Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus is debating the materialists of his day: the Sadducees, those who deny the resurrection of the dead. They put forward an almost comical case of seven brothers who died leaving no descendants for the widow. They ask, “At the resurrection when they arise whose wife will she be?” Jesus brushes aside this bit of facile casuistry.

The body is a means of communication. The most intense personal communication possible is that which happens between two married people—sexual, psychological, and personal intimacy. Given the limitations and restrictions of our bodies here below, this type of intimacy is possible only with one other person.

The heavenly state involves a body too, but a transformed, transfigured, and elevated body—what Paul called a spiritual body. It is still a means of communication, but now it is so intense and spiritualized that it can mediate an intimate communion with all those who love the Lord. We are not less than bodily in heaven; we are super-bodily. We communicate more extensively and more intimately, and with everyone. Hence, in heaven, we are not given to one person in marriage, but to all. All of this becomes plain in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.