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Question

Dear father,

with the resurrection we will also recover our body, right? Here, I would like to ask you: “which” body? That of our youth? 

How will we look after the resurrection?

Thank you for the service you offer,

Best wishes

Answer from the priest

Dear friend,

1.  Certainly we can say that we will rise again with our body, with the one that we currently have.

This is of faith and the Lateran Council IV sanctioned it: “All will rise with the body they have now” (DS 801).

If it were not the same individual, we could not speak of a resurrection.

2. How our body will look is hard to say.

 The Sacred Scripture reminds us that we will be conformed to the glory of Christ and that therefore our body will be transformed:

“Here I am announcing a mystery to you: certainly not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, to the sound of the last trumpet; in fact the trumpet will sound and the dead will rise uncorrupted and we will be transformed.

It is in fact necessary for this corruptible body to be clothed with incorruptibility and this mortal body to be clothed with immortality”(1 Cor 15: 51-53).

Shortly before, St. Paul says that our body will rise again incorruptible (1 Cor 15:42); glorious (1 Cor 15:43); full of strength (1 Cor 15:43); spiritual (1 Cor 15:44).

For this reason the theologians conclude that it will be a body endowed with impassibility, agility, spirituality, splendor or clarity.

3. Finally, you ask me if  our body will be that of our youth.

Here is the thought of St. Thomas: “Man will rise again without any defect:

since God, as he created human nature without defects, so he will restore it without defects.

Now, human nature can be impaired in two ways: first, because it has not yet reached its ultimate perfection; second, because it has moved away from it.

The first type of impairment is found in children, the second in the elderly. Therefore in both cases human nature will be brought back with the resurrection to the state of its full perfection,

that is to the youthful age, in which the movement of growth ends and decline begins “(Summa Theologica, Supplement, 81,1).

Thank you for your question, I remind you in front of the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo