‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’

By Fr. Vincent Hawkswell

In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, Jesus is transfigured: “The appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became dazzling white.” In the Second Reading, St. Paul tells us that our bodies, too, will be transfigured: Christ will “transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory.”

St. Augustine said that there is no point on which Christian faith encounters more opposition than “the resurrection of the body,” in which we proclaim our belief every Sunday, whichever Creed we say.

Many people believe vaguely that human life continues in a spiritual fashion after death, but we believe, as Christians have believed from the beginning, not only that our souls will live forever, but also that on the last day, Christ will “raise up” our bodies, even though they have been separated from our souls in the death of our natural human life, whether they have decayed or been burned and the ashes scattered.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that if we have died “in Christ,” God will grant our bodies “incorruptible life” by “reuniting them with our souls.” Jesus Himself asserted it unambiguously.

To the Sadducees, who denied it, He said, “You are badly misled, because you fail to understand the Scriptures or the power of God.”

To Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died, He said, “Your brother will rise again.”

When she replied, “I know he will rise again, in the resurrection on the last day,” Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
A ‘glorified’ body When Jesus first appeared to His apostles after His resurrection, “they thought they were seeing a ghost,” and they panicked, but Jesus reassured them.

“Why are you disturbed?” He asked. “Why do such ideas cross your mind? Look at My hands and feet: it is really I. Touch Me, and see that a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do,” and He showed them His Hands and Feet, where they could see the holes left by the nails that had held Him to the cross.

Nevertheless, the apostles “were still incredulous for sheer joy and wonder,” so Jesus said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”

They gave Him a piece of cooked fish, which He took and ate in their presence.

It is clear, therefore, that Jesus was raised with His own Body.

However, He did not return to an ordinary earthly life. For example, He could appear and disappear, even through locked doors. He was also, on occasion, hard to recognize.

We, too, will all rise again with our own bodies, but Christ will change them into spiritual bodies, like His.

We believe it. However, we still feel like asking,

”How are the dead to be raised up? What kind of body will they have?”

“A nonsensical question!” St. Paul answers. “The seed you sow does not germinate unless it dies.

When you sow, you do not sow the full-blown plant, but a kernel of wheat or some other grain. God gives body to it as He pleases: to each seed its own fruition.”

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown in the earth is subject to decay; what rises is incorruptible.

What is sown is ignoble; what rises is glorious.

Weakness is sown, strength rises up. A natural body is put down and a spiritual body comes up. If there is a natural body, be sure there is also a spiritual body.”

Temple of God

It is hard to imagine a “spiritual” body. “Spiritual” sounds rather negative. It suggests something more like a gas than a solid body of flesh and bone.

It helps to read C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, in which the heavenly bodies are solid and the earthly bodies mere ghosts in comparison. Christ’s glorified Body could pass through a locked door because the door was so insubstantial compared to the Body, not the other way about.

However we try to picture it, the way in which our bodies will rise and be glorified exceeds our understanding and imagination; we can only believe it. However, the Eucharist can help us, says the Catechism. At Mass, corruptible bread and wine become the incorruptible Body and Blood of Christ.
Similarly, “our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but incorruptible.”

In this Sunday’s First Reading, we hear how God made a covenant with Abram (whose name He changed to Abraham), promising him descendants as numerous as the stars and a land big enough for them to live in.

Now the Eucharist is the sign of the new and everlasting covenant, in which God promises that our sins will be forgiven and our bodies raised from the dead.

In fact, since Christ gives us His own life at baptism, Christian life is already, on earth, a participation in His resurrection, the Catechism says. Baptized, confirmed, and nourished with the Eucharist, we are already members of His risen Body. However, our new life remains “hiddenwithChrist in God” until we rise on the last day.

In the meantime, let us remember that the body “is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body,” as St. Paul said. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, to be used for His glory, never to be desecrated, and “if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also.”