Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 153 – Part III.

YOUCAT Question n. 153 - Part III. Why do we believe in the resurrection of the “body”?

(Youcat answer - repeated) In Jesus Christ, God himself took on “flesh” (Incarnation) in order to redeem mankind. The biblical word “flesh” characterizes man in his weakness and mortality. Nevertheless, God does not regard human flesh as something inferior. God does not redeem man’s spirit only; he redeems him entirely, body and soul.            

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 998) Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (Jn 5:29; cf. Dan 12:2). (CCC 999) How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself" (Lk 24:39); 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" (Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 801; Phil 3:21; 2 Cor 15:44): But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel…. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable…. The dead will be raised imperishable… For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:35-37, 42, 52, 53).(CCC 1001) When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world" (Jn 6: 39-40, 44, 54; 11:24; LG 48 § 3). Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's Parousia: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first (1 Thess 4:16).        

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) God created us with a body (flesh) and a soul. At the end of the world he does not drop the “flesh” like an old toy. On the “Last Day” he will remake all creation and raise us up in the flesh—this means that we will be transformed but still experience ourselves in our element. For Jesus, too, being in the flesh was not just a phase. When the risen Lord showed himself, the disciples saw the wounds on his body.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 1015) "The flesh is the hinge of salvation" (Tertullian, De res. 8, 2: PL 2, 852). We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.         

(The next question is: What happens to us when we die?)