On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.—St. John 20:19-20.>Notice in the above passage about the Resurrection, Christ is able to walk through walls (hence, the doors being locked and yet He comes to the disciples.) But the reason we know this is not a ghost passing through the walls is precisely because St. John immediately tells us that Christ then “showed them His hands and His side.” This means that Christ’s resurrected body is physical, but it has spiritual powers he chose not to exercise before His Passion and Resurrection.>So also, our resurrected bodies will be endowed with extraordinary powers and protections in heaven. Even the new catechism has this stunning line: “From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition. On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body. It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?”—CCC 996.

Originally published in Padre Peregrino. Read original article