By DON FIER
The centrality and foundational importance of article 10 of the Creed (“I believe . . . in the forgiveness of sins”) cannot be exaggerated. Simply stated, the all-encompassing reason mankind is in need of a Redeemer is because he separated himself from an infinite, all-loving God through sin. Without reconciliation, mankind is unable to attain the final end for which he was created: communion with God.
When asked why he became a Catholic, G.K. Chesterton acknowledged this primordial need and gave his well-known response: “To get rid of my sins.”
“The mission and the power to forgive sins through the ministry of the apostles and their successors,” teaches the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), “[is] the risen Christ’s [incomparably great] gift to his Church” (n. 983). In his excellent synopsis of the teachings of the Catholic faith, Catholic Christianity, Dr. Peter Kreeft pithily states: “The Church’s purpose on earth is to extend through time and space the kingdom of forgiveness” (p. 117).
Last week, we saw that “the first and chief sacrament for the forgiveness of sins is Baptism” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 200). So powerful are its effects that not only is original sin forgiven; actual sins are also remitted along with all temporal punishment due to them.
Yet there remains within our fallen nature an unruly inclination toward sin which we must wage war against during our time on Earth. When we fall, “for those sins committed after Baptism, Christ instituted the sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance through which a baptized person is reconciled with God and with the Church” (ibid.). Important to remember and firmly believe is that no sin exists too grave to be forgiven — provided there is true repentance.
The Catechism continues with instruction on article 11 of the Apostle’s Creed, “I believe in…the resurrection of the body,” which we correspondingly profess in slightly different terms in the Nicene Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.” What is the basis for this incredible conviction that Christians hold? It is none other than a firm belief that Christ has risen before us, that He has conquered death, and that each of us has been availed access to the supernatural means to follow in His footsteps:
“We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives forever, so after death the righteous will live forever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day” (CCC, n. 989).
Sacred Scripture is veritably teeming with evidence of the Creator’s salvific design for the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus Himself says, “Everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). And St. Paul is particularly prolific in his epistles with regard to the hope the faithful are to hold for the future resurrection of the body — the Catechism cites several Pauline verses as examples (see Romans 8:11; 1 Thess. 4:14; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; Phil. 3:10-11).
Especially captivating are the words that the Apostle to the Gentiles spoke to the community of Corinth admonishing those who rejected this article of our faith: “How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. . . . Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:12-19).
What is St. Paul saying? Fundamentally, he is asserting that “the Resurrection of Jesus is a historical foundation so essential to Christianity that, without it, the entire structure of the faith collapses in ruins” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — Letters to the Corinthians, p. 39).
For as the Catechism teaches: “The Resurrection above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ’s works and teachings. All truths, even those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if Christ by his Resurrection has given the definitive proof of his divine authority, which he had promised” (CCC, n. 651). By His Resurrection, Christ completed the work of redemption.
That our physical bodies will also rise from the dead, be reunited with our souls, and take on an immortal glorified state following the Last Judgment is a great mystery that surpasses the ability of our finite human intellects to comprehend. Not surprisingly, then, “from the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition. ‘On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body’ (St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 88, 5)” (CCC, n. 996).
But since the human person was created with a body and a soul, is it not eminently fitting for them to be eternally reunited?
Is it not possible for an omnipotent God, who created the universe out of nothing and formed man from the dust of the Earth, to perform the lesser miracle of raising a mortal body from death and transforming it into an immortal one? In the case of Jesus’ own risen body, do we not have the historical evidence of many eyewitnesses, as recorded in Scripture, who “ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 41:10) and of St. Thomas who was able to touch His wounds after the Resurrection (see John 20:27)? All of these are motives of credibility for a steadfast faith that “we shall rise like Christ, with him, and through him” (CCC, n. 995).
What will the glorified bodies of the righteous be like after the resurrection of the dead? “Here, our powers of imagination falter utterly,” says Christoph Cardinal Schönborn. “Sacred Scripture does not satisfy our curiosity but does teach us what is essential: it will be our own proper body, but not in its present form; an immortal ‘celestial’ body, wholly accommodating of the Spirit, like the body of the risen Lord” (Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pp. 143-144).
Glimpses of the characteristics of our resurrected body were made manifest by our risen Savior during the forty days He remained on Earth after His Resurrection before taking His place at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. For example, He could walk through walls (John 20:19) and ascend to Heaven (Acts 1:9-11). And that our resurrected bodies will have similar qualities we know by Revelation: “We shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).
It has also been revealed that all will rise from the dead, both the good and the wicked: “The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29).
Four Transcendent Qualities
As explained in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “All shall rise from the dead in their own, in their entire, and in immortal bodies,” and thus possess the common characteristics of identity, entirety, and immortality. The Church further teaches, however, that the glorified risen bodies of the righteous will be distinguished by four transcendent qualities: impassibility, subtility, agility, and clarity.
In his Modern Catholic Dictionary (MCD), Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, defines impassibility as “the quality of the glorified human body in being free from every kind of physical evil, such as sorrow or sickness, injury or death” (p. 269). Both the good and the evil will have incorruptible bodies, but only the just will enjoy impassibility. The damned, on the other hand, will be subject to heat, cold, and all manner of pain.
Subtility is “the quality of the glorified body which St. Paul calls ‘spiritualized’ [cf. 1 Cor. 15:44]. It is not, however, to be conceived as a transformation of the body into spirit or as a refinement into an ethereal substance” (MCD, p. 523). This quality results in freedom from all barriers to physical movement and is exemplified by the risen Jesus’ ability to pass through the closed door of the Upper Room in Jerusalem.
Agility is “the quality of the glorified human body [whereby it] is totally submissive to spirit, in movement through space, with the speed of thought” (MCD, p. 16). It is what St. Paul refers to when he says that while the body “is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (1 Cor. 15:43).
Finally, clarity is the “quality of the glorified human body in being totally free from every deformity and filled with resplendent radiance and beauty. . . . Each person’s clarity will vary according to the degree of glory in the soul, and this in turn will depend on a person’s merit before God (1 Cor. 15:41-49)” (MCD, p. 108). In other words, it will be determined by the level of charity with which one leaves this world.
Next week we will continue by examining what happens at the moment of 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.)
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