We, Too, Will Rise From The Dead!
2022년 11월 6일We, Too, Will Rise From The Dead!
< Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time >
Many years ago during confessions at a high school retreat, I mentioned to a student that, like Christ, we too will one day rise physically from the dead. He was flabbergasted. “What?!” he exclaimed. “I never heard that before!” I told him that’s because he wasn’t paying attention during Mass. Each time we recite the Apostles Creed, we confess our belief in “the resurrection of the body.” That means us! At the Last Judgment each of us will live again–in a physical body! That might sound impossible, but stop and think for a moment. Where were we (and our bodies) 120 years ago? We did not exist. Yet here we are, existing and in a physical body. What’s more impossible: to create something from nothing or to recreate something that once existed? The first is harder, no? How difficult will it be for God, Creator and Lord of Life, to recreate us, who once existed, in a new, immortal body?
Our bodies come from elements of the Earth and will return there one day. In fact, the average lifespan of a human cell is seven years. That means, divide your age by seven and that’s how many times you’ve already changed your physical body! Now, if you got back EVERY cell, that had ever formed a part of you, all at the same time, you’d be as big as a whale! We have faith that we will have a whole, entire and glorified body housing our souls. For this reason we should be even more mindful of how we treat the Earth, from which we and Jesus, the Virgin Mary and all the saints drew their mortal bodies. Likewise it is to this Earth that our bodies will return. The Earth thus participates in our sanctification. It blesses us and we bless God for the gift of life and faith that calls us ever closer to one another and to God.