For a more enriching experience,
go down on your knees to pray or take it one step further
and prostrate yourself (lay face down) on the floor while praying.
Father, the reading below calls to my mind when I attempt to intellectualize or rationalize my Life, just as the Sad'ducees did when they questioned Jesus about what happens in the resurrection. They could not even conceive of Life after life and questioned Jesus making the afterlife look preposterous and silly. The Sad'ducees (a sect group of Jews) didn't even believe in the afterlife, angels, evil spirits or immortality. They only believed what Moses wrote and nothing beyond that. They only believed that the 'Torah' (the first five Biblical books written by Moses) was the sole source of Divine authority. So the Sad'ducees decide to go to Jesus and ask about the afterlife using a ridiculous test question to try to trip Him up. Jesus already knows that they don't even believe in the afterlife and responds, " . . . you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?" Oh I just Love this response! He is basically saying, "You don't know what you are talking about." Jesus goes on to explain to them the difference between Life (heavenly) and life (earthly) but it just doesn't sink in. Their mind just can't go there because they are set on intellecutalizing and rationalizing spirit matters. They could not wrap their brain around the afterlife if they tried because they were simply not open to it. This reminds me of when I attempt to have a spiritual conversation with someone who is like the Sad'ducees. I can either just call it what it is, as Jesus did, or I can argue and debate spirituality with them and waste my time. Thank You Father! Thank You for this wonderful awareness of when I run into a Sad'ducee or when I am being a Sad'ducee myself. Thank You for this wonderful eye-opener today.
Through Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood, Most Sacred Name and Most Holy Face, I thank You for this awareness. Amen~
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark
Mark 12:18-27
18 And Sad'ducees came to Him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked Him a question, saying,
19 "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother.
20 There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children;
21 and the second took her, and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise;
22 and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died.
23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife."
24 Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
26 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, `I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?
27 He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."
The Gospel of the Lord
Praise to You Lord Jesus Christ