ARE YOU A SADDUCEAN OR A SINCERE SEEKER?
We ought to give it to the Sadducees for being so creative in conjuring up an imaginary situation that almost surely would never happen in real life. But they had an overwhelming desire to put down someone who was getting too popular for comfort.
It was a carefully laid out trap. No matter how implausible, it nevertheless drove home their desired point —that such a situation would
render the belief in the resurrection of the dead almost laughable or absurd.
The Lord knew better than to glorify the question that was meant, not so much to seek for answers, as to embarrass. At the end, the Lord turned the tables against them and even made the teaching about the resurrection sink deeper into everyone’s consciousness. In the afterlife, He says, the conditions will be different from the earthly conditions and relationships will no longer be governed by earthly criteria.
Nowadays, social media is awash in such Sadducean seekers, not of the truth, but simply their own brand of truth. They tend to saturate cyberspace and they seem more active and engaged than the typical cradle Catholic.
Whatever the Sadducees wanted to accomplish, they sure remind us all about the need for us so-called “believers” to really know what it is we believe in and, more than just that, to know how to get that “belief system” across to others. Their zeal at getting others to their side is just matched by the “disengaged” attitude of most cradle Catholics who simply take their beliefs for granted or who are at a loss as to how to pass them on to others.
Last year, the Year of Faith, the issue of disengaged Catholics was supposed to take center stage. Today, ironically, it is the Sadducees who, once again, take us to task and remind us that the time to be seriously engaged is now, for it is precisely now that the world seriously lacks faith formation — the kind that is strong and stable enough to engage a confused and confusing world. Fr. Chito Dimaranan, SDB
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: How well do you know your “belief system”? Can you confidently pass it on to others?
Help me to treasure my faith, Lord, and share it with others, especially the people that You bring to my side.
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