There are things that bother me. Obviously.
Amid the many things that bother me, detailed here already and not worth repeating, has been the whole issue of the resurrection of the body.
But this is nothing new. Michael's death has simply roused the puzzle, transformed it from its usual quiet, static state to a burning question to which an answer is urgently requested, please.
It has always confused me and caused me to wonder and even doubt the sense of all that I say I believe. I believe in the resurrection of the body...but the body is still here, the body disintegrates, so when....at the end of time?
This question really came to the fore pretty dramatically for me when we visited the Capuchin Crypt in Rome. I wasn't grossed out, but I was...startled. Even though, intellectually, I knew that cemeteries were full of bodies still on earth in varying states of decay, walking down the hall of that series of rooms brought my questions into stark relief: But where are they now? Has heaven even started yet? (No, I'm not that stupid - but it sort of captures the essence of my confusion.)
And then I think...well, there is no time in God. In God, all of this is done and finished - including your life, Amy - and...
...my brain explodes.
I am not going to get more personal than that in terms of my recent experience, at least not in this space. But let's just say that nothing I have seen has answered that question. Other questions have been answered, fears have been conquered, almost miraculously. But the question still nags at me - if is us, body and soul, who dwell with God forever...but if the body is still here...what? So where is he?
The disciples told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you!' In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.' And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.Then he told them, 'This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms has to be fulfilled.' He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'So you see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.
I heard a good homily on this on Sunday. You can read it here. I particularly liked his dissection of the apostles' reactions to the testimony of the Emmaus disciples and Jesus' appearance - that rather than initially assuring them, it caused them to doubt and be confused.
But then Jesus himself is present to them, and they do understand.
I thought once again of how I get into these knots of thinking, thinking and still more thinking, which work together to make a net of sorts which keeps Jesus away from my busy brain. I have noticed this too often in prayer over the past few months as well - and perhaps I should put "prayer" in quotation marks. It is too often so much figuring - not arguing, just figuring - and not nearly enough just plopping down at the foot of the Cross or at the empty tomb or Jesus in the Eucharist and saying, "Here I am. Help me. I'll shut up now."
As I was listening to the homily and thinking (yes) about these things, about my own lack of comprehension and frustration with that, I started wondering if there had perhaps been moments in the recent past when an answer had been offered, but brushed aside.
And it came to me - a memory of a blog post. This one.
I immediately felt - relieved. I could not begin to parse it philosophically or theologically, and nor did I have any desire to. Something within got it, and I was able to trust. In just that moment of relaxing and openness, I was able to let Jesus enter and reassure me the way he always does - through the mysterious convergence of a moment, the words of others, and my own stubborn excavation of experience. Once again, as is always the case, stepping aside and giving it up, even for a moment, allows me to hear it:
Peace be with you
But then Jesus himself is present to them, and they do understand.
I thought once again of how I get into these knots of thinking, thinking and still more thinking, which work together to make a net of sorts which keeps Jesus away from my busy brain. I have noticed this too often in prayer over the past few months as well - and perhaps I should put "prayer" in quotation marks. It is too often so much figuring - not arguing, just figuring - and not nearly enough just plopping down at the foot of the Cross or at the empty tomb or Jesus in the Eucharist and saying, "Here I am. Help me. I'll shut up now."
As I was listening to the homily and thinking (yes) about these things, about my own lack of comprehension and frustration with that, I started wondering if there had perhaps been moments in the recent past when an answer had been offered, but brushed aside.
And it came to me - a memory of a blog post. This one.
And I thought...why yes. Let's go back even further than Fr. Longenecker does here. I began life - Michael began life - as a single cell, which rapidly became more complex, but still after a matter of days "looked" nothing like he looked the last day of his life on earth. Nor will I. But there it is nonetheless. Body/soul - created and loved by God, now and forever. Somehow. In some way. God's way.We have to think of our resurrection body as part of our body that we have right now. Think of it this way: in my downstairs bathroom I have a picture of myself when I was two years old. I look pudgy and ponderous. Then there is a picture of me when I was eighteen and graduating from high school. I look handsome and hopeful. Then there is a picture of me a few years ago looking well, pudgy and ponderous again. Each photograph was me, and yet the physical me in each photograph is completely different. How could that baby me, that young man me and that middle aged man all be me?Indeed, the biologists tell us that our bodies renew every cell every seven years. In a way, every seven years I get a different body, and that is what the photographic evidence tells me too. Therefore, this body that I think is so physical and so permanent and so solid, is really very ephemeral and transitory. It's always changing. Nevertheless, there is also a part of me that is continuous with all the different bodies I have inhabited. That's what we think of as the soul.But where is the soul? It is not in my body like water in a jug, it is more in my body like water in a sponge. I am an ensouled body. My soul is in every part of me. My soul is not in my brain or my heart or my blood vessels or my big toe. My soul is in every cell. My body and my soul are intermingled. Therefore, what is this resurrection body? It is the soul that is in every cell of me and it is arguable that the soul is incomplete without each cell. This cell soul is my resurrection body. It is the soul of me in every part of me which will one day be resurrected. That is what lasts forever, not the very physical stuff of me.
I immediately felt - relieved. I could not begin to parse it philosophically or theologically, and nor did I have any desire to. Something within got it, and I was able to trust. In just that moment of relaxing and openness, I was able to let Jesus enter and reassure me the way he always does - through the mysterious convergence of a moment, the words of others, and my own stubborn excavation of experience. Once again, as is always the case, stepping aside and giving it up, even for a moment, allows me to hear it:
Peace be with you
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I think a lot of the plausible near death experiences are interesting in this area. So many state that they don't even realize that they are without their bodies as they look down upon the scene of doctors working on them - until they note that "hey, that body down there looks like me"!
And those left behind who may either dream of their dead loved one or have the benefit of some other kind of experience of seeing them often note that they appear more youthful, of a certain age, even if they lived to be elderly.
With our limited adjacent brain cells, we can only think "who is like God?" when attempting to study those areas not available to us to know anything for certain. God's plan is always for our benefit and is ongoing as we remain in this life - something to hope in - "Jesus I trust in You"! Bodies, schmodies ... heck, we don't even like the ones we move around in while here - and need for so many things in this limited world. Will be glad if the perfected one will do away with the disappointments so often met through the one so prone to so much error!
Eric,
I didn't read Father L's blog entry as saying that the soul changes, but that it does not. The way he describes it, it's very much like DNA. Look:
“Therefore, this body that I think is so physical and so permanent and so solid, is really very ephemeral and transitory. It's always changing. Nevertheless, **there is also a part of me that is continuous with all the different bodies I have inhabited.** That's what we think of as the soul.
“But where is the soul? It is not in my body like water in a jug, it is more in my body like water in a sponge. I am an ensouled body. **My soul is in every part of me.** My soul is not in my brain or my heart or my blood vessels or my big toe. *My soul is in every cell.* My body and my soul are intermingled. *Therefore, what is this resurrection body? It is the soul that is in every cell of me and it is arguable that the soul is incomplete without each cell.* This cell soul is my resurrection body. It is the soul of me in every part of me which will one day be resurrected. *That is what lasts forever, not the very physical stuff of me.*
“But this makes it sound like the soul part of me is somehow less physical. Like it is the ghostly part of me. The exact opposite is true. **It is the soul body part of me that is the most 'physical' at least it is the part of me which is most 'real' because it is the part of me that transcends the different physical manifestations **that you can see in those pictures. It not only transcends them, but it will last forever because that is the eternal part of me.
Doesn’t that sound like DNA? Like the pattern for each cell is always there, even though the cells were made of different collections of matter over the years, and even though his image (from toddler to young man to not-young man) changed over the years.
So, no worries. You just get the one soul, the same way you just have one set of DNA. And since both seem to be assigned to you at the same time, it kind of makes sense.
R.
Amy, thanks for sharing this. So beautiful. I've been spending quite a bit of time recently contemplating bodies and their mutability and this gives me even more to ponder. How can this long, leggy, independent three year old possibly be the same baby I brought home just yesterday who was so completely helpless? How quickly the one year old is changing day by day... looking more and more like her father. And the tiny one I haven't seen yet but I know is there from all his little kicks. Some day, God willing, they will be adults, then they will grow old and some day die. Yet their personhood began with one cell hidden inside me.
And then there is that baby whose face I never got to see, who was embodied for such a very short time. Heaven wouldn't be right if somehow there weren't a body for that baby that I can touch and hug for my physical senses never got even a taste of sight or smell or touch or sound. I guess having experienced that loss, to me the resurrection of the body just makes sense on some deep level. It seems necessary or everything else falls apart. Or it is at least no more implausible than that this body I know now can bring another person into existence. I'm not sure I'm making any sense. I'm not sure what I mean except to say that for me somehow the mystery of death is tied in with the mystery of motherhood.
Thanks Melanie that was beautiful. What a great honour Our Lord has given women to grow humans inside them, and even Himself! Now that is a King, that is love. It keeps blowing my mind what His love is capable of, its like nothing I've known, it is fierce, patient, forgiving, seeks a good for me that my imagination could not begin to generate, in the sight of everyone our glory on his return. Kind and long-suffering, and gentle. Its flavour is allness and peace, solid like reality itself, not sickly sweet, no self in it. Oh he is closest to the broken hearted, the poor in spirit, there is nothing like that touch. Nothing in this world like it.
What kind of joy will this wedding feast be? dear God. The nothingness that did its worst our entire history gone in our collective laugh - the insignificant thing that it is. It has no being.
The development you see in your child - the beginning of our "ten thousand years will be as a day", neverending development toward the inexhaustible infinite.
What he has in store for us! clues everywhere, love for the tasting now and for ever and ever. Amen.
And how does he introduce it? (goosebump time)
Jesus the Lord, after He had supped with His disciples, washed their feet(!), and said to them:
Know you what I, your Lord and Master, have done to you? I gave you an example, that you also may do likewise.
I think one of the reasons the apostles didn't recognize Jesus, other than the fact that they were seeing the unfathomable, is that he looked different. 1 John 3 says that we shall see him as he is and that we will be like him; 1 Cor 15 says that we will all be changed. Putting those ideas together, it makes sense that our resurrected bodies will be very different than our earthly ones.
When I watched "The Passion of the Christ," I saw Jesus sitting there with his scars and thought, "Who is that?" even though I was very familiar with the story. The last time Jesus was seen, on the cross, was such a strong visual impression, that I had literally forgotten what he looked like. By the time he stood up, I went, "Duh." It was the first time I emotionally got "You shall know him by his scars." It was also the first time I understood emotionally why the apostles didn't recognize him after the resurrection.