March 15, 2011 – 1 Corinthians 15:12 – 15:49

Many people are repulsed or upset by the idea of the Resurrection of the body, the idea that in the end we will be raised up body and soul into Heaven or the Heaven that will come down to Earth.  Why is that?  It may be the fact that bodies rising from the dead have been so widely used in Hollywood in a certain way.  The walking dead is something to be frightened of and is grotesque.  I would agree that if the bodies that are buried were raised, then it is a frightening idea, but that is not what is written here.   Neither is that the teaching of the Church. The body that is resurrected and united with our soul at the end of all things is like a plant that grows from a seed.  Ask yourself if they look anything alike.  The seed is something that is usually brown, small, dying, and buried.  The flower grows, is beautiful, and alive.  They could not be more different.  Yet the seed is necessary for the flower, the death is required for the life.  Our resurrected bodies will be flowers grown from the seeds of our bodies that will be buried someday.  It will not be the walking zombies that we may imagine, closer to a perfect field of beautiful flowers soaking up the Light of a Perfect Sun.  Picture the tulip field in the Wizard of Oz, not Dawn of the Dead. 

The resurrection of our bodies to be united with our souls is a solid Biblical teaching.  Catholics believe that Mary’s body and soul are already united in Heaven with God.  We believe that she was given this special gift because of her yes to God and the special relationship she had with her son.  The idea that body and soul will be reunited in Heaven is not un-Biblical.  And the belief that Mary would be given this special privilege is not something I think is so hard to believe. 

The closes idea we have to what a body and soul reunited may be like is Christ at the Transfiguration.  It makes me wonder if (and I do not actually know the answer to this) Moses and Elijah also have their body and souls reunited in Heaven as a special gift for their service to God.  That is why they were there when Christ was Transfigured of the Mountain.  If the is true, then the belief that Mary is already in Heaven, body and soul, is even more believable.