Living in Hope: What Catholics Believe About Death and Eternal Life (I)
Beauty of the Catholic Faith, Part VII
This is the seventh installment in an eight-part series that reflects on fundamental Catholic beliefs as expressed in the creed. The eighth and final section of this series will explore other dimensions of this same topic.
The Topic Today
All of us face the reality of death, for ourselves and for those we love. Most of the time we prefer not to think about it or speak of it, but it is there nonetheless. When we lose someone we love dearly the reality of death stares us in the face. Many great thinkers through the ages have suggested that it is only when we are able to face our mortality honestly that we really learn how to live. There is something about facing the prospect of our own dying that gives us freedom in the present and helps us to recognize what is really important in life.
We live in a society that has a very difficult time admitting the reality of death. Our hospital care and funeral practices tend to sanitize death and to keep us at a distance from it. We tend either to ignore the topic or deal with it in terms of the macabre, e.g., in horror movies or television shows that highlight crime. I sometimes wonder whether the popularity of the various “CSI” shows lies in part with people’s attempt to deal with death in an indirect way. One shining exception to this societal tendency has been the work of the Hospice program. This movement has helped millions of dying people and their loved ones journey through the process of dying in an honest, caring and “life-giving” way.
Many Catholics today are uncertain about the content and status of the Church’s teaching on themes that used to be standard fare in preaching and religious education, themes like purgatory, limbo, eternal loss, etc. The arrival of various “New Age” movements has introduced other ideas into our society’s thinking about death, e.g., reincarnation. Catholics may know that the Vatican has recently addressed the topic of limbo and they may be aware that Pope Benedict XVI alludes to purification in death in his recent encyclical Spe Salvi. But the specifics of these teachings are mysterious to many ordinary Catholics who go about their ordinary lives in a spirit of faith.
The dimension of theology that treats these topics is called eschatology. The word derives from a Greek term (eschata) that literally means “the last/final things.” Put simply, eschatology deals with the language and structures of human hope. It reflects on the Christian understanding of final fulfillment for the individual, the human family, and all of creation. Christian eschatology is based on the conviction that God is present and active in history and that history has a direction and will reach a fulfillment.
The Resurrection of Jesus
Sometimes ideas about eternal life can sound like an exercise in “supernatural geography.” We speculate about what heaven will look like and where those we love “go” when they die. We try to find a “map” of the next world. In reality, what Christians believe about death and eternal life is rooted in what we believe about the destiny of Jesus Christ. We look to Christ and to what happened in his life, death and resurrection as the basis of our hope for the future.
The resurrection of Jesus is a definitive act of God in history. The gospels tell us that in his ministry Jesus raised some people from the dead – the son of the widow of Naim (Luke 7:7-17), the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:21-43), his beloved friend Lazarus (John 11:1-44). These individuals were brought back to life, but they were to face death again. The resurrection of Jesus is something qualitatively different from these resuscitations. With the resurrection Jesus is proclaimed as conquering death, as returning immortal in glory and power. The resurrection lies at the very edges of human history. It affects a real historical person (Jesus) and impacts upon the lives of other people in history (those to whom the risen Jesus appeared). But it also has the quality of the transcendent because death has been overcome.
In the New Testament there are three main types of witness to the resurrection of Jesus. First, there are creedal formulas that are professions of faith in the risen Christ. These formulas, or sayings, reflect the strong conviction of the first Christians that God raised up Jesus. So in First Thessalonians (the first letter that Paul wrote), the apostle Paul writes: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (4:14). In his Letter to the Romans, it appears that Paul quotes one of these early formulas: “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (10:9). Second, there are traditions about the finding of the empty tomb in all four gospels. The stories vary considerably, but they attest to the experience of disciples of Jesus who came to the tomb and discovered that his body was not there anymore. While the finding of the empty tomb was not in itself an experience of the risen Jesus, it was a necessary presupposition for this Christian belief. Third, there are accounts of the appearances of the risen Christ to various disciples. The New Testament does not tell us that anyone saw Jesus rise from the dead. It recounts experiences that disciples had of Christ after he was raised up. There is also quite a bit of variation in these stories. For example, these accounts focus on two distinct localities in different gospels: Galilee and Jerusalem. In some of them, Mary Magdalene is the first to see the risen Jesus; in others it is Simon Peter.
The late biblical scholar Raymond Brown notes that the biblical evidence about the resurrection does not permit us to establish a precise sequence of the appearances of the risen Christ with any assurance. It does not provide an exact chronology of events that took place after the death of Jesus. These accounts do, however, offer apostolic testimony to the experience of men and women who were eyewitnesses to an appearance of the risen Lord (New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1375). These experiences were transformative; the disciples of Jesus were given completely new insight into the destiny of Jesus and the meaning of his life and death. They were transformed from a frightened, grief-stricken group of followers to courageous preachers of the good news. This apostolic testimony to the risen Christ is foundational for the faith of believers of all time. Our faith in the crucified and risen Jesus is dependent upon their testimony.
One of the most important New Testament witnesses to the resurrection is found in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (15:3-8). I encourage you to read and reflect on this brief passage. In this part of his letter, Paul is handing on an ancient tradition that he had received. It seems to involve a fixed formula with a definite structure. This passage is particularly important because it is the direct expression of someone (Paul) who claims to have been an eyewitness to an appearance of the risen Christ. Paul gives a sequence of a number of people who were recipients of these appearances, beginning with Peter and ending with himself. Here Paul asserts that he is not even “fit to be called an apostle” because he persecuted the Church.
The Greek verbal construction that is used in this formula to denote Jesus’ “appearing to” these disciples has particular significance. It indicates an initiative from the outside. In other words, the risen Christ takes an active role in these appearance experiences. This is not a matter of mere “insight” into the meaning of Jesus on the part of the disciples. As mysterious as these appearances are, there is an objective quality to them that makes them more than imaginative visions. It is an objective event that confronted the disciples – a self-communication of the risen Christ to them. There are elements of continuity and of discontinuity in these experiences, e.g., the risen Jesus eats with the disciples, but he also comes through doors. These appearances involve a distinctive kind of seeing, a perception that mysteriously involves faith but also leads to faith. The disciples’ faith in the risen Christ was generated by their experience of his transformed presence in their midst.
The experience of the risen Christ was revelatory of many things. It gave his disciples new insight into Jesus’ relationship with God and his status as divine. They came to a deepened realization that God had been revealed in Jesus. They begin to realize that with his death and resurrection the reign of God that Jesus proclaimed had been inaugurated in human history. Their experience of the risen Christ also gave them new insight into the meaning of his death. This death was no longer just a tragic and horrific instance of injustice because Jesus’ offering of himself had been accepted and vindicated by the Father. The distinguished theologian Gerald O’Collins observes, “In short, the resurrection fully and finally revealed the meaning and truth of Christ’s life, person, work and death. It set a divine seal on Jesus and his ministry” (Christology, 98).
The resurrection of Jesus also gives us new insight into the character of God. The God of Jesus Christ is the Resurrector. God is the One who brings life out of death. This is what he did for Jesus, and this is ultimately what we believe God does for all people. The God who was silently present on Calvary, in solidarity with the suffering Jesus, is the One who is present and on the move to bring life out of death. This is the source of our hope, especially in those moments of life when we experience suffering and tragedy that seem inexplicable to us.
The resurrection of Jesus also has redemptive significance. We are saved by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, in his total human reality and with his entire human history, is raised up. This means that the Christian notion of salvation is salvation of the world, not salvation from the world. Throughout the centuries, the Church has repeatedly had to reaffirm its belief in the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of the body in the face of various strains of thought that denied the goodness of creation, materiality, the body, and human sexuality. Our belief in the resurrection means that we believe that God will transform creation itself. The material world itself, this vast universe in which we live, will be part of the redemption wrought by God in Christ. In its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Second Vatican Council spoke of our hope for the consummation of the whole earth (n.39). One consequence of our belief in the resurrection is that Christians should be committed to care for the earth in an era of environmental crisis. This Vatican Constitution also reminds us that all truly human values, works, and efforts will be preserved and transfigured in the new creation, of which the resurrection of the body is an intrinsic dimension. Nothing of goodness, nothing truly human, will be lost; it will be preserved and transfigured. All of our efforts to effect good in the world, even those which seem insignificant or which seem to fail, will be part of God’s new creation.
In our final installment of this series, we will explore the themes of the communion of saints, purification after death, limbo, the possibility of eternal loss, and the second coming of Christ.
Fr. Robin Ryan, cp
