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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I am very pleased to read everything you write to reply to the doubts of so many people, doubts that I often share and to which I find their resolution thanks to your answers. Today I would like to ask you two questions that I have recently asked myself, since (I realize) their lack of response also represents a temptation that aims to weaken my already fragile faith:

1) in the days related to the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we hear that Our Lord has conquered death with His Resurrection. Now, here by “victory over death” do we mainly mean the eternal one, deriving from sinners’ rejection of God’s love, or only the corporal one, which Jesus won by rising with a glorious body (glorious body that we will also have, thanks to Him, on the day of the Last Judgment)?

2) what is meant by “Glory of God”? And what is meant by “giving glory to God”? Since in the latter case, there is a temptation to think that God is so “hungry” for us to glorify Him, as if feeding a sort of “ego” of God in this way (which I know clearly to be false, because God is perfect and in Him does not exist this need or this “pride” which instead is typical of us humans, but at the same time I cannot give myself an answer to calm this doubt).

Please, forgive me for these questions which may certainly seem trivial to you, but unfortunately derive from my being “small” in faith.

Thank you in advance for your kind reply. May God fill you with every blessing for everything you do.

Priest’s answer

Dearest,

1. when it is said that Christ has conquered death, it must be read that he has conquered both spiritual and material or corporal death.

He has overcome spiritual death caused by sin.

Saint Paul teaches that Christ “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. ” (Rom 4:25).

He was resurrected to communicate to our souls the life of grace, which is a resurrection and a participation in the supernatural life of God.

2. With his resurrection, Christ also conquered the death that hit His body, that is, corporal death.

And it is a final victory because He has not risen to return to the previous life for which He would have died again, but to enter with His body into the eternal and glorious life of God.

Sacred Scripture states: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him.” (Rom 6:9).

3. This victory is the premise of the victory that as our leader will also bring about our dead body at the end of the world with the final resurrection: “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out, those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.” (Johannes 5:28-29).

In this way, you can understand what St. Paul means when he says: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26).

4. Then you ask me what the expression “Glory of God” means and what it means to give glory to God.

In Sacred Scripture, the Glory of God means God’s way of being and acting: “The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.” (Ex 14:18).

Or even the manifestation of its presence. Thus, for example: “The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud” (Ex 24:16).

Or also his nature and his divine power: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). As also at the wedding at Cana: “he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11).

5. Doing everything for the glory of God should not be understood in the sense that we can add something to God, since we totally depend on Him in being and acting. Acting for the glory of God means making God more present in us and manifest Him to others as well.

In this sense the Angels sing in the night of Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest heaven”. In fact, they make Him present on Earth.

And in this sense we also understand the expression “to work for the glory of God”, as in St. Paul: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31), that is, work for the Lord and make Him present in us and in others.

With the hope that you can do everything for the glory of God and be able to manage it according to the desire of Jesus “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” (Johannes 17:22), I will remind you to the Lord and I bless you

Father Angelo

Translated by Jolanda Beraldi