THE CATECHISM OF
THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH
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THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
SECTION TWO
988 The Christian Creed - the profession of our faith in God, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in God's creative, saving, and
sanctifying action - culminates in the proclamation of the resurrection of
the dead on the last day and in life everlasting.
989 We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly
risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will
live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last
day.[532] Our resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the Most
Holy Trinity:
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who
raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies
also through his Spirit who dwells in you.[533]
990 The term "flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and
mortality.[534] The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation
of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on
after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again.[535]
991 Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element
of the Christian faith from its beginnings. "The confidence of Christians
is the resurrection of the dead; believing this we live."[536]
How can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if
there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if
Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith
is in vain.... But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first
fruits of those who have fallen asleep.[537]
The progressive revelation of the Resurrection
992 God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively.
Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as a
consequence intrinsic to faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul
and body. The creator of heaven and earth is also the one who faithfully
maintains his covenant with Abraham and his posterity. It was in this
double perspective that faith in the resurrection came to be expressed. In
their trials, the Maccabean martyrs confessed:
The King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of
life, because we have died for his laws.[538] One cannot but choose to die
at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised
again by him.[539]
993 The Pharisees and many of the Lord's contemporaries hoped for the
resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it he
answers, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the
scriptures nor the power of God?"[540] Faith in the resurrection rests on
faith in God who "is not God of the dead, but of the living."[541]
994 But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own
person: "I am the Resurrection and the life."[542] It is Jesus himself who
on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have
eaten his body and drunk his blood.[543] Already now in this present life
he gives a sign and pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to
life,[544] announcing thereby his own Resurrection, though it was to be of
another order. He speaks of this unique event as the "sign of Jonah,"[545]
the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise
thereafter on the third day.[546]
995 To be a witness to Christ is to be a "witness to his Resurrection," to
"[have eaten and drunk] with him after he rose from the dead."[547]
Encounters with the risen Christ characterize the Christian hope of
resurrection. We shall rise like Christ, with him, and through him.
996 From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with
incomprehension and opposition.[548] "On no point does the Christian faith
encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body."[549] It
is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a
spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so
clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?
How do the dead rise?
997 What is "rising"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body,
the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its
reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will
definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with
our souls, through the power of Jesus' Resurrection.
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."[550]
999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet,
that it is I myself";[551] 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":[552]
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.[553]
1000 This "how" exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is
accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already
gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God's blessing has been
invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two
things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which
partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope
of resurrection.[554]
1001 When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world."[555]
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.[556]
Risen with Christ
1002 Christ will raise us up "on the last day"; but it is also true that,
in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ. For, by virtue of the
Holy Spirit, Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the
death and Resurrection of Christ:
And you were buried with him in Baptism, in which you were also raised
with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead
.... If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are
above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.[557]
1003 United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in
the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains "hidden with
Christ in God."[558] The Father has already "raised us up with him, and
made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."[559]
Nourished with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the Body of
Christ. When we rise on the last day we "also will appear with him in
glory."[560]
1004 In expectation of that day, the believer's body and soul already
participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails
the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the
body of every other person, especially the suffering:
The body [is meant] for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God
raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know
that your bodies are members of Christ? .... You are not your own; .... So
glorify God in your body.[561]
1005 To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ: we must "be away from
the body and at home with the Lord."[562] In that "departure" which is
death the soul is separated from the body.[563] It will be reunited with
the body on the day of resurrection of the dead.[564]
Death
1006 "It is in regard to death that man's condition is most shrouded in
doubt."[565] In a sense bodily death is natural, but for faith it is in
fact "the wages of sin."[566] For those who die in Christ's grace it is a
participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his
Resurrection.[567]
1007 Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in
the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on
earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends
urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we
have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment:
Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, . . . before the
dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who
gave it.[568]
1008 Death is a consequence of sin. The Church's Magisterium, as authentic
interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that
death entered the world on account of man's sin.[569] Even though man's
nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore
contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a
consequence of sin.[570] "Bodily death, from which man would have been
immune had he not sinned" is thus "the last enemy" of man left to be
conquered.[571]
1009 Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself
suffered the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his
anguish as he faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free
submission to his Father's will.[572] The obedience of Jesus has
transformed the curse of death into a blessing.[573]
The Meaning of Christian death
1010 Because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me
to live is Christ, and to die is gain."[574] "The saying is sure: if we
have died with him, we will also live with him.[575] What is essentially
new about Christian death is this: through Baptism, the Christian has
already "died with Christ" sacramentally, in order to live a new life; and
if we die in Christ's grace, physical death completes this "dying with
Christ" and so completes our incorporation into him in his redeeming act:
It is better for me to die in (eis) Christ Jesus than to reign over the
ends of the earth. Him it is I seek - who died for us. Him it is I desire
- who rose for us. I am on the point of giving birth .... Let me receive
pure light; when I shall have arrived there, then shall I be a man.[576]
1011 In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore the Christian can
experience a desire for death like St. Paul's: "My desire is to depart and
be with Christ. "[577] He can transform his own death into an act of
obedience and love towards the Father, after the example of Christ:[578]
My earthly desire has been crucified; . . . there is living water in me,
water that murmurs and says within me: Come to the Father.[579]
I want to see God and, in order to see him, I must die.[580]
I am not dying; I am entering life.[581]
1012 The Christian vision of death receives privileged expression in the
liturgy of the Church:[582]
Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body
of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling
place in heaven.[583]
1013 Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace
and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in
keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny. When
"the single course of our earthly life" is completed,[584] we shall not
return to other earthly lives: "It is appointed for men to die once."[585]
There is no "reincarnation" after death.
1014 The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our
death. In the litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a
sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord";[586] to ask the Mother
of God to intercede for us "at the hour of our death" in the Hail Mary;
and to entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death.
Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects
to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if
you had a quiet conscience .... Then why not keep clear of sin instead of
running away from death? If you aren't fit to face death today, it's very
unlikely you will be tomorrow ....[587]
Praised are you, my Lord, for our sister bodily Death, from whom no living
man can escape. Woe on those who will die in mortal sin! Blessed are they
who will be found in your most holy will, for the second death will not
harm them.[588]
IN BRIEF
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.
1016 By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection
God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with
our soul. Just as Christ is risen and lives for ever, so all of us will
rise at the last day.
1017 "We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now
possess" (Council of Lyons II: DS 854). We sow a corruptible body in the
tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a "spiritual body" (cf. 1
Cor 15:42-44).
1018 As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer "bodily death, from
which man would have been immune had he not sinned" (GS # 18).
1019 Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and
free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he has
conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.
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