:
…the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.
As an Apostle, he is being sent out to preach and explain
that the Good News of that unending life with God is available to all those who
open themselves to it. There then follows a prayer of thanksgiving as Paul
remembers and prays for his companion, Timothy.
The main part of the letter now begins, starting with
exhortations to Timothy. Paul begins by urging Timothy to “rekindle the
gift of God” (the Holy Spirit) which had been given to him when Paul laid his
hands on him. The gift of the Spirit can lie dormant in us unless we
exercise it regularly and make it an active element in our lives. Failing
to use the Spirit’s gifts is something we are all in constant danger of doing.
Probably few of us effectively use the special gifts that God has given each
one of us for service and benefit of others.
And Paul emphasises:
…God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a
spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
We need strength and courage, coupled with wisdom, if we are
to be effective in sharing the gospel with others. It is possible that a
certain lack of confidence in him by Paul was a problem for Timothy. This
may have arisen because of Timothy’s relative youth. What the Spirit
gives is “power…love and…self-discipline”. That power is an inner
strength and not the kind of power that dominates others. The love is the
great desire to work for the well-being of others, especially to bring them to
become aware of and to respond to the love of God that comes to them through
Jesus Christ. Self-discipline is not the suppression of desires, but
rather a passion to do what is good and right.
And for that reason, Paul tells Timothy neither to be
ashamed of the witness he is called to give, nor of his companion Paul, who is
now languishing in prison for the sake of the gospel. In fact, he is to
expect some measure of hardship in preaching the gospel. That is
something we all need to be prepared for. The threat of death hangs over
every Christian who proclaims the gospel, but Jesus has brought us life and
immortality which no one can take away.
At the same time, Paul says, we have this huge gift of
having been called to a life of holiness. We have not merited this in any
way; it is pure gift. It is part of God’s plan from the very beginning,
but now made visible through the life of Jesus, the Word of God among us:
…he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world
to be holy and blameless before him in love. (Eph 1:4)
It is in the service of this gospel that Paul was called as
preacher, apostle and teacher and it is precisely because of this service that
he now suffers imprisonment. Clearly he is not ashamed of this and has no
regrets. Paul says with the lovely, much-quoted saying:
…I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put
my trust…
This is his total confidence in his Lord. It is a
person-to-person friendship which nothing can shake. Paul is sure that
his Lord will protect him to the very end.
Would that we had that confidence in Jesus that Paul
had! Would that we were ready to suffer any hardship so that the gospel
might be heard and accepted by more of those around us! As the Christian
apologist, GK Chesterton, said: “Christianity has not failed; it has not even
been tried.”
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Commentary on Mark
12:18-27
Jesus faces another confrontation today, this time with
Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group which did not accept many of the beliefs
held by the Pharisees. They confined their beliefs to the Pentateuch, the
so-called books of Moses that comprise the first five books of our Bible.
Among the beliefs they rejected was that of life after
death. Armed with this conviction, they approached Jesus with a hypothetical
case which they felt could not be answered by him.
A woman married a man, but he died before they could have
children. In order that her late husband, the eldest son in his family, would
have heirs, she followed a law (known as the Levirate law; see Deut 25:5-10)
which said she had to marry her husband’s brother. She did so, but he also died
and, in the end, she married seven brothers, all of whom died before a child
could be conceived.
The Sadducees’ question to Jesus was that, if there is life
after death, which of the seven men would be her real husband in the next life?
For them, of course, there was no problem, but for Jesus and all those who
believed in an after-life, they thought it created an insoluble situation.
Jesus answers them on two fronts. First, he says that in the
next life marriage will no longer exist. People will all be related equally in
a common relationship with God. Second, he astutely quotes from the book of the
Exodus, a book of the Bible which the Sadducees acknowledge as divine
revelation. Jesus reminds them that God spoke to Moses from out of the burning
bush and:
He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
(Exodus 3:6)
Jesus adds:
He is God not of the dead but of the living…
God did not say to Moses: “I was the God of Abraham”, or “I
used to be the God of Abraham”, but “I am (another I AM statement) here and now
the God of Abraham”.
Perhaps we might not be altogether swayed by this argument,
but faced with a text from a part of the Bible they accepted as divine
revelation, it was a statement the Sadducees could not question…and they had no
comeback.
It is useful for us to be able to handle distortions of our
faith which can sometimes be thrown at us. It is essential that we are familiar
with our Bible in order to do so. But we might also say that we do not bring
people to Christ simply by besting them in arguments. The real way to bring
people to Christ is by the compelling example of our words, our actions and our
attitudes reflecting his love and tolerance.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/O2094g/
Wednesday,
June 3, 2026
9th Week in Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Father, your love never fails. Hear our call.
Keep us from danger and provide for all our needs.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Mark 12: 18-27
Then some Sadducees -- who deny that there is
a resurrection -- came to Jesus and they put this question to him, 'Master,
Moses prescribed for us that if a man's brother dies leaving a wife but no
child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now
there were seven brothers; the first married a wife and then died leaving no
children. The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children;
with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last
of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again,
whose wife will she be since she had been married to all seven?'
Jesus said to them, 'Surely the reason why
you are wrong is that you understand neither the scriptures nor the power of
God. For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are
like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read
in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and
said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is
God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.'
Reflection
In today’s Gospel the confrontation between Jesus and the
authority continues.
After the priests, the elders and
the Scribes (Mk 12: 1-12) and the Pharisees and the Herodians (Mk 12: 13-17),
now the Sadducees appear who ask a question about resurrection. A controversial
theme, which caused argument and discussion among the Sadducees and the
Pharisees (Mk 12: 18-27; cf. At 23: 6-1).
•
In the Christian communities of the years
seventy, the time when Mark wrote his Gospel, there were some Christians who,
in order not to be persecuted, tried to reconcile the project of Jesus with the
project of the Roman Emperor. The others who resisted the Empire were
persecuted, accused and questioned by the authority of by the neighbors who
felt annoyed, bothered by their witness. The description of the conflicts of
Jesus with the authority was a very great help in order that the Christians did
not allow themselves to be manipulated by the ideology of the Empire. In
reading these episodes of conflict of Jesus with authority, the persecuted
Christians were encouraged to continue on this road.
•
Mark 12: 18-23. The Sadducees: The Sadducees
were the aristocratic elite of landowners and traders. They were conservative.
They did not accept faith in the Resurrection. At that time, this faith was
beginning to be evaporated by the Pharisees and popular piety. It urged to the
resistance of the people against the dominion of the Romans, and of the
priests, of the elders and of the Sadducees themselves. For the Sadducees, the
Messianic Kingdom was already present in the situation of well-being in which
they were living. They followed the so called “Theology of Retribution” which
distorted reality. According to this Theology God rewards with richness and
well-being those who observe the Law of God, and he punishes with suffering and
poverty those who do evil. This makes one understand why the Sadducees did not
want changes. They wanted that religion remain as it was, immutable like God
himself. This is why they did not accept the faith in the Resurrection and in
the help of the angels, who sustained the struggle of those who sought changes
and liberation.
•
Mark 12: 19-23. The question of the Sadducees:
They go to Jesus to criticize and to ridicule the faith in the Resurrection, to
tell about the fictitious case of the woman who got married seven times and at
the end she died without having any children. The so-called Law of the levirate
obliged the widow who had no children to marry the brother of the deceased
husband. The son who would have been born from this new marriage would be
considered the son of the deceased husband. And thus, he would have descent.
But in the case proposed by the Sadducees, the woman, despite the fact of
having had seven husbands, remained without a husband. They asked Jesus: “In
the Resurrection, when they will rise, to whom will the woman belong? Because
seven had her as wife!” This was to say that to believe in the resurrection led
the person to accept what was absurd.
•
Mark 12: 24-27: The response of Jesus. Jesus
responds harshly: Surely, the reason why you are wrong is that you understand
neither the Scriptures nor the power of God“. Jesus explains that the condition
of persons after death will
be totally different from the present condition. After
death there will be no marriage, but all will be as the angels in Heaven. The
Sadducees imagined life in Heaven as life on earth. And at the end Jesus concludes:
“He is not the God of the dead, but of the living! You are in great error”. The
disciples are warned: those who are on the side of these Sadducees will be on
the side opposite to God.
Personal Questions
•
Today, which is the sense of this phrase: God is
not the God of the dead but of the living”?
•
Do I also believe the same thing in the
resurrection? What does the following mean for me: “I believe in the
resurrection of the body and in life everlasting?
Concluding Prayer
Lord, I lift up my eyes to you who are
enthroned in heaven. Just as the eyes of slaves are on their masters' hand, or
the eyes of a slave-girl on the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are on Yahweh
our God, for him to take pity on us. (Ps 123: 12)
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