By DON FIER
Part 2
Vitally important to our Catholic faith is the glorious proclamation that Christians throughout the world resoundingly sing out during the liturgical season of Easter which we have just entered: “Christ is risen, Alleluia! Indeed, He is risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!”
Each Sunday when we say in the Nicene Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead,” we are professing our belief that just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives forever, so too will our mortal bodies be raised from the tomb and be reunited with our souls for eternity (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], n. 989). We are affirming that “the risen Christ himself is the principle and source of our future resurrection” (CCC, n. 655) and that everlasting life awaits the righteous.
This is a truth shrouded in mystery that our limited human intellects cannot fully grasp. As such, “God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively . . . as a consequence intrinsic to faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul and body” (CCC, n. 992).
Perhaps the most efficacious example of belief in this tenet in Old Testament times is that of the Maccabean martyrs (seven brothers and their mother) who willingly accepted gruesome torture and death rather than transgress the law of the Lord. One of the young men, in the throes of excruciating agony, gasped with his last breath: “The King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws” (2 Macc. 7:9). What remarkable faith!
The Catechism proceeds to describe what happens when one dies. To understand this teaching, it would be good to return to the creation account in the Book of Genesis and recall that “the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground” (Gen. 2:7a). But Adam was not yet a living being, for his mortal body had no animating principle — it did not have a soul. Not until God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [did] man became a living being” (Gen. 2:7b).
What happens, then, at the moment of death for a human being? The soul, spiritual and immortal, is separated from the mortal body. “In death, the separation of the soul from the body,” explains the Catechism, “the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body” (CCC, n. 997).
One is reminded of the words we hear as we begin our lenten observance on Ash Wednesday when ashes from burned palms are traced on our forehead in the sign of a cross: “Remember man, ‘you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ (Gen. 3:19).” This is a sobering reminder that our corruptible body returns to the dust of the earth whence it came while our immortal soul stands before God for the particular judgment.
The ultimate fulfillment of the promise of article 11 of the Creed will take place at the end of time when the general judgment occurs. It is then that “God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection” (CCC, n. 997). Jesus “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
According to a revelation received by St. Paul, “The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16).
The Catechism, while clearly recognizing that this future event on which we place our firm hope is a mystery accessible only by faith, avows that “our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ’s transfiguration of our bodies” (CCC, n. 1000).
By way of explanation, the second-century bishop and Early Church Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons is cited: “For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity” (Against Heresies 4, 18, 5).
It is the Eucharist, then, as articulated by Early Church Father St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. ~107), that “is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live forever in Jesus Christ” (To the Ephesians 20, 2).
The Catechism now instructs the faithful that “in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ” (CCC, n. 1002). To understand this teaching, we again turn to St. Paul who instructs the Colossians: “You were buried with [Christ] in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). In other words, as elucidated by the Vatican II fathers in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, we can be assured that “by baptism men are plunged into the paschal mystery of Christ: They die with Him, are buried with Him, and rise with Him” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 6).
St. Paul continues: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). The authors of The Navarre Bible — Captivity Epistles offer an excellent commentary on how we are to understand this:
“Christians have been raised to a new kind of life, a supernatural life, whereby they share, even while on earth, in the glorious life of the risen Jesus. This life is at present spiritual and hidden, but when the Lord comes again in glory, it will become manifest and glorious. Two practical consequences flow from this teaching — the need to seek the ‘things that are above,’ that is, the things of God; and the need to pass unnoticed in one’s everyday work and ordinary life, yet to do everything with a supernatural purpose in mind” (p. 182).
Thus, we are able to say that “Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the death and Resurrection of Christ” (CCC, n. 1002).
“United with Christ by Baptism,” teaches the Catechism, “believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains ‘hidden with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3)” (CCC, n. 1003).
In other words, although we may be thought of as no account by the worldly minded, within the innermost depth of our being resides an unfathomable joy and peace which cannot help but radiate outward. Continually nourished by the Eucharist, we are given the graces to endure until the end and will be able to say with St. Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).
At the general judgment, “when we rise on the last day, we ‘also will appear with him in glory’ (Col. 3:4)” (CCC, n. 1003).
The Dignity Of The Person
The Catechism concludes its subsection entitled “Risen With Christ” with instruction on the great dignity that belongs to the human person: “The believer’s body and soul already participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other person, especially the suffering” (CCC, n. 1004).
The human person, consisting of a corporal body that is animated by a spiritual soul, is made in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen. 1:27). Thus, as taught by Vatican II, “man is not allowed to despise his bodily life, rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and honorable since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 14).
Once again, the teaching of St. Paul is cited: “The body [is meant] . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?…Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:13-15, 19-20).
In today’s world so driven by hyper-sexuality, serious reflection on this passage is especially relevant.
Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, in his usual adept manner, provides an excellent summary of what it means to be “risen with Christ” according to the teaching of the Catechism:
“It means that our resurrection is one of the fruits of Christ’s death and Resurrection; that the risen Christ has been interceding for us in heaven to obtain our resurrection; that our reception of the risen Lord in the Eucharist has gained the graces we need to rise glorious from the dead; that His Resurrection is the guarantee of our rising from the grave; and that already in this life, our bodies and souls belong to Christ” (The Faith, p. 98).
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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