"With the resurrection, we will all be transformed". "This is the future that awaits us, and this is the fact we resist: we resist the transformation of our body. We even resist Christian identity." "We may not have much fear of the voice of the Archangel or the sound of the trumpet," but "we fear of our resurrection: we all shall be changed. It will be the end of our Christian journey, that transformation".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "The Christian identity is a road, it is a journey where you are with the Lord", now and after death, with resurrection, when we shall see him "with our own transformed eyes" said Pope Francis during the Mass celebrated today at Casa Santa Marta.  He was commenting on the passage of the Letter to the Corinthians in which St. Paul speaks of the resurrection of the dead.

St. Paul, said the Pope, pledges to make a "difficult correction" regarding "the Resurrection", addressing the Christians in Corinth. They believed that "Christ is Risen" and "helps us from Heaven," but it was not clear to them that "we too will be resurrected." "[The Corinthians]," said Pope Francis, "had other ideas: 'sure, the dead are justified, they shall not go to hell - good thing, too! - but they'll go into the cosmos, into the air - just the soul before God'," and so St. Paul had to offer a "difficult correction": that of the Resurrection. Nor were the Christians of Corinth the only ones to have difficulty with the teaching. The Greeks at Athens, to whom St. Paul also preached - the wise philosophers - were even afraid of the notion: "[The Christian teaching on the bodily resurrection] is a scandal: they cannot understand it. This is why Paul offers the following line of reasoning, which is quite clear: 'if Christ is risen, how can they say that there is not among yourselves resurrection from the dead, as well? If Christ is risen, the dead, too, shall rise'. There is resistance to the transformation, resistance to the work of the Spirit we received at Baptism, which is to transform us utterly, unto the Resurrection. When we speak of this, our language tells us: 'I want to go to heaven, I don't want to go to hell', but we stop there. None of us says: 'I shall rise as Christ [did]'. No, even for us it is difficult to understand this."

Pope Francis went on to say that a sort of "cosmic pantheism" is easier to grasp, since there is this resistance to transformation - St Paul's word - and, "in the Resurrection, we shall all be transformed.": "This is the future that awaits us and this is the fact that brings us to pose so much resistance: resistance to the transformation of our bodies. Also - resistance to Christian identity. I'll say more: perhaps we are not so much afraid of the Apocalypse of the Evil One, of the Antichrist who must come first - perhaps we are not so afraid [of him]. Perhaps we are not so afraid of the voice of the Archangel or the sound of his trumpet - that shall sound the victory of the Lord. Fear of our resurrection, however, we have: we shall all be transformed. That transformation shall be the end of our Christian journey."

This "temptation not to believe in the resurrection of the dead was born" in "the early days of the Church." And when Paul had to talk about this to the Thessalonians, "in the end, to console them and encourage them, he utters one of the most hope-filled phrases in the entire New Testament, he says: 'In the end, we will be with Him". "That's what Christian identity is: "To be with the Lord. Just like that, with our body and our soul." We "will be resurrected to be with the Lord, and the resurrection begins here, as disciples, if we are with the Lord, if we walk with the Lord". "Such is the path toward resurrection. And if we are accustomed to being with the Lord, this fear of the transformation of our body leaves us".

The resurrection "will be like an awakening". Job tells us, "I shall see with my own eyes." "Not spiritually no", "with my body, with my own transformed eyes". "Christian identity does not end with the triumph of time, it does not end with a beautiful mission", Christian identity is accomplished "with the resurrection of our bodies, with our Resurrection." " That is the end, right there: [that point in which we are] satiated, by the image of the Lord. Christian identity is a way, a journey, on which we 'are' with the Lord, as those two disciples who 'were with the Lord' on that night. All our whole life is called to being with the Lord, in order - at the end - after the voice of the Archangel, after the sound of his trumpet . to remain with Him and abide with the Lord".

 

 

• vatican
• pope
• francis
• mass
• casa
• santa
• marta