Cathal BarryThe Church teaches that Christ’s resurrection is the fulfilment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus, writes Cathal Barry
By means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the Church holds that the risen Jesus establishes direct contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way, according to the Church, to recognise that he is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still bears the traces of his Passion.
Yet at the same time, according to Church teaching, this “authentic, real body” possesses the new properties of a “glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and when he wills; for Christ’s humanity can no longer be confined to earth and belongs henceforth only to the Father’s divine realm”.
Lazarus
Christ’s resurrection, the Church teaches, was not a return to earthly life, as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter: Jairus’ daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by Jesus’ power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again.
Christ’s resurrection, however, is essentially different. The Church teaches that in his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. The Church holds that, at his resurrection, Jesus’ body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. He shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St Paul can say that Christ is “the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:35-50).
The Catechism states that although the resurrection was an historical event that could be verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles’ encounters with the risen Christ, “still it remains at the very heart of the mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history… This is why the risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his disciples,” it says.
Christ’s resurrection, according to the Church, is an object of faith in that it is a transcendent intervention of God himself in creation and history. “In it the three divine persons act together as one, and manifest their own proper characteristics,” the Catechism teaches.
The Church teaches that the Father’s power “raised up” Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son’s humanity, including his body, into the Trinity.
As for the Son, the Church holds that he effects his own resurrection by virtue of his divine power. Jesus announces that the Son of Man will have to suffer much, die and then rise (Mk 8:31).
The resurrection above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ’s works and teachings, the Catechism states.
“All truths, even those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if Christ by his resurrection has given the definitive proof of his divine authority, which he had promised,” it teaches.
The Church teaches that Christ’s resurrection is the fulfilment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life. The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures” indicates that Christ’s resurrection fulfilled these predictions.