The readings for this 3rd Sunday of Easter bring us great hope of life after death, also for our bodies. The readings also tell us that if we call ourselves believers, then we need to obey God’s commandments.
In the Gospel of Luke, the apostles have an encounter with the Risen Lord. His body is the same body that was crucified, but it has been transformed. The apostles can still touch the body of Jesus, the apostles can see Jesus eating, they can hear Him speaking and teaching. Our Lord is not a phantom, our Lord is not a ghost. His earthly body has been transformed. Jesus’ body can now “pass through locked doors,” “vanish at will,” and is “no longer subject to the limitations of time, space, and the laws of nature” (Ignatius New Testament Study Bible, Scott Hahn ed., pg. 155, 2010). The promise of Jesus Christ contains the hope that our bodies too, one day, will be transformed, will not be subject to space and time. This hope should affect the way that we look at our bodies, it should give us the courage and strength to treat our bodies with dignity and respect.
The hope of a resurrected body can help us come to terms with our aging. We are all getting older, and we confront aches and pains, and sometimes even serious illnesses. The hope of a transformed body tells us that aging will not have the final word. Our bodies will accompany us in the next life, when at the resurrection of the dead, we will rise with our bodies.
Just this past Friday, we did our spring burials at St. Hedwig’s cemetery. We laid to rest in consecrated ground people who died over the winter, and who were not able to be buried at the time of their funeral, due to the frozen earth. Whether it was a full-body casket burial, or a burial of ashes, all the people were reposed reverently in cemetery ground, accompanied by the prayers of the priest and the assembled people. It is good to be buried in consecrated ground, or ground dedicated for a cemetery. A cemetery is the proper place for ashes: not a mantelpiece, a basement, underneath some tree, or in some lake. The body is sacred and it does need to be buried in a cemetery. Just on April 2nd, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration, which states, “dignity is…inherent in each person’s body, which participates in its own way in being in imago Dei (in the image of God) and is also called to share in the soul’s glory in the divine beatitude (Dignitas Infinita, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 18, April 2, 2024). So, our body is called to share in the glory of divine beatitude.
The First Letter of St. John was our second reading today. In this reading, St. John reminds us that if we call ourselves believers, then we need to obey God’s commandments. The basis of the moral law are the Ten Commandments. Let’s go through these: “First commandment: I am the Lord your God, you shall not have other gods before me. Second: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Third: Remember to keep Holy the Lord’s Day. Fourth: Honour your father and your mother. Fifth: You shall not kill. Sixth: You shall not commit adultery. Seventh: You shall not steal. Eighth: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. Ninth: You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife. Tenth: You shall not covet your neighbour’s possessions” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church). As St. John says, “by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3, RSV). And, paradoxically, if we keep the Commandments, we will find freedom: freedom in spirit, soul, and body. People who keep the Commandments are free people.
This coming Tuesday is the feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous, the visionary of Lourdes. As we continue the Easter season, we come once again to Mother Mary, whom we venerate under the title of Our Lady of Lourdes. We ask through Mary’s intercession that we may be able to keep in mind the holiness of our bodies. We ask through Her intercession for the grace to keep God’s commandments, and become truly free.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, April 14, 2024)