Category Archives: Resurrection

The Second Greatest Saint

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Over the course of 13-plus centuries, the Roman Canon (what we call Eucharistic Prayer I) remained virtually unchanged and is practically the same prayer that was written during the time of Pope Gregory I with one notable exception—the addition of the name of St. Joseph.  On November 13, 1962, Pope John XXIII inserted his name into the prayer, an act that was carried forward into the other three Eucharist Prayers of the Mass of Paul VI and officially completed by Pope Francis in 2013.  The recurrence of the number 13 conjures up October 13, 1917, the date of the last apparition at Fatima and the Miracle of the Sun.  Just prior to the sun hurling towards the earth, the children, according to Lucia, “beheld St. Joseph with the Child Jesus and Our Lady robed in white with a blue mantle, beside the sun. St. Joseph and the Child Jesus appeared to bless the world, for they traced the Sign of the Cross with their hands.” The message is obvious—Jesus wants to bless the world through St. Joseph—and confirmed when he was added as a direct liturgical intercession.  We are entering period of great emphasis on reliance upon the great saint and human father of Jesus. 

Next to Our Lady, he is the greatest and most powerful saint in heaven.  The time is ripe for this great power to be unleashed upon the Church.  To receive all of the blessings that God wants to bestow upon us through the hands of St. Joseph we must first grasp his greatness.  This starts with a proper theology of St. Joseph, a Josephology if you will, that puts forth the reasons for his greatness.

There are good reasons for his pre-eminence, reasons that will be easy to grasp once we make clear an important principle.  St Thomas said that “an exceptional divine mission calls for a proportional degree of grace.”  This principle is most clearly affirmed with Our Lady.  All of her greatness, her fullness of grace, her immaculate conception, her glorious assumption and queenship, is because of her predestination to Divine Maternity.  She is great because God made her so and He made her so because she was eternally predestined to be linked to the Incarnation of the Son.   When God determined to become Incarnate, He also determined who His Mother would be.  She is most perfect then because it was God Who is infinitely wise that appointed her and equipped her for her indispensable role in the Incarnation.  Jesus could have appointed other Apostles, He could have chosen a different precursor than John the Baptist, but He could not have chosen another mother.  She is not alone among men in being tied directly to the Incarnation such that it quite literally was determined to depend upon her.  This is where St. Joseph comes in.

St. Joseph was predestined to serve as the earthly father of Jesus Christ.  Many theologians hesitate to call him “foster father” precisely because a man becomes a foster father of a child because of some accident, but St. Joseph was eternally predestined and therefore given a father’s heart despite, as Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says, nature never making him a father.  It was, according to Bossuet, the same hand that gave “Joseph the heart of a father and Jesus the heart of a son.”

The Mission of St. Joseph

Joseph’s mission then is twofold.  The first is the one that has most often been attributed to him as being in support of Mary’s maternity.  It is this regard that he is often given an “also run” status as though he were merely a figurehead or just tagging along.  Probing a little deeper however we are forced to conclude that there is more than initially meets the eye.  He is, first and foremost, the protector of Mary and not just in the physical sense.  He is also the guardian of both her chastity and perpetual virginity.  St. Joseph as validly married to Our Lady had conjugal rights over her.  Nevertheless through grace he was able to not only refrain was marital relations, but to be her “most chaste spouse.”  Likewise, as head of the Holy Family, he had authority over a sinless wife.  In order to exercise that authority God would have given him the grace proper to such a high calling.

The second aspect of his mission is likewise revelatory in that he was also, not only responsible for protecting Our Lord, but also to contribute to His human formation.  This mission would have carried with it a proportional amount of grace.  He was also in a very real sense the savior of the Savior by protecting Him from harm, especially when Herod sought His life.  Like with Our Lady, St. Joseph would have exercised authority over Our Lord requiring that he be not only infallible in his commands, but impeccable in his example. 

The Privileges of St. Joseph

Given this exceptional role in the Incarnation, St. Joseph would have been given a relative fullness of grace that enabled him to carry out his mission.  This is why many saints and theologians throughout history have posited that he was completely sanctified.  When this happened however we can only speculate.  We know that it was not at his conception as Pius IX said the Immaculate Conception was a “singular grace” and utterly unique to Our Lady.  Some have said it was during the nuptials that he exchanged with Our Lady mostly because that is the last moment at which such a redemptive act on God’s part would have occurred.

In a homily given for the Feast of the Ascension, the aforementioned “Pope of St. Joseph”, John XIII, claimed that that it may be piously believed that St. Joseph was bodily assumed into heaven at the time of our Lord’s ascension.  This belief finds it foundation in Matthew’s assertion that at the resurrection of Jesus many saints came forth from their tombs and entered the holy city (c.f. Mt 27:51-53).  Reasoning that he being the highest of the saints and thus worthy of a first-fruits share in the Resurrection and Ascension saints such as Bernadine of Siena and St. Francis de Sales have claimed that Joseph indeed lives in heaven with both body and soul united.  The latter even went so far as to say that “We can never for a moment doubt that the glorious saint has great influence in heaven with Him Who raised him there in body and soul—a fact which is the more probable because we have no relic of that body left to us here below!  Indeed it seems to me that no one can doubt this as a truth, for how could He Who had been so obedient to St. Joseph, all through His life, refuse him this grace?” (quoted in Fr. Donald Calloway, Consecration to St. Joseph).

Building on the logic of St. Francis de Sales of Jesus’ obedience to St. Joseph, we can begin to see why St. Joseph is such a powerful intercessor.  That obedience did not cease but remains because Jesus remains forever his son.  This power has lain dormant for many centuries, but now is the time for the silent witness of Christ to finally be heard.

The Fountain of Youth and the Resurrection

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Legend has it that the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León stumbled upon Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth.  The mythical spring would restore youth to anyone who drank or bathed in its waters.  His personal records make no mention of his search, but nevertheless popular history has attached the fountain to his name, often as evidence of a backward time.  But if we replace magical fountains with technology, then the quest at least, does not seem so doltish.  The fountain may not exist, but the desire to remain forever young remains a part of the human psyche.  Mass vanity?  Perhaps.  But if we dismiss the desire too quickly, then we are in danger of missing a message from our hearts that points towards the One Who is the fulfillment of every desire.

A quick word first about vanity.  Vanity or vainglory is not wrong because it seeks glory.  We were made to receive glory.  Vainglory is wrong because it seeks glory in the wrong things, in the wrong way or from the wrong person.  Glory is meant to be received from God in reward for the good that we do for the right reason.  To seek it in other ways is ultimately empty and unsatisfying and thus leaves us perpetually searching for what ultimately proves to be a mythical satisfaction. 

St. Thomas on Perpetual Youth

Reading St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae can be intimidating, but those who are willing to brave the raging intellectual waters are often struck by his common sense.  Related to the topic at hand, he takes a common sense approach about the state of our bodies after the general resurrection.  Building off the promise in Ephesians 4:13, namely “until we all attain to…mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ”, St. Thomas points out that man will rise again at the most perfect stage of nature (ST III, q.81, art.1).  Because perfection does not come to us all at once, there is a defect in human nature in time.  First there is the defect of childhood in that they lack maturity and bodily strength.  Secondly there is a defect in old age brought about by the diminishment of bodily strength and faculties.  These two defects meet at a single point in which growth terminates and just prior to the movement towards defect begins.  This point, St. Thomas calls a “youthful age” and it is when we are at our strongest bodily.  This is the same youthful age that the Fountain of Youth is attempting to capture.  It is the same age that the bodily resurrection will capture for all eternity.  This desire in our culture to stay forever young is really a twisted-up desire for our bodily resurrection in which we will attain to “the extent of the full stature of Christ.”   

Because Christ Himself rose at the youthful age of 30, and our resurrection is a share in His, we will all arise in our bodies of a similar youthful age.  But, before closing, we would be remiss if we merely glossed over the fact that Christ was struck down at what would be considered the strongest age.  This ought to bring both pause and praise because the age in which He was strongest was also the age at which He could suffer the most.  To cut a man down in His prime requires the greatest effort.  His gift of self to mankind was more complete at 30 than it would have been at any other age and helps explain why it was fitting that He be that age. 

The desire for perpetual youth in this world is vanity, not because it seeks the glory that comes in youth, but because it seeks it in the wrong way.  The desire is a pointer that extends beyond this world to tell us that it is only by dying to self with a youthful vigor that we can actually become younger.  Perpetual youth only comes from the One Who won it for us by giving Himself away during His youth.  Fully untwisted, the Fountain of Youth and all its present day manifestations become a true north for us to fix our desire on its proper object.  Only by sharing in Christ’s passion do we share in His youthful resurrection.

The Bread of Life and the Resurrection

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Each Easter season, the Liturgy carries us through the Bread of Life Discourse found in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.  We are all familiar with the setting, but this familiarity carries with it a danger of missing the point of  why the Church chooses these passages as part of her Easter celebration.  Of course, in a very real way, because the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of our faith, it is always in season.  But it is the connection between the Eucharist and the Resurrection that the Church wishes to highlight. Our Lord repeatedly issues the command to eat His body and drink His blood and for apologetical reasons that can grab our attention.  But each time He does, He attaches it to the promise of the future resurrection.  This creates an intrinsic link between the Eucharist and the resurrection of the dead that is worth further examination.

To grasp why this is so, we can turn to St. Augustine.  In the Confessions, Augustine recounts the time that he heard the voice of Christ saying “I am the food of strong men; grow and you shall feed on me; nor shall you change me, like the food of your flesh into yourself, but you shall be changed into my likeness” (Book VII, Ch. X).  St. Thomas interprets this passage as referring to the spiritual nature of the food that is the Eucharist.  Bodily food is changed into the substance of the person nourished and supports life as such.  Spiritual food changes the man into Itself and supports the spiritual life as such.

The Sacrament of the Passion

The Eucharist as both the Sacrament of the Passion and “true food indeed” transforms us into Christ  according to which “a man is made perfect in union with Christ Who suffered” (ST III, q.73, art.3, ad. 3).  It is Christ Who is really present in the Eucharist and it is Him Whom we receive, but we receive Him with particular reference to His Passion.  This reception allows us to not just “spiritually” unite ourselves to Him in His Passion, but so that we truly participate in it.  And it is from this that its fruits are truly available to us; or we should say one fruit in particular—a share in the bodily resurrection.  In short the Eucharist conforms us to Christ in His Passion so that we might share in His resurrection.  The Eucharist is then ordered towards the Resurrection, but only by sacramentally passing through the Passion of Christ.

By highlighting the end of the Eucharist, it helps us to understand two further aspects of this “hard teaching”.  First, when Our Lord says that it is the spirit that gives life and not the flesh He does not mean that we should take what He says symbolically and unite to Him spiritually.  Instead He means that it was, as St. Thomas says, “the Cross [that] made His flesh adapted for eating” (ST III, q.3, art.3, ad.1).  It is His resurrected, impassible body that gives life, not the passible, mortal body that they see.  In other words, the Eucharist, because it is the Sacrament of the Passion, would not have achieved its full meaning until “Christ our Passover had been sacrificed.”  This is why Pope Innocent III said the disciples at the Last Supper “received His body such as it was ” (De Sacr. Alt. Myst. iv), that is, mortal and passible. It was not until after the Resurrection that they would have received His immortal and impassible body.

Why It is Necessary

The second point has to do with Christ’s insistence that, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you” (Jn 6:54).  It is difficult not to read this as imposing some sort of necessity that links the Eucharist to salvation.  But this is an often-misunderstood teaching because it requires a bit of explanation.  In fact, this is one of the doctrines that the Calvinists attacked when they broke away from the Church, saying that the Eucharist was not necessary for salvation.

The Council of Trent made a series of distinctions to help throw this teaching into relief.  First, as Scripture testifies, Baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation (c.f. Mk 16:16).  The necessity of the Eucharist is of a different kind—what the Church calls the necessity of precept.  This is a teaching that “is hard” but must be accepted, meaning that the believer must do as Our Lord commanded.  This is why the Church withholds it until one reaches the age of reason.  It is also why there is no absolute necessity like Baptism.  Young children do not need the Eucharist in order to be saved.

This distinction arises because Baptism, the Sacrament by which we are made to be “in Christ” and incorporated into His Mystical Body, deputizes the believer for divine worship, which means the offering of sacrifice to God.    This includes the offering of the Church’s sacrifice of the Eucharist.  So Baptism, like all the Sacraments, is ordered toward the Eucharist.  It essentially completes Baptism.

The moral necessity of receiving the Eucharist then is abundantly clear, but it is not clear how often one should do so.  In order to fulfill the precept, the Church obliges the faithful to receive it at least once a year during the Easter season (Canon 920).  But it is doubtful that one who only receives once a year will be able to preserve himself in a state of grace for very long.  The Eucharist is meant to provide supernatural nourishment for the soul so that when it is deliberately avoided for a long period of time, the person will almost necessarily begin to fill up on the junk food that the world has to offer.

This moral necessity absolves young children prior to reaching the age of reason from receiving the Eucharist.  It also absolves those who are so mentally handicapped that they cannot make a simple act of faith in the Real Presence.  But what about non-Catholic Christians?  Are they all pretty much like the disciples who walked away from Jesus over this hard saying?

Recall that we are bound by necessity of precept.  That implies that we are aware of the precept and understand it.  The person must not be culpably ignorant, although what that actually looks like is up to God.  What we can say for sure is that it will be a miracle if someone is saved without receiving the Eucharist regularly.  The natural means by which God grants the supernatural gift of perseverance is through the Eucharist.  God can circumvent those natural means via a miracle, but how often or even if that happens we cannot know.  That is why the man who does not regularly receive the Bread of Life but knows that He should is, in essence, testing God by demanding a miracle.

The Word of God Made Flesh rarely repeated Himself.  The Bread of Life Discourse is a notable exception as He commanded His disciples four times to eat His body and drink His blood.  This repetition wasn’t directed towards those disciples who “returned to their former way of life,” (Jn 6:66) but to those who continued to follow Him.  We should be constantly aware of just how dependent we are upon the Bread of Life and approach Him as such.

The Mystery of the Transfiguration

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One can hardly begin to imagine the amazing things that the Apostles, especially the inner trio of Peter, John and James, saw during their time with Our Lord.  But if you were to ask which event stood out above the others, the answer might surprise you at first.  You might think for St. Peter it would have been the event of the miraculous catch or walking on water, but instead he mentions only one—the Transfiguration.  Given nearly three decades to reflect upon it, the Vicar of Christ in his second encyclical still finds it to be the most formative event in His life, describing himself as receiving honor and glory from God the Father when he was an eyewitness of the majesty of Christ on the holy mountain (c.f 2Pt 1:16-19).  It is this truly awe-inspiring event on the mount of Transfiguration that the Church invites us to celebrate today.

To set the tone, it is worth mentioning that the Transfiguration is one of the few events in the life of Christ which is found in all three Synoptic Gospels.  The Holy Spirit thought that this episode was not only formative in the life of the Apostles but ought also to be for the Christians that were to follow.  For each of the mysteries of Christ’s life are recorded within Sacred Scripture not only for our knowledge but as invitations for our participation.  The Church reminds us of this invitation by including this feast with the liturgical calendar because, as Pope Pius XII reminds us, although these historical events occurred in the past, “they still influence us because each of the mysteries brings its own special grace for our salvation” (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 165).  It is then the Church’s hope that we will lay hold of the special grace attached to the Transfiguration.

What the Transfiguration Reveals

Grasping what made this experience so monumental for St. Peter will help us to drink more fully of the mystery ourselves.  In this single event we find a compendium of Christology.  The Transfiguration reveals the fullness of the Person of Christ—true God and true man.

When asked, most Christians would say that Ss. Peter, John and James witnessed His divinity.  This is true to a certain extent, but what they saw was the glory of His sacred humanity.  A moment’s reflection on the accounts will make this clear.  First, their reaction betrays this belief.  They are clearly awed by the fact that “His face shone like the sun and His garments became white as light” (Mt 17:2), but they are not at any pains to look away.  Instead when the Divine presence is manifested in the cloud, they “fell on their faces” because they know that “man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:20).  It is the word spoken by the Father that reveals Christ’s divinity to them—“This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.  Listen to Him” (Mt 17:6).

His divinity, according to St. Thomas, was also made known to the Apostles in His power over the living and the dead.  Elijah was(and still is) among the living.  He has never died and lives within some heavenly realm until his return to defeat the Antichrist as one of the two witnesses (c.f. Rev 11:3-12).  Christ had power to summon him.  Christ also was the Lord of the dead, able to bring forth Moses from the realm of Abraham’s bosom.  It was to preach to them of His Exodus, that is His Passion, Death and Resurrection, that He brought them forth.

One suspects that the profundity of the Transfiguration for Peter was not just because it revealed Christ’s divinity to Him, but because it also put flesh around the divinity.  It is the foundation for what has since been explained as the Hypostatic Union.  Although it would take the fullness of Christ’s mission and the gift of the Holy Spirit to realize it, the Apostles now knew that this was a man, but no mere man, that was walking around with them.

The Second Person of the Trinity, the “Beloved Son” is God.  In the fullness of time, He took to Himself a human nature without setting aside His divine personality.  He remained and remains a divine Person that used a human nature (not a human person) as His instrument for our salvation.  In the natural course of events, when a body and soul are fused together in conception, a person is formed.  But in Christ, the body and soul united to the Second Person of the Trinity so that He supplied the personality.  This is why we can accurately say that God became man and not that a man became God.

This uniting of the human nature with the Eternal Word is called the Hypostatic Union.  This union means that the body and soul of Christ enjoy special privileges.  One of those privileges was the Beatific Vision.  This is the direct vision of God that all the blessed in heaven possess; each being able to see all things in their divine relationship.  It is a source of constant joy and glory so that this beatitude overflows from the soul into the body, making it shine like the sun.  This effect, one of the four qualities of a glorified body, is called Clarity.

It is a miracle that is, a suspension of what naturally happens that the effects of the Beatific Vision did not flow into all the regions and powers of Christ’s soul allowing Him to suffer and sorrow.  Otherwise He could not be the “Man of Sorrows.”  Likewise it is a miracle that His Glory did not overflow into His body.

The Transfiguration is a result of God “suspending” this miracle so that the natural clarity of Christ’s body shines forth.  He suspends this miracle to reveal the other three qualities of the glorified humanity at other points in His public ministry.  He shows His natural agility by walking on water, His natural subtlety by passing from Mary’s womb, leaving her virginity intact and His impassibility when He was unharmed by the Jews attempts to stone Him.  But because clarity is perceptible to the human eye, the Transfiguration becomes a testimony to the full humanity of Christ.  It is the testimony of the fullness of divinity and humanity in this single event that leaves the indelible mark on St. Peter’s mind.

The Transfiguration and Us

The Hypostatic Union plays into this in a second way as well.  In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII says “[F]or hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love.” (75).   It was the Beatific Vision that made each one of us present at the Transfiguration.  He performed this miracle then not just for the Apostles, but for each one of us individually.  He simply awaits our active participation in this mystery so that He can give to us the graces He has already won.

Like all of His mysteries, there are personal graces to be found for each one of us; graces we discover through personal meditation upon the mystery itself.  There are also the more “generic” graces attached to the mystery of the Transfiguration as well.  Blessed Columba Marmion articulates a three-fold grace that Christ wants to give us when we ascend the summit of Tabor.  The first is the grace of increased faith.  We can re-echo the Father’s declaration by proclaiming, “Yes Father that is Your Beloved Son.  I believe.  Help my unbelief.”  Secondly, there is the grace of hope.  The Transfiguration reveals to us our destiny.  By sharing the Sonship of Christ, we come to share in His blessed reward.  Finally, there is the grace of charity won by doing whatever He tells us.  The commands of God are always supplemented by the power to fulfill them.  And in this regard, the Transfiguration becomes a great source of salvation here and now.

All Dogs go to Heaven?

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One of the most painful memories of childhood for many of us is the loss of a pet.  At a young age we are forced to confront the impermanence of things and death.  Unlike the death of a loved one which carries with it the hope that you will be reunited one day with them, the death of a pet brings with it nothing but questions.  Is Spot in heaven?  Will I be able to pet Tabby again?  Parents struggle to come up with an answer, mostly because we do not know the answer ourselves.  Will our pets be in heaven?

Let us first frame the question properly by clearing up what can be a source of confusion.  All living things have souls, that is, there is no such thing as a living being that does not have a soul. A soul is the animating principle of all living things. There are three types of souls that exist in a nested hierarchy: vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual. Each of these has specific functions. The vegetative soul is concerned with growth, nutrition, and reproduction; the sensitive soul is concerned with locomotion and perception; the intellectual soul is concerned with rational thought. These are nested in the sense that anything that has a higher degree of soul also has all of the lower degrees. All living things grow, nourish themselves, and reproduce. Animals not only do that but also move and perceive. Finally, man does all of the above in addition to reasoning.  What distinguishes man’s soul from the other two is the fact that it is a spiritual soul.  The fact that it is spiritual in nature doesn’t just mean that it has no parts and is incapable of being destroyed, but also that it is subsistent.

The Subsistence of the Human Soul

The concept of subsistence is important for our question and therefore bears some further explanation.  Subsistence of the human soul means that it can exist apart from the body.  How do we know this?  The human soul may depend upon the body for some of its operations, but not all.  It is capable of activities, specifically rational knowing and willing, that do not depend upon the body for their operation.  Therefore if the body ceases to function as such, the soul can stilll operate.  On the other hand, an animal soul because it depends completely upon matter to operate (such as seeing, sense knowledge, etc.) and has no operations apart from the body, it ceases to exist once it is separated from the body.  “The operation of anything follows the mode of its being” as St. Thomas says—a thing with no operation has no being, that is, it no longer exists (c.f. ST I q. 75, a.3).

Death means the separation of body and soul and occurs when the body is no longer sufficiently organized to allow the soul to act through it.  The human soul because it is subsistent continues in existence as a knowing and willing substance (we say that it goes to heaven or hell).  The animal soul, lacking subsistence ceases to exist and the specific animal with it.  Animals do not go to heaven because there is no animal left to go to heaven.

Not the End of the Story

Most people will find this explanation extraordinarily cruel.  Animals are not people, but they are not just “things” either.  We can develop a healthy attachment to them, especially because many seem to develop a certain individuality to them.  But this is not the end of the story because heaven is not the end of the story.  All too often we forget or overlook the last thing we are told in Scripture—we are not just trying to go to Heaven, but to be included in the New Earth.  Although we are not told much about this New Earth, we know that we have experienced it in sign in this world.  How can we assume this?  Because St. Paul says that “all creatures groan and are in travail, awaiting the revelation of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21-22).  All of creation will be delivered from the servitude to corruption at the Resurrection of the Body.

It is the Lamb that is the light (c.f. Rev 21:22-23) in this new world so that we see all things in creation in His light.  The meaning of creation and its capacity to magnify the glory of God will be fully realized, allowing man’s senses to fully participate in beatitude.  “”By the greatness of the beauty and of the creature, the Creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby” (Wisdom 13:5).  While we may be told specifically that there are animals in the New Earth, it is a reasonable assumption that there are.  What this would look like may be difficult to say.  God could reconstitute each of the individual animals by uniting form and matter or, more likely (at least in my opinion), He would have each individual species such that the individual animal contains all individuals within that species.  Because our love will have been purified, seeing God in all things and loving them for His sake, our purified love for Spot or Tabby will be directed to this one dog or cat.  In this sense we might truthfully say that our pets enter into glory with us.

Parents often struggle with coming up with a truthful answer when their children ask whether their pet is in heaven.  The answer is no, but this is not the end of the story.  They will see their pet again in the New Earth.  This answer helps to articulate an important, and oft-overlooked, truth of the Faith—the creation of the New Earth.  And in this regard, it can offer both solace and an excellent teaching opportunity.

Praying with the Dead

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In a previous post, the supreme importance of avoiding personally canonizing those who have died was highlighted.  The “holy souls” in Purgatory depend greatly upon our prayers in order that they may be loosed from the lingering effects of their sins after their death.  Many of us grasp this and, out of charity, regularly offer prayers for the dead.  But there is a flip side to this coin—nearly every saint who has been canonized in the last two centuries was recognized because people began asking for their intercession.  In other words, rather than primarily praying for them, people began praying to them.  It seems that we must then exercise judgment as to whether the person is in Purgatory or in Heaven, the very thing I said not to do.  Stuck in a spiritual no-man’s land, we tend towards neither praying for them or to them.  The problem becomes theological rather than governed by the logic of love.  The rich relationship of the Communion of Saints becomes a sterile doctrine and our personal faith falters with it.  All of this seems unavoidable unless we can find a way around this spiritual dilemma.

A single paragraph in the Catechism, quoting an indulged prayer from Pope Leo XIII, helps part the clouds of obscurity.  The Catechism says:

“In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead; and ‘because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins’ she offers her suffrages for them.’ Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.” (CCC 959, emphasis added).

In summary, it is our prayers for the dead that not only help them, but also make their intercession for us effective.  What this tells us is that the holy souls in Purgatory, as members of the Church, have the power to intercede for the members of the Church Militant.  But this power comes in some way through our prayers for them.  How this works is obviously a mystery, but that it works is immediately relevant to the discussion at hand.  It gives us an immediate plan of action that will enable us to do both—pray for them and pray for their intercession.

Covering Our Bases

For some of us, this still has a Russian roulette type feel to it—like we are simply trying to cover our bases.  This only serves to make it more mechanical and less personal, the very antithesis of what prayer should be.  But this stems from a certain anxiety that our prayers may actually be wasted.  After all, if the person is in heaven and you are praying for their release from Purgatory, then your prayers have been wasted.

All of our prayer draws its power from the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ.  In other words, our prayer is caught up in the Eternal Now of Our Lord’s act of redemption where time and eternity met.  This means our prayer, although uttered in time, enters into the timelessness of God.  God knows “when” you will pray and He can apply the merits of those prayers as He sees fit.  More to the point, even if the soul of our departed loved one is in heaven, it is still your prayer here and now that got them there.  They may have even received the graces you interceded for just now while they were still on the earth.  Just as there are many natural causes that God uses to guide His providential plan, prayer too is a cause.  But because of its supernatural power, it operates outside of the natural constraints of time.

The Power of Prayer Over Time

Once we grasp this hidden power of prayer, we can see that our prayer, even if the soul has left Purgatory, is never wasted.  But it is still necessary because it is a power by which they have been or will be released.  It is also empowers them to intercede for the members of the Church Militant so that we should confidently ask for their intercession in our needs as well.  So our prayers for and to the dead are no different than they were while they were still living—praying both for them and asking them to pray for us.  Because “the prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail” (James 5:16), we should go to them with confidence for our needs.  This also carries with it a rich experience of the true nature of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.  It is a supernatural reality that spans Heaven and Earth and in between (Purgatory).

As long as we are speaking of covering our bases, how do we explain the prayers for the dead who are actually in hell?  Aren’t these wasted?  By now the answer ought to be clear that God wastes none of our prayers.  Our prayers obviously cannot lift them out of hell, but they could be applied to the person prior to their death.  They may lead the person towards conversion prior to their death (there is a beautiful account of the conversion of a despairing soul on the door of death who receives a final grace in St. Faustina’s Dairy #1486).  Or, perhaps it “only” kept them from further sin and, in a sense, lightened their suffering in hell.  Not knowing anyone’s destiny, we should confidently pray based on the overwhelming power of God’s mercy.  By praying, we become instruments of that same mercy.

Spreading Hope

Heaven, Prayer, Purgatory, Redemption, Resurrection, Saints, Suffering,

 

During a September series between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Dodger Stadium, Giants’ rightfielder Hunter Pence wore a necklace that contained the cremains of a devoted Dodgers’ fan, after the Dodgers refused the request to have the man’s daughter spread his ashes on the field.  The plea was one of many that the Dodgers and the rest of the MLB teams receive and routinely refuse yearly.  There is an ongoing campaign to develop a compromise of sorts in that the teams could allow on certain days a small amount of a person’s ashes to be spread on the field.  Setting aside the pragmatic reasoning, this decision ultimately represents an act of charity toward the dead and their loved ones.

The Book of Tobit reveals God’s pleasure in Tobit’s dogged persistence in burying the dead (Tobit 14:14) and it has long been considered a corporal work of mercy in the Christian tradition.  Understanding why God looks favorably upon this act however can help us to see the reason the Church insists that cremated remains not be scattered.

Spreading Faith

Christians have long seen death not as annihilation nor as the releasing of the soul from its incarceration in the body, but as having a fundamental positive meaning.  By being united to Christ’s death and resurrection in Baptism, the believer sees his own death in Christ as the pathway to a share in His glorious resurrection.  Like the resurrection of the Lord, the Christian’s is a bodily resurrection.  Our temporal bodies become as a seed of the body that will rise in glory (c.f. 1Cor 15:42-44).

This motivation helps to reveal the meaning of Christian burial.  If we really believe that our resurrected bodies are found in seed form in our earthly bodies, then our actions ought to reveal this.  Seeds must be buried and die so that new life may spring forth.   Christian burial is a sign of this; a sacrament that point to this reality.

Historically, pagans practiced funeral rites that included cremation, reflecting the widespread belief that there was no resurrection of the body.  Even when the pagans did practice burial (based on the belief that only when their bodies were buried could the soul rest), the Christians still buried their separately from the pagans because of the great difference in their understanding of the future resurrection.  It was this connection between paganism (and later certain secret societies and cults) and cremation that led the Church to remove it as an option for the faithful.

Considering some of the practical difficulties of burial in modern times (mostly exorbitant costs and decreasing space) the Church relaxed some of her restrictions on cremation when the new code of Canon Law was released in 1983.  Burial because of its nature as a sign remains the preferred method, but unless it is chosen for reasons contrary to Christian beliefs (i.e. a lack of belief in the resurrection of the body) then it is permitted when necessary (Canon 1176.3).  Cremation can testify to the omnipotence of God in raising up the deceased body to new life and therefore “in and of itself, objectively negates neither the Christian doctrine of the soul’s immortality nor that of the resurrection of the body” (Piam et constantem, 5 July 1963).

The cremated remains of the person should always “be laid to rest in a sacred place, that is, in a cemetery, or, in certain cases, in a church or an area which has been set aside for this purpose…” (Instruction Regarding the Burial of the Deceased and the Conservation of Ashes in the Case of Cremation, CDF, 2016).  This means that the ashes should never be scattered or preserved as mementos or pieces of jewelry.   To do any of these things would be testimony of pantheism, naturalism, or nihilism.

Based on what has been said so far, one might be willing to concede that the prohibition on scattering ashes should be binding on Christians, but what about non-Christians?  In other words, what if the man whose remains Hunter Pence wore didn’t believe in the resurrection of the body?  How is insisting on his burial an act of charity to both he and his family?

Of particular mention as well is that whether or not someone believes in the resurrection of the body has no bearing on whether it is true.  It may be an article of faith but it is an article of true faith, and so we as Christians have an obligation to do all that we can to bear witness to this truth.  Burial or interment also constitutes an act of charity to the dead as well.  For the dead it creates a “monument” that serves as a reminder to the living to pray for the deceased.  It assures that they will not be forgotten.  One whose ashes have been scattered will soon be forgotten, perhaps not by their immediate loved ones, but to subsequent generations they will be as one blotted out.  By not spreading ashes, we are spreading hope.

Spreading Charity

This highlights the intrinsic connection between the corporal work of mercy, burying the dead, and the spiritual work of mercy of praying for the dead.  This is perhaps the “easiest” of all works of mercy but also the most often neglected.  To pray for the dead is a great act of charity especially considering that only Catholics do it.  Very likely that man whose remains were worn by the Giants’ outfielder and many others like him have no one to pray for him.  We may have no way of knowing how the person has been judged, but we always trust that God’s mercy is more powerful than any man’s sins.  And so we pray and by praying, ironically enough, repair the harm done by our own sins, reducing our own time in Purgatory.  Charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

Many of the souls in Purgatory spend more time there than they should for want of having someone to pray for them.  Therefore the Church Militant devotes a whole month of special focus to relieving their suffering and offers a plenary indulgence for the Holy Souls during the week of Nov 2-Nov 8 each year.  By way of reminder, one can obtain a plenary indulgence (one per day), when in a state of grace and with a complete detachment from sin, receive Holy Communion, pray for the intentions of the Pope and go to Confession within 20 days before or after the act (one Confession can cover all 7 days, but the other acts must be done daily).  One can gain this particular indulgence by, in addition to the above conditions, devoutly visiting a cemetery and praying for the departed, even if the prayer is only mental.

A partial indulgence for the Souls in Purgatory can be obtained when the Requiem aeternam is prayed. This can be prayed all year, but should be especially prayed during the month of November:

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

 

 

The Truth of the Resurrection

Resurrection

“If Christ has not been raised,” St. Paul told the Christians in Corinth, “then your faith is in vain” (1Cor 15:17).  It is the Resurrection of Our Lord that underwrites all that He did and said.  It almost goes without saying then that the most effective attack Christianity would be to undermine the certainty of Christ’s Resurrection.  Clearly it was the first response of the Jews when they paid the guards stationed at the tomb to claim that Our Lord’s followers came and stole the body (Mt 28:12-13).  We should not be surprised when, without fail, each Easter we are met with the latest evidence of finding the tomb of Jesus or a long-lost letter describing where the Apostles laid the body when they stole it.  Predictably the “evidence” falls flat upon closer scrutiny, but this doesn’t stop someone from trying again.  In their approach however, the debunkers do have one thing right—they treat the Resurrection, not as a matter of faith, but as a true historical event.

This was the approach that St. Paul took as well.  In the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, he describes all the witnesses to the Resurrection, most of whom were still alive and could testify to the fact that a man whom they knew to have died, still lived.  Certainly, the Corinthians would need to believe their testimony.  But the testimony was related to a historical fact, not a matter of belief.  In other words, they would need to be convinced that the evidence reasonably led to the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead.  Can we, nearly 2000 years removed from the historical event, reasonably come to the same conclusion based on the evidence?

Historical Evidence

First a word about historical evidence.  All too oftenthe debunkers say that there are no extra-biblical sources that mention the Resurrection and therefore the New Testament is somehow inadmissible as evidence.  Of course the conclusion does not follow from the premise.  The fact that there are no extra-biblical sources simply means there are no extra-biblical sources that are sin existence (either because they never existed or because they are lost).  One cannot conclude that the Gospels are ahistorical simply because you cannot confirm the historicity of the Resurrection.  At best, it is an open question.  Although the historical circumstances presented in the Gospels do jibe with other historical facts known from other sources (things like who the rulers were, the mass crucifixion in Galilee, etc.).  For that reason, one may reasonably conclude that because they are factually accurate in those things we can check, that they are accurate in those that we can’t.

It is more than just circumstantial evidence however.  The fact that we have four different eyewitness accounts written in different places at different times that basically agree with each other is a lot of historical evidence given the time span since the events themselves.  The fact that the Gospels were later included in the Christian Scriptures has no bearing on them as historical documents.  There is no more reason to think them propaganda material than there is for thinking that Caesar did not cross the Rubicon because it is not mentioned in any other source of the time than the Roman Suetonius’ The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.  Just as Suetonius’ account (100 years after the event) seems to accurately portray other events we find mentioned in other sources, there is no reason to suppose he made up the part about Caesar crossing the Rubicon because he was a Roman who wanted to put the glory of Rome on display.

We accept Suetonius’ account because it fits with the other evidence and likewise we should accept the Resurrection as a historical event because it fits the evidence.  We struggle to defend its historicity because we tend to treat it as a matter of faith and not a historical event.

There first is what we can call the biblical package, which includes the empty tomb and the sightings.  These need be a single package because people report seeing departed loved ones all the time.  What makes the accounts so powerful is that there is evidence that the tomb the deceased one was buried in was also empty.  This biblical evidence was the basis of the early Christian argument for the Resurrection.  Yet, no one ever attacked the Christian argument by saying that the tomb was not empty.  They may have argued for other reasons why the tomb was empty, but the fact that the tomb He was left in was empty on the first Easter morning was never questioned.  A reasonable historian would conclude that the tomb was in fact empty.  What remains is the explanation.

The Resurrection as Truth

There is an important point for us to grasp about the Resurrection itself.  In the Greco-Roman world the notion of the resurrection of the body was absurd.  They thought the body was a prison and something to be escaped rather than something to return to.  The resurrection of the body would have been seen as a curse and not a triumph.  Most Jews believed in the resurrection of the body, but only “only the last day” as a sign that God’s victory had been won.  The idea that a man would rise from the dead before that would have been considered anathema.  That is one of the reasons it makes little sense to say that the Apostles made up the story or it was something made up later by the Christian community.  Christ’s manner of resurrection would have been wholly unexpected and entirely new.

But this is not the only problem with the clever myth hypothesis.  We still have the problem with establishing motive.  The Apostles had absolutely nothing to gain by fabricating the story, except the suffering promised the followers of Christ.  They stood to gain neither wealth nor power from their testimony.  The only plausible explanation is that their motive was because it was true.

All too often one will give a variation on Pascal’s argument “I believe those witnesses that get their throats slit” by saying that no one dies for a lie.  But the reasoning is more subtle than that.  The witnesses of the Resurrection were all martyred not for sticking to the truth.  No, they had seen a man who was dead, conquer death.  They were willing martyrs because they all had no fear of death.  Their Friend had overcome death and promised them the same.

Why didn’t Christ appear to the powers of the age?  Surely He could have appeared before Pilate or the Sanhedrin in His Resurrected state and convinced them all.  But that is not what He was about.  He was looking not to convince the likes of Pilate and Caiaphas.  The Church, that is the extension of the Incarnation through time and space, would need credible witnesses to serve as foundation stones.  With Pilate and Caiaphas as witnesses, the Resurrection would become just some unexplained historical event.  With Peter, Paul and all the Apostles as witnesses, this tiny group of followers founded a society that has outlasted every earthly kingdom.  Surely, that should be a strong reason to take the historical evidence surrounding the Resurrection more seriously as a true historical event.

Filling in the Resurrection Accounts

Resurrection, The Life of Jesus, ,

The last couple of centuries have witnessed a great push both outside and inside the Church to mythologize Christianity. This is felt most keenly when it comes to the Resurrection of Our Lord. From positing that Our Lord did not actually die on the Cross (called the Swoon Theory), to mass hallucination, to “a spiritual resurrection in the hearts of the followers of Jesus,” each new “theory” offers a natural explanation to the central supernatural event in the history of mankind. Of course, it makes perfect sense. If you want to destroy Christianity, then you should start by destroying belief in the Resurrection itself. No less than St. Paul himself warned that downplaying the Resurrection of the Lord as the pivot of Christianity would lead to its eventual destruction; “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain” (1 Cor 15:17).

Given how long ago it occurred, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the Resurrection as a historical fact. I won’t attempt to add to what many other authors have already done in this area. Instead, what I would like to do in this post is to look at how we can avoid another pitfall, namely, over-spiritualizing the Resurrection.

In short, we often read the obviously incredible post-Resurrection appearances in such an ethereal manner that we divorce them from the overall Incarnation. Rather than seeing them as real, historical events, we view them in a spiritual fog. Rather than making the Resurrection more real, it becomes less.

Overcoming the Spiritual Fog

There is only one way around this trap and that is to ask, in faith, concrete questions of those accounts in order to add substance to what would otherwise be too sublime to be believed. Some questions, such as what were the teaching sessions of the Risen Lord and the Apostles like, are left to speculation. But there are others that have more flesh to them and can serve to strengthen both our faith and our hope.

One such question is what was the risen body of Jesus actually like? We know that it was a physical body—it could be touched and he ate, two things ghosts cannot do. We know it was the same body as the one that hung on the Cross; it bore the marks from the nails and the spear. After all, in order for it to be a true resurrection, it must be the same body. If it is not a new body, then it has been transformed in ways we almost certainly could not have anticipated. A true body does not vanish from sight (Lk 24:31).

There is a more personal reason why the question of the qualities of Our Lord’s risen state is important. Those who die in Christ, will have resurrected bodies patterned after His. By assuming human nature to Himself, the Son becomes the form of all human destiny for those who “put on Christ” in Baptism. In other words, by carefully examining Christ’s risen encounters, we can catch of glimpse of the destiny we are promised.

The Resurrected Body of Christ

Once properly motivated, we find that Christ wins for us resurrected bodies that have four qualities in addition to identity (same body) and integrity (complete body) mentioned above. The first is commonly referred to as subtlety. The resurrected body is a “spiritual body.” What this means, is that while a resurrected body is tangible, it is completely under the direction of the spirit. It is able to transcend the physical laws that normally govern us (such as two physical things cannot occupy the same place at the same time in the same way) simply by willing it. It simply takes an act of the will to pass from one side of a locked door or sealed tomb to the other.

Once rendered completely under the control of the soul, the body’s movement is different as well. Agility enables the person to traverse great physical distances with ease and speed simply by willing it. The movement may be very fast but it is still observable. Angels have a similar quality to their movement as far as its rapidity, but their movement is more like a quantum leap and would not be observable as a linear movement from point A to point B.
The other two qualities are somewhat commonsensical and appear within the Book of Revelation. The glorified body is impassible, that is, incapable of suffering. Lazarus’ body was resuscitated, Our Lord’s resurrected. Lazarus could still suffer, Our Lord would suffer no more. Our Lord appears to John as a “lamb as though slain, standing” (Rev 5:6) and “God will wipe away all tears” (Rev 21:4)

It also has the quality of clarity. Because the union of the human nature of Christ was in the Divine Person of the Son itself (we call this the Hypostatic Union), He enjoyed the vision of God from the moment of the creation of that human nature. This means He was always filled with beauty and radiance (what we commonly call the “light of glory”). His soul maintained this, while it miraculously remained hidden in His body except for the Transfiguration where He releases the governor on it. We do not see this quality exhibited during any of the pre-Ascension appearances because of its overwhelming nature. Instead John sees it when he encounters Our Lord in Chapter 1 (verses14-18) of the Book of Revelation.

Jesus, Shape-Shifter?

In a number of the post-Resurrection accounts described in the gospels, Jesus is not recognized by His followers. This does not mean that one of the qualities of the resurrected body is shape-shifting. Instead, St. Thomas articulates an important principle for understanding. He says:

“Divine things are revealed to men in various ways, according as they are variously disposed. For, those who have minds well disposed, perceive Divine things rightly, whereas those not so disposed perceive them with a certain confusion of doubt or error: ‘for, the sensual men perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God,’ as is said in 1 Corinthians 2:14. Consequently, after His Resurrection Christ appeared in His own shape to some who were well disposed to belief, while He appeared in another shape to them who seemed to be already growing tepid in their faith” (ST III, q.55, art.4)

In short, faith adds not just intellectual clarity, but the ability to see divine acts rightly. Christ was clearly manifested to those who believed in the Resurrection. For those who were tepid or doubted, “this hindrance in their eyes was Satan’s doing, lest Jesus might be recognized. Hence Luke says (24:16) that ‘their eyes were held, that they should not know Him.’”(ST III, q.55, art. 4, obj. 2). Seeing was not necessarily believing, but believing was seeing. Our Lord was trying to instill faith and so he was willing to allow these hindrances to remain as long as He could use them to drive them into the hands of true faith. This is the faith of “credible witnesses” that will never be shaken, even to the point of martyrdom. He is building an edifice on these people and so greatly desires to strengthen their faith during the 40 days between Resurrection and Ascension.

Our Lord allows this pretense to happen because it brings the person to faith. Mary Magdalene did not yet believe Our Lord was truly risen when she encountered the Gardener. She simply wanted to know what happened to the body. But her act of love of Christ, allowed her faith to expand so that she saw Him truly when He spoke her name. The disciples on the Road to Emmaus also had very imperfect faith, but once they were instructed in the Messianic texts, that is in a practical Liturgy of the Word, that their faith began to expand. Once Our Lord performed the Liturgy of the Eucharist, they were completely disposed to see Him as Himself.

Even Peter was not immune to this principle as his faith began to waver. We are told that when John saw the burial cloths, “he saw and believed” (John 20:8). It is not surprise then that when Peter begins to lose faith and attempts to return to fishing, that it is John who first recognizes Our Lord on the shore. Once Peter’s eyes are opened, he rushes to have his “come to Jesus meeting” (John 21:1-8).

So What?

What follows from this reflection are two things. First, the devil did not give up when Our Lord overcame death. He did not brood, but wasted no time attacking believers. He is still at work, especially on the tepid by using those “scholars” who would discredit the truth of the Resurrection. We must see these attacks for what they really are and be ready to counter them in faith and in fact.

Second, the Liturgical time between Easter and the Ascension of the Lord is a time in which a great many graces are available to deepen our faith in the risen Lord. But the key is we must first believe so that we can understand. Believing is seeing. This only happens when we ask the probing questions, not in a spirit of doubt, but in a spirit of true faith. When we color inside the lines, the true picture emerges.

Why the Assumption Matters

Mary, Resurrection

Many well intending Christians will argue that the Catholic Church goes too far in honoring the Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The Rosary, the Marian Dogmas, and the Brown Scapular all seem to take something away from Jesus and His act of Redemption.  In an attempt to protect themselves from falling into a Marian pitfall they reject it all.  After reflection however we find that it is the exact opposite that happens—every privilege that you take away from Mary actually diminishes Christ and ourselves.  This principle has been articulated with respect to the Immaculate Conception already, but in this regard, the Assumption is no different.

It is instructive first of all to speak of Marian dogmas in general.  Everything that we believe is based on the fact that she was chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of God.  When God calls, He equips.  In His Providence He had the redeeming mission of the Son depend upon her in a wholly unique way.  One could say that it would not have been accomplished without her in the same way that we would say that once a man decides to go to England it is necessary for him to take a boat or a plane.  She may not be absolutely necessary but God’s plan makes her relatively necessary.

We should then understand her to be the most necessary of all those who cooperated with Him.  When we say that among all Christians she is the most vital and therefore the most equipped, any detraction of her is really a subtraction of the Goodness, Power and Wisdom of God.  It was the “Almighty who did great things” for her precisely so that she might cooperate most fully with Him.  Therefore anything we say about Mary’s Assumption is first and foremost flows as a consequent of her mission of Divine Motherhood.  We can then offer reasons why it is fitting that the Church has always believed that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven.

First, we can appeal to the greatness of Christ’s act of redemption.  With the Immaculate Conception Christ’s redeeming act is greater when He preemptively redeems at least one member than if He redeemed everyone after their fall.  Likewise we can say that His act of redemption is more glorious if at least one member shares in the fullness of His Resurrection now.  If Mary’s soul only is taken to heaven awaiting the general resurrection for its body then we have imagined at least one scenario where Christ’s act is greater.  The Assumption proves that His power over death is not limited in any way.  He could have reunited body and soul at death immediately for us all (because He did so in one case) but chose not to according to His Wisdom.  Again to take away the Assumption takes away from God the surety on our part that He trampled over death by His death.

Mary Assumption

There is also a just reason for belief in the Assumption (about Mary’s death you can read more here).  The “wages of sin is death” really means two things.  First, as a result of the first sin, man was rendered back to his natural state in which death was possible.  God preserved Adam and Eve from death as a preternatural gift only.  When Adam sinned this gift was forfeit for all mankind.    Technically speaking though the curse of the covenant is not death per se but corruption— “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gn 3:19).  This means that one of the punishments for sin is bodily corruption.

Whether Mary was free from death or not is not theologically certain, what is certain however is that she would be free from the corruption of the grave because she was without sin.  Because she had total enmity with the devil (Gn 3:15) she was immune to his two weapons—sin and death.  He could have no power over her.  God, ever faithful to His promises would have to assume Our Lady, body and soul to heaven.  To deny the Assumption, is to deny that God is faithful (1Cor 1:9).

It is also her role as “the Woman” that merits consideration of the Assumption.  As the new Eve and Mother of all those alive in Christ, she must precede her sons and daughters on the new Earth.  To deny the Assumption is to deny her true motherhood and disobey Our Lord’s last will and testament for His disciples to “behold your Mother” (Jn 19:27).

In the introduction it was mentioned that when we subtract from Mary we end up with a reduced understanding of ourselves.  In this we can see God’s Providence in the Church operative once again.  Since the formal declaration of the dogma of the Assumption a cult of the body has arisen that has no historical precedent, not even in the most pagan of cultures.  While we spend untold amount of time and money to remove every spot and blemish, Mary’s Assumption reminds us that it is only in glory that we will be without spot and blemish (Eph 5:27).  It is the radiance of holiness that will make our bodies shine.  To deny the Assumption is to attack Our Lady who is “Our Hope.”  The Assumption is the seed of supernatural hope because we know that Christ really is the first fruit and not the only fruit.

It is also the false cult of the female body that the Assumption attacks.  We are literally bombarded with images of the perfect (mostly photo-shopped) female body trapping “ordinary” women in an imaginary world and men in the cult of pornography.  The Assumption is a reminder to us all of the dignity of women.  As John Paul II put it: “In the face of the profanation and debasement to which modern society frequently subjects the female body, the mystery of the Assumption proclaims the supernatural destiny and dignity of every human body, called by the Lord to become an instrument of holiness and to share in his glory” (GA, July 9,1997).

The Resurrection of the Body

Heaven, Resurrection

For those who have a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Thomas the Apostle is like a patron saint.  Although he was filled with skepticism regarding the Resurrection of the Lord, once he touched the nail marks and placed his hand upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he came to full belief in Jesus Christ as true God and true man.  For only a man could have a heart and only the author of life could be so alive with such wounds.  While we can hardly imagine what that actually felt like, with the help of the other St. Thomas (Aquinas) we can piece together some profound truths about the resurrected body of Our Lord.  What is probably most amazing to ponder is that St. Thomas the Apostle was able to touch a heart that was filled with blood, the same heart that he well knew bled out completely when the wound was made in Our Lord’s side.

How can we know this?  It follows directly from what we know about the Eucharist.  It is the Resurrected Body and Blood of the Lord that we receive.  Therefore, we know that Our Lord’s blood also rose with Him.  Because the heart is the organ that “houses” blood, Our Lord’s resurrected heart too would contain blood.  While this certainly aids us in our devotion, there is also a more practical reason why we should study this.  St. Paul in writing to the Philippians tells them that “Christ will change our lowly body to conform with His glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself” (Phil 3:21).  In other words, when we confess in the Creed that we “look forward to the resurrection of the body” we can gain access to the content of what it is specifically we are looking forward to in living with resurrected bodies, even if it strains our imagination what the experience will be like.

Like Our Lord, our resurrected bodies will have all of our organs intact.  This follows from one of Aquinas’ common sense principles, namely that because “‘[T]he works of God are perfect’ (Deuteronomy 32:4) and the resurrection will be the work of God, therefore man will be remade perfect in all his members.”  Everything that is part of the perfection of our nature, will be part of our resurrected bodies.  This includes even those things like hair and nails.  Aquinas, again quotes Scripture (“not a hair of your head shall perish”) and uses common sense (Christ clearly had hair and nails in His Resurrected Body or else he would have freaked people out as a glorified man with no hair and nails) to prove this.

By this same principle, namely that all defects of the body will be removed, St. Thomas even goes so far as to say everyone will be of a youthful age because it lacks the defect of not yet being full-grown and the defect of being no longer perfect.  He takes the idea that we will be conformed to Christ’s resurrection quite literally by saying this age is 33 since that is the age of Our Lord.  This, by the way, is also why he says it is fitting that Our Lord was crucified at the age of 33 because it was when He was at His greatest vigor.

resurrection

If all defects of the body are removed, then why do Our Lord’s wounds of Crucifixion remain?  St. Thomas says that wounds will not be in the bodies insofar as they imply a defect but will remain if they are signs of steadfast virtue and marks that will increase their own and others’ joy.  That is why some of Our Lord’s wounds remain and the wounds, say of the scourging, do not.  Saints who were beheaded will have their heads back, but there will be some marks to distinguish them as being martyred.

In his treatise of the resurrected body at the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul lists four distinctive marks of the glorified body (1 Cor 15:42-44).  First he says that it is incapable of suffering, or what is called “impassible” when he says “It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible.”  Because the body will be completely subject to the soul (more on this in a moment) and the soul in complete bliss of the beatific vision, the body will be incapable of suffering.  This obviously is why those in hell, even though they too receive their bodies back, are capable of suffering in their bodies (even if they cannot die again).

Secondly, he speaks of the clarity of the resurrected body when he says “It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious.”  Clarity simply means that the glory of the soul will overflow into the body.  Because, as St. Paul says “the sun has a splendor of its own, so has the moon; and the stars theirs. Even among the stars one differs from another in brightness. So it is with the resurrection of the dead,” each person’s clarity will be different based upon their earthly merits.  Yet, there will be no jealousy among the blessed because Heaven is a beautiful whole.  Even though the clarity of the Resurrected body surpasses the sun, it does not disturb the vision of the eyes but instead soothes it, thus we will all be pleased at seeing each other.

Third, he refers to the mark of agility when he says “It is sown weak; it is raised powerful.”  Agility refers to the freedom “from the heaviness that now presses it down, and will take on a capability of moving with the utmost ease and swiftness, wherever the soul pleases” (Roman Catechism).  This is why Our Lord was able to travel about so freely during the 40 days after Easter and was a fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah (40:31) “They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Lastly, he speaks of the mark of subtility when he says, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”  The idea of a spiritual body can be confusing for many people when they read this text.  Notice that he makes the distinction between a “natural body” and a “spiritual body” and not between a “physical body” and a “spiritual body.”  It does not mean that the body is somehow changed into a spirit.  It remains a physical body, but a spiritual one that has different properties.  Again, viewing our own resurrection through the lens of the resurrected Christ we find him telling the Apostles “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have” (Lk 24:39).  It has flesh and bones, yet it can pass through burial clothes and locked doors

To understand the difference between a spiritual and natural body, we need to clarify some important points about the human soul.  Recall that strictly speaking all living things have souls.  It is only man who has a spiritual soul, or more accurately it is man’s spirit that acts as his soul.  In this life the soul has a two-fold function, both as spirit and animating principle.  Once it is separated from the body it no longer has a body to animate and is only a spirit.  In the first animation the soul is made conformable to the body (even if it is superior to it) but because the body comes first, the soul is created to animate the organism.  It is the body that is the occasion for the creation of this particular soul by God.  In the resurrection, it is the soul that makes the particular body.  The particular soul best expresses itself through the body that it was assigned to by God at its creation, so it follows that the soul would draw that body to itself.

Although this may go without saying after all that has been put forth above, it is important to emphasize that we will receive the same bodies in the resurrection.  While it is not clear what the principle of continuity is—after all our bodies now are not composed of the same matter as they were 20 years ago—St. Paul is clear that our souls return to the same body.  As St. Thomas says,

For we cannot call it resurrection unless the soul return to the same body, since resurrection is a second rising, and the same thing rises that falls: wherefore resurrection regards the body which after death falls rather than the soul which after death lives. And consequently if it be not the same body which the soul resumes, it will not be a resurrection, but rather the assuming of a new body.

Clearly this does not mean that the body is the same in every way.  St Paul likens the relationship between our natural bodies and our risen bodies as seedling to mature plant.

While it is comforting for those of us who are bald to know we will have our hair back in heaven, there is a further reason why we should try to flesh out (pun intended) what the resurrection of the body will be like.  When he declared the dogma of the Assumption, Pius XII warned about the rise of the cult of the body that he saw coming.  From too-skinny models to cosmetic surgery, to photo-shop, to tattoos, I think we would all agree that he was right.  By being witnesses of the Resurrection of the Body we will keep from being dragged into that.  How many women try to hide the effects in their body from all the children they have had, when in the resurrection those are likely to be “glory-scars?”  How about the effects of sleepless nights from taking care of a sick family member? Those who make a gift of themselves often have the scars to prove it.  The world says hide these, Christ says in the resurrection all these and more will add to our glory.  Rejoice, I say it again, rejoice in carrying about the wounds of Christ in your body.