The Resurrection Of The Body

• 8 years ago

By DON FIER

Part 3

Intrinsic to the tenet of faith we profess in Article 11 of the Creed — the resurrection of the body — is our admittance of the inevitability of death, a certainty from which no human being can escape. Man, composed of body and soul, no matter how strong and robust the health he enjoyed during his transitory time on Earth, will ultimately experience the day when his soul takes leave of his body.

His mortal life will end, for “man goes to his eternal home…and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:5, 7).

“After death, which is the separation of the body and the soul,” teaches the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the body becomes corrupt while the soul, which is immortal, goes to meet the judgment of God and awaits its reunion with the body when it will rise transformed at the time of the return of the Lord” (n. 205).

Hence, the definitive state of man for eternity “will not be one in which his spiritual soul is separated from his body. . . . Just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and now lives forever, so he himself will raise everyone on the last day with an incorruptible body” (ibid., nn. 203, 204).

The manner by which this takes place exceeds our understanding, even the possibilities of our imaginative powers. The righteous, with glorified bodies, will enjoy everlasting beatitude and the wicked never-ending perdition.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) next speaks of dying in Christ Jesus: “To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ” (CCC, n. 1005). In the words of St. Paul, we must “be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Elsewhere, the Apostle to the Gentiles says, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him” (2 Tim. 2:11).

What does this mean? In simple terms, it indicates that if one dies in the state of grace — without mortal sin on his soul — he will enjoy the presence of Christ forever. There is, however, an intermediate state between bodily death and bodily resurrection where the souls of the righteous enjoy the presence of God even though their bodies lie buried in the grave.

St. Paul goes on to explain, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor. 5:10). This is the particular judgment, which takes place immediately at the moment of death. As the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — Corinthians reminds us, however, “it is important to point out that, for Paul, absence from the body does not mean our presence with the Lord will be automatic or immediate” (p. 60).

Those who are in the state of grace, but whose works are judged imperfect, will endure a period of purification before entering the fullness of glory.

Blessed Paul VI, in his 1968 profession of faith entitled Credo of the People of God, proclaims this teaching with the following words: “We believe that the souls of all those who die in the grace of Christ whether they must still be purified in purgatory, or whether from the moment they leave their bodies Jesus takes them to paradise as He did for the Good Thief are the People of God in the eternity beyond death, which will be finally conquered on the day of the Resurrection when these souls will be reunited with their bodies” (§ 28).

What can we say about the mystery of death, this sure fate that awaits each one of us? “It is in the face of death that the riddle of human existence grows most acute,” teach the fathers of Vatican II. “Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction” (Gaudium et Spes [GS], n. 28).

In other words, death is shrouded with mystery and we naturally recoil from its coming. As explained by Dr. Peter Kreeft, “We naturally fear death because we fear the unknown, and death appears to us as the great unknown, an immense darkness” (Catholic Christianity, p. 136).

But by faith we know that for “those who die in Christ’s grace it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his Resurrection (cf. Romans 6:3-9; Phil. 3:10-11)” (CCC, n. 1006).

Something we must all keep in mind, for we “know neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:13), is that the moment of death marks the time when our eternal fate is sealed. As the Catechism emphasizes: “Our lives are measured by time. . . . That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment” (CCC, n. 1007).

For some sooner, for others later, the sands in the hourglass of our lives will run their course. Thus, it is most prudent to be vigilant and always prepared.

The Catechism next makes explicitly clear that “death is a consequence of sin” (CCC, 1008). The Council of Trent could not have been more blunt in its teaching: “If anyone does not profess that Adam, the first man, by transgressing God’s commandment in paradise . . . through the offense of sin . . . drew upon himself . . . death, . . . let him be anathema” (Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 1511). To further clarify, the Catechism explains that “even though man’s nature is mortal, God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin” (CCC, n. 1008).

Sacred Scripture bears this out in many places. For example, in the Book of Wisdom we read: “God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:23-24).

But death does not have the last word, for as the Vatican II fathers teach: “God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death” (GS, n. 18 § 2).

In other words, “death is transformed by Christ. . . . The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death into a blessing” (CCC, n. 1009). It is for this reason that during the Church’s celebration of the Easter Vigil, “the Exultet sings, ‘O happy fault,…which gained for us so great a Redeemer!’” (CCC, n. 412)

What, then, is the meaning of Christian death? Because of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ and His Resurrection, it has meaning filled with hope: “Through Baptism, the Christian has already ‘died with Christ’ sacramentally, in order to live a new life; and if we die in Christ’s grace, physical death completes this ‘dying with Christ’ and so completes our incorporation into him in his redeeming act” (CCC, n. 1010).

As St. Paul says, “If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:11-12). In other words, if we are born into Christ Jesus through Baptism and have the good fortune of dying in the state of sanctifying grace, we will reign with Him in Heaven.

Unending Happiness

Is it possible for one to actually desire death, which, as we mentioned earlier, our humanity recoils against on the natural level? St. Paul answers that question with a resounding yes: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). So conformed to Christ was Paul that he understood in the depths of his being that death was the doorway to eternal life, to unending happiness in the face-to-face vision of God.

The 16th-century Carmelite reformer, foundress, and mystic St. Teresa of Avila concurs: “I want to see God and, in order to see him, I must die” (Life, chapter 1; as cited in CCC, n. 1011).

Likewise, another great Carmelite saint, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, as her life was slipping away at a tender age due to tuberculosis, is quoted as saying: “I am not dying; I am entering life” (The Last Conversations; as cited in CCC, n. 1011).

The Catechism dispels the notion that “reincarnation” follows death. As we read in Sacred Scripture, “It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). “Death is the end of man’s earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny” (CCC, n. 1013).

It is thus that the Church has always encouraged us to “prepare well for the hour of our death” (CCC, n. 1014), and to have frequent recourse to our Lady and to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.

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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.)