CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 3 Suppl:

• Penance (Continued)
• Extreme Unction
• Order (Holy Orders)
• Matrimony
• The General Resurrection
  • 69. The Place of Departed Souls
  • 70. Quality of a Separated Soul
  • 71. Suffrages for the Dead
  • 72. Prayers to the Saints
  • 73. Signs Preceding General Resurrection and Judgement
  • 74. The Fire of Judgment Day
  • 75. The Resurrection of the Body
  • 76. The Cause of the Resurrection of the Body
  • 77. Time and Manner of the Resurrection of the Body
  • 78. The Starting Point of the Bodily Resurrection
  • 79. The Risen Body
  • 80. The Integrity of the Risen Body
  • 81. The Quality of Those Risen from the Dead
  • 82. The Impassibility of Risen Bodies
  • 83. The Subtlety of Risen Bodies
  • 84. The Agility of Risen Bodies
  • 85. The Clarity of Risen Bodies
  • 86. The Risen Bodies of the Damned
• The Last Things
• Appendix I (The Innocents in Limbo)
• Appendix II (Two Notes on Purgatory)

82. The Impassibility of Risen Bodies

1. To be impassible is to be immune to sufferingand change.

2. The bodies of the just will not be capable of sufferingany pain whatever, nor will they ever undergo substantial change.The bodies of the damned will endure pains in hell, and hence arenot impassible; yet these bodies will not undergo substantialchange. St. Paul (I Cor. 15:42) says: "It [the body] is sownin corruption, it shall rise in in-corruption."

3. Impassibility in the risen bodies of the just does notmean numbness or insensibility. It means immunity to what iscontrary to human nature and painful to it. The risen body willhave sensation (that is, its senses will operate and bring insense-findings or sense-knowledge), and it will have movement;these things belong to the perfection of the body.

4. The senses of the risen bodies of the just will find inthe overflow of glory, which comes upon them from the soul, theircomplete and enduring perfection. The senses will be perfectly andsatisfyingly in operation, and they will possess their objects, andnot merely tend to these objects, or be in a state of readiness toperceive them.

"As the flesh is nourished by food, so is man supported by prayers"
St Augustine

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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine

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"Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director."
St Philip Neri

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