SPIRITUAL BODY

1 Corinthians 15:44

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one.

It is a grim reality. One day, we would meet our death. But, it is also a reality that we would be raise again. 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.

How? Christ is raised with his own body but he did not return to an 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". 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. To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ: we must "be away from the body and at home with the Lord”. In that "departure" which is death the soul is separated from the body. It will be reunited with the body on the day of resurrection of the dead.

This is the good news for us all: 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. To be a witness to Christ is to be a "witness to His Resurrection”.

Let us pray +

O Risen Lord, the way, the truth and the life, make us faithful followers of the spirit of your resurrection. Grant that we may be inwardly renewed; dying to ourselves in order that you may live in us. Use us as your instruments for the renewal of society, bring your life and love to all and leading them to your Church. This we ask of you, Lord Jesus, living and reigning with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God forever.

Amen +

I will walk in the presence of God, in the light of the living.