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In the Pattern of Christ: What Will the Resurrected Body Be Like? Associate Pastor's Column Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Church teaches us this: “We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live forever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day” (CCC 989). When Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11:25), he really means it; not only for himself, but for all who believe in him. Therefore he is “not God of the dead, but of the living” (Jn 11:24). For all there is appointed one death, which is the separation of the soul from the body. And in the resurrection, God will restore every soul, good or evil, to its own body. It is not natural for man to be a spirit forever, for we are not angels. Man is a creature that is one, body and soul; he is not two things, a body over there and a soul over here. Everyone will rise, yes, everyone. “Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:29). The uniting of body and soul means eternal reward or punishment in body and soul Now, not everyone will be in heaven forever, even though all will rise in the flesh. The Church condemned this popular error in the early centuries, namely the error that said, “that the punishment of demons and of impious men is temporary, and that it will have an end at some time, that is to say, there will be a complete restoration of the demons or of impious men” (Pope Vigilius, Canons against Origen, 9). The bodies we will get will not be reincarnations. Reincarnation and resurrection are mutually exclusive beliefs; the first is false, the second is true. If one believes in reincarnation, he is in error, and is not in union with Catholic faith. “All will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear,” but Christ “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body,” into a “spiritual body” (Lateran Council IV, 1215; Phil 3:21, 1 Cor 15:44). This body will be like Jesus’s own resurrected body. We will be able to eat but not be subject to hunger. He could change his appearance, he could be in many places at once, he could pass beyond physical barriers, and he did not suffer. His wounds became evidence of his obedience to the father and were glorified in his own flesh. And he enjoyed peace, love, strength, health and joy. If this is what is in store for us, what are we then to do? The first and most important is to live a life of grace, so as to prepare to die in a state of grace, and win the resurrection of the just. Our good deeds earn merits, by the grace of God; and so by God’s grace, when we do good acts we prepare for a life of happiness in the resurrection of the flesh. Furthermore, we need to meditate on this mystery to renew our minds about how we think of our own bodies and of our place in the world. The Devil hates the flesh and all of material creation, for God created it to express and share in his goodness. God’s love for the material world is so great that he became true man, he ate and drank and dealt with material things; he saved us by dying in the flesh, and he resurrected in the body. He gave the world for man – male and female together – to dominate, and in which to be fertile and multiply. By his Holy Spirit God makes our bodies his own temples. Let us live worthy of the resurrection which was promised us through the mercy of the Holy Trinity. |
“…And the resurrection of the body…” Every Sunday we profess publicly that we
believe this. But you may be a bit like I was for so many years, saying it
without ever thinking of what it meant. Or maybe thinking it referred to Jesus,
and never asking for any further meaning. Only very late into my teen years did
I hear for the first time the doctrine of the resurrection of all on the last
day. And when I heard it, I believed.