The resurrection of the dead means there are restrictions on what we do with our bodies in this life, writes Msgr. Lopez-Gallo.
Every Sunday, in the Apostle’s Creed we profess our belief in the resurrection of the dead in two distinct, but intimately connected, acclamations: the one of Jesus who “on the third day was raised from the dead,” and the one concerning ourselves – “I believe in the Resurrection of the body.”
This firm conviction has its base in the Old Testament which teaches that in the creation of man, both body and soul come from God and will always remain so. “The Lord God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and thus man became a living being” (Gn 2:7). This breath was the human soul.
But death, from the natural point of view, is a fearful and terrifying event, for it is the dissolution of the human person. To grasp its full meaning, however, one must turn to faith and see death as the result of sin, as St. Paul teaches us: “Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin, death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned” (Rom 5:12). Death is of man’s making, not God’s.
The book of Wisdom expresses the profound and consoling truth: God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living (Wisdom 1:13). Moreover, the power of Satan and death was broken by its paradoxical overthrow by death. The Word made flesh took on even that which is most terrifying to man, and “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54).
Part of the words sung in the preface of the Easter Vigil are: “Dying, he destroyed our death, and rising he restored our life”.
One’s own death now takes on new meaning: it is to be in union with Christ. When and how death may come is God’s to determine, but the individual chooses how he is to accept it. He should freely accept God’s will, for indeed, the most important preparation for death is its willing acceptance.
This begins with humble, hopeful, and loving faith, with praying and living the petition “Thy Will be done.” This requires a spirit of contrition and self-denial. Death is a sacrificial act, one’s last, hence a spirit of sacrifice is essential in preparing for it.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “There is no better way to prepare for death’s sacrifice than association with Christ’s Passion, which is applied to man through the sacraments.” Each of the sacraments helps, in a special way, to prepare one to face death without fear. This is best appreciated and applied by participation in the liturgy which moves the faithful, filled with the paschal sacrament, to be one in holiness. “By Baptism men are plunged into the paschal mystery of Christ. Sacramentally, we have died, been buried, and have risen with Christ” (Summa Theologica 3a.61).
St. Paul lived in such intimate union with Christ and imitated Jesus so strongly that he was surprised that at the end of his life he could say: “It is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”
And he wrote to the Corinthians: “Brothers and sisters, the body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. God raised the Lord and will also raise us. Do you know that your bodies are members of Christ?” (1 Cor 6:13-15).
One irreverent profanation of the human body is so-called “sex change,” the process by which a person chooses to change his or her gender by the substitution of sexual organs, male for female and vice versa. The teaching of St. Paul is contrary to the change of gender. The human body may receive a fake vagina or penis or even female breast, but no surgery can modify the human soul. And the body without a soul is a simple corpse. When Jesus ordered the dead body of Lazarus “Come out!” (Jn 11:41), he returned the soul to his corpse. It is the soul that made Lazarus regain his life.
This is why the Church is very attentive to the practice of cremation and even forbade it for a long time. In the 19th-century proponents of cremation in Europe argued the case generally on the basis of public hygiene. In the time following the French Revolution, in 1886 the Holy Office forbade Catholics from joining cremation societies and prohibited cremation (see canon 1203 of the old code) to oppose the agnostics and atheists who proclaimed that cremation of the body also destroyed its soul. Cremation had been positively advocated by liberal movements as a sectarian instrument to promote anticlericalism and to deny the resurrection of the body.
The 1983 new code of canon law lifted the ban, permitted the cremation of the body and codified the authorization. Canon 1176 §3 rules: “The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burial be retained; it does not, however, forbid cremation, unless this is chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching.”