The Ultimate Marriage

Yesterday's Gospel contains one of the key texts of John Paul II's Theology of the Body: "Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Lk 20:35).  The Bible begins with the marriage of man and woman and it ends with the Marriage of Christ and the Church.  The whole purpose of the first - indeed, the entire reason God made us male and female and calls the two to become "one flesh" - is to proclaim, reveal, and foreshadow the second (see Eph 5:31-32).  In other words, earthly marriage is a sign of heavenly marriage.  In yesterday's Gospel, Jesus is saying, "You no longer need a sign to point you to heaven when you are in heaven.";  And this means, as beautiful and wonderful as marital love and union can be, we mustn't hang our hats on a hook that cannot bear the weight.  We are created for an infinite union of love, for an eternal Marriage.  Eros, that longing in our hearts that we all feel for love and union, is meant to be the rocket fuel that launches us to the stars: to Infinity and beyond...;