989
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.532 (Cf. ⇒ Jn 6:39-40. ) Our
resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the Most HolyTrinity:
If
the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through
his Spirit who dwells in you.533
990
The term "flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and
mortality.534 (Cf. ⇒ Gen 6:3; ⇒ Ps 56:5; ⇒ Isa 40:6. ) The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation
of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on
after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life
again.535 (Rom 8:11. )
991
Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the
Christian faith from its beginnings. "The confidence of Christians is the
resurrection of the dead; believing this we live."536
I.
Christ's Resurrection and Ours
The
progressive revelation of the Resurrection
992
God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively. Hope in
the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as a consequence
intrinsic to faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul and body. the
creator of heaven and earth is also the one who faithfully maintains his
covenant with Abraham and his posterity. It was in this double perspective that
faith in the resurrection came to be expressed. In their trials, the Maccabean
martyrs confessed:
The
King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life,
because we have died for his laws.538 (2 Macc 7:9. ) One cannot but choose to die at the hands
of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him.539 (2 Macc 7:14; cf. ⇒ 7:29; ⇒ Dan 12:1-13. )
993
The Pharisees and many of the Lord's contemporaries hoped for the resurrection.
Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it he answers, "Is not
this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of
God?"540 (Mk 12:24; cf. In 11:24; ⇒ Acts 23:6. ) Faith in the resurrection rests on faith in God who "is not
God of the dead, but of the living."541
994
But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person:
"I am the Resurrection and the life."542 (Jn 11:25. ) It is Jesus himself who on
the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his
body and drunk his blood.543 (Cf. ⇒ Jn 5:24 25; ⇒ 6:40, ⇒ 54. ) Already now in this present life he gives a sign
and pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life,544 (Cf. ⇒ Mk 5:21-42; ⇒ Lk 7:11-17; ⇒ Jn 11. ) announcing thereby
his own Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this
unique event as the "sign of Jonah,"545 (Mt 12:39. ) The sign of the temple: he
announces that he will be put to death but rise thereafter on the third day.546
995
To be a witness to Christ is to be a "witness to his Resurrection,"
to "[have eaten and drunk] with him after he rose from the dead."547 (Acts 1:22; ⇒ 10:41; cf. ⇒ 4:33.) Encounters with the risen Christ characterize the Christian hope of
resurrection. We shall rise like Christ, with him, and through him.
996
From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with
incomprehension and opposition.548 (Cf. ⇒ Acts 17:32; ⇒ 12Cor 15:12-13.) "On no point does the Christian faith
encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body."549 (St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 88, 5: PL 37, 1134.
) It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?
) It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?
How
do the dead rise?
997
What is "rising"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body,
the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion
with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant
incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the
power of Jesus' Resurrection.
998
Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the
resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of
judgment."550
999
How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that
it is I myself";551 (Lk 24:39. ) but he did not return to earthly life. So, in him,
"all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now
bear," but Christ "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious
body," into a "spiritual body":552
But
someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they
come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
and what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel ....What is
sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable.... the dead will be raised
imperishable.... For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and
this mortal nature must put on immortality.553
1000
This "how" exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is
accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives
us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies:
Just
as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has been invoked upon
it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one
earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the
Eucharist, are no longer corruptible but possess the hope of resurrection.554
1001
When? Definitively "on the last day," "at the end of the
world."555 (Jn 6: 39 40, ⇒ 44, ⇒ 54; ⇒ 11:24; LG 48 # 3. ) Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with
Christ's Parousia:
For
the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the
archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. and the dead in
Christ will rise first.556
Risen
with Christ
1002
Christ will raise us up "on the last day"; but it is also true that,
in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ. For, by virtue of the Holy
Spirit, Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the death and The resurrection of Christ:
And
you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him
through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead... If then
you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ
is, seated at the right hand of God.557
1003
United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the
heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains "hidden with
Christ in God."558 (Col 3:3; cf. ⇒ Phil 3:20. ) The Father has already "raised us up with him, and
made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."559 (Eph 2:6. ) Nourished
with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the Body of Christ. When
we rise on the last day we "also will appear with him in glory."560 (Col 3:4. )
1004
In expectation of that day, the believer's body and soul already participate in
the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails the demand that he
should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other
person, especially the suffering:
The
body [is meant] for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. and God raised the
Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies
are members of Christ?... You are not your own;... So glorify God in your
body.561
II.
Dying in Christ Jesus
1005
To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ: we must "be away from the
body and at home with the Lord."562 (2 Cor 5:8. ) In that "departure" which is
death, the soul is separated from the body.563 (Cf. ⇒ Phil 1:23. ) It will be reunited with the body
on the day of the resurrection of the dead.564
Death
1006
"It is in regard to death that man's condition is most shrouded in
doubt."565 (GS 18. ) In a sense bodily death is natural, but for faith, it is in fact
"the wages of sin."566 (Rom 6:23; cf. ⇒ Gen 2:17.)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.567
1007
Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course
of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death
seems like the normal end of life. 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:
Remember
also your Creator in the days of your youth, . . . before the dust returns to
the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.568
1008
Death is a consequence of sin. the Church's Magisterium, as an authentic
interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death
entered the world on account of man's sin.569 (Cf. ⇒ Gen 2:17; ⇒ 3:3; ⇒ 3:19; ⇒ Wis 1:13; ⇒ Rom 5:12; ⇒ 6:23; DS 1511. ) 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.570 (Cf. ⇒ Wis 2:23-24.) "Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not
sinned" is thus "the last enemy" of man left to be conquered.571
1009
Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered
the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his anguish as he
faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free submission to his
Father's will.572 (Cf. ⇒ Mk 14:33-34; ⇒ Heb 5:7-8. ) The obedience of Jesus has transformed the curse of death
into a blessing.573
The
meaning of Christian death
1010
Because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me to
live is Christ, and to die is gain."574 (Phil 1:21. ) "The saying is sure: if we have
died with him, we will also live with him.575 (2 Tim 2:11. ) What is essentially new about
Christian death is this: 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:
It
is better for me to die in (eis) Christ Jesus than to reign over the ends of
the earth. Him it is I seek - who died for us. Him it is I desire - who rose
for us. I am on the point of giving birth... Let me receive the pure light; when
I shall have arrived there, then shall I be a man.576
1011
In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore the Christian can experience a
desire for death like St. Paul's: "My desire is to depart and be with
Christ. "577 ( Phil 1:23.) He can transform his own death into an act of obedience and
love towards the Father, after the example of Christ:578 ( Cf. ⇒ Lk 23:46.)
My
earthly desire has been crucified; . . . there is living water in me, water
that murmurs and says within me: Come to the Father.579
I
want to see God and, in order to see him, I must die.580
I
am not dying; I am entering life.581
1012
The Christian vision of death receives privileged expression in the liturgy of
the Church: 582
Lord,
for your faithful people, life is changed, not ended. When the body of our
earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in
heaven.583
1013
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. When "the single course
of our earthly life" is completed,584 (LG 48 # 3. ) we shall not return to other earthly
lives: "It is appointed for men to die once."585 (Heb 9:27. ) There is no
"reincarnation" after death.
1014
The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the
litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a sudden and
unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord";586 (Roman Missal, Litany of the saints. ) to ask the Mother of God to
intercede for us "at the hour of our death" in the Hail Mary, and to
entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.
Every
action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die
before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a
quiet conscience... Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away
from death? If you aren't fit to face death today, it's very unlikely you will
be tomorrow ....587
Praised are you, my Lord, for our sister bodily Death,
from
whom no living man can escape.
Woe
on those who will die in mortal sin!
Blessed
are they who will be found in your most holy will,
for
the second death will not harm them.588
IN
BRIEF
1015
"The flesh is the hinge of salvation" (Tertullian, De res. 8, 2: PL
2, 852). We believe in God who is the creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word
made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the
flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.
1016
By death, the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will
give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just
as Christ is risen and lives for ever, so all of us will rise at the last day.
1017
"We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now
possess" (Council of Lyons II: DS 854). We sow a corruptible body in the
tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a "spiritual body" (cf ⇒ 1 Cor 15:42-44).
1018
As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer "bodily death, from
which man would have been immune had he not sinned" (GS # 18).
1019
Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free
submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death, he has conquered death,
and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.
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