Day 92: The Man of Heaven

The Resurrection of Christ was not a return to earthly life. His risen body is that which was crucified and bears the marks of his passion. However,, it also participates in the divine life, with the characteristics of a glorified body. Because of this, the risen Jesus was utterly free to appear to his disciples how and where he wished and under various aspects. (Catechism Compendium #129)

In today's reading, Catechism speaks about the human body of Jesus, which was resurrected. Again, I used a summary of this section from the Catechism Compendium to quote rather than from the Catechism itself due to the length. His disciples didn't quite understand the Resurrection, fearing that Jesus they were seeing was a ghost, a fear that He allayed by eating a piece of fish in front of them (Lk 24:36-43). He was truly risen from the dead bodily, not as a ghost or in spirit. This means that he could still do things like eat. He still bore all the marks of the Passion, as St. Thomas learned (Jn 20:24-29). Yet it was a glorified body He had after the Resurrection. Everyone Jesus had miraculously raised from the dead, such as Lazarus (Jn 11:38-44), returned to their earthly lives and eventually died again for the final time. Jesus will not. As the Catechism Companion, Vol I explains:

When Jesus rose, he had a different condition, "beyond time and space." The risen glorious body of Jesus is "filled with the power of the Holy Spirit" and will never die... Christ emptied himself and took on human nature, but then he did not abandon it in his resurrection. Instead, he took humanity to himself. (p. 188)

In a mystery I will never fully understand, when Christ was raised from the dead, the Father by "doing so perfectly introduced his Son's humanity, including his body, into the Trinity" (CCC 648). Extraordinary! Christ united humanity and divinity in Himself!

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio, c. 1602