This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect

with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic

Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using

new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts

to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,

the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who

is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of

Chicago now present Word on Fire.

Peace be with you. Friends, I've always found our gospel passage for today fascinating.

The setting is a familiar one, religious argument. Something savored by the Jewish tradition

up to the present day. If you ever stop by a Yashiva, a place of Jewish higher education,

you'll see this method on display. People argue about the Torah or about the Talmud. So

it's a very ancient and still contemporary Jewish method of dealing with the sacred texts

they argue. Well, in our passage for today, Jesus is pitted in argument against some

Sadducees. They were Jews in his time who did not believe in the resurrection. Now, again,

a lot of their descendants are around today in certain liberal forms of Judaism that don't hold

to the resurrection of the dead. Well, the Sadducees in this argument are using an old logical

trick that's called reduxio ad absurdum, showing that the implications of a given conviction lead

to ridiculous conclusions. So you'll hear that a lot in people's debating style. If you hold

to this, what it'll mean at the end of the day is something really ridiculous. Or if you hold

to that, it's got crazy consequences. That's what they're doing here. In this case, the Sadducees

used the leverate law. This law of Levi would stipulate that if a man died leaving his wife

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