Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven [brothers] had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but 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. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.
Luke 20: 33-36
I struggle with these verses because they seem to take a view of marriage as existing only for the continuation of humanity. This view of marriage is not very appealing to me. Let’s face it: I’m a romantic. I like the idea of the intimacy of a healthy marriage. I want such intimacy in my life after my time here on earth. So I take comfort in indications from other Scripture passages that if I strive to remain aware of the Divine Presence and strive to let it work in me in this life, I’ll find intimacy in the next one, even if anyone who can no longer die doesn’t need to reproduce. For an extensive discussion of where wedding imagery appears in the Scriptures, search for Bride of Christ on Wikipedia.
The parable in Matthew 25:1-13 implies that Jesus is a bridegroom, and the bridegroom arrives to enter the wedding feast. Anyone who doesn’t lose faith that the bridegroom will come and has prepared for his arrival will join the bridegroom at the feast (Matt. 25:10). Who is the bridegroom marrying? Anyone who has cultivated a relationship with him and is ready to consummate that relationship because anything that used to get in its has been removed. Anyone who enters into that consummation has become the person God created him or her to become. (See Klein.)
Such a person wears no masks, costumes or anything else from his or her mortal life. He or she surrounds him or herself with no defenses and carries no inhibitions because he or she doesn’t need to. There’s nothing to hide or defend against because all has been revealed and all that is not from God has melted away. (See 1 Cor. 3: 15 and Heb. 12:27 and 29.) The guests of honor at the wedding feast no longer know lack of any kind. (See Rev. 21:14) Their deepest desires are fulfilled, so they have no reason to be selfish, no reason not to be fully open to all God is and all God offers, nor are they left with any reason to be less than fully open to each other our and what each other offers.
The reality of eternal life is not merely one of intellectual existence. (Again, see Klein.) I don’t think of it as an eternal staring contest between the bridegroom and all his beloveds either. Instead, I think of it as creativity experienced to its fullest. After earthly life, if we are fully open to creativity at its fullest, who is the bridegroom of Scripture, we find ourselves in union with him and others who are united with Him. It’s a state that doesn’t mean the loss of intimacy but rather the fullness of it—because eternal intimacy isn’t limited by time, space, or anything else. It is intimacy with dimensions beyond our imagination, and it’s unending.
Works consulted
“Bride of Christ.” Wikipedia, The Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 31 Oct. 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_of_Christ#:~:text=In%20the%20Gospel%20of%20John,my%20joy%20therefore%20is%20fulfilled.
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday July, 2 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.179, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 26 Feb. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm
Klein,Terrance. “What does it mean to become a saint?”. America: The Jesuit Review, America Press Inc. 1 November 2022, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2022/11/01/homily-all-saints-244057.
Sitting with the Sacred 