December 6, 2010 – Catechism 624-630

I had never thought about Holy Saturday as Jesus’ Sabbath.  Christ did His work, and on the Sabbath (a Saturday in Jewish tradition) He rested.  It makes it much more obvious that Sunday becomes the new day of celebration because it is the start of the new creation.  I guess I don’t see why we still don’t rest on Saturdays and celebrate on Sundays.  If Fridays are traditionally a day to remember Christ death and Sunday is a day to remember His rising, wouldn’t we still want to reflect on His resting and His Sabbath rest.  Maybe that is just me wanting another excuse to not do anything, but we have really combined the resting of the Sabbath with the Celebration of the Resurrection and made Sunday a day to do both with all our focus on God. 

Christ Body and Spirit separated at His death.  When we say in the Creed that Christ descended into the dead or into hell, this is what we are talking about.  Christ Spirit going into the Netherworld.  It has always been explained to me that when Christ died, His Spirit went down to bring all those righteous souls up from the Netherworld where they had been waiting for Christ redemptive moment.  Can you imagine the celebration that was being done by those famous patriarchs of the Church.  Then again, this brings up some questions I don’t know the answers to.  If all the souls before Christ were waiting in a certain place to go to Heaven when they were redeemed, how did Elijah and Moses talk with Christ at the Transfiguration.  I guess those are two people in the Old Testament that we actually do not see die or be buried so they may have had special abilities.  But we also see Samuel come back from the dead to talk to Saul, so even though it is a different type of afterlife before redemption, it appears the souls could still come back if God allowed it.  

This talks about Christ body being incorruptible.  I have never thought about it, but when Christ appears after the Resurrection, He is appearing in a different manner and if He was incorruptible, why did the nail marks and the hole in His side stay there.  I can’t imagine all the marks from what He suffered were visible, but those are the ones we hear about.  I just wonder why they remained.  Was it only to show that it was Him, “Thomas put your finger in my nail marks”.