 | Father Richard James Cleary was born and reared in Wichita. After graduation from Cathedral High School in 1947, he attended the seminary operated by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey in Northwestern Missouri. There he came to appreciate the life of the monks and, having obtained the permission of Bishop Mark Carroll of Wichita, he became a monk of that monastery. After being ordained a priest in 1955, his superiors sent him to get his master’s degree at the University of Ottawa, Canada, then to study in Athens, Greece, and then in Rome, Italy, where he obtained his doctor’s degree in Theology. Finally, he spent a year of study at Harvard University. Later, Fr. Cleary was assigned to teach for many years in Rome. In 1998, he returned to Wichita, where he served in parish ministry at St. Mary’s Cathedral and at Blessed Sacrament parishes. In 2001, his abbot (superior) transferred him to Arkansas, where he served as chaplain of the Benedictine Sisters of Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro, and helped in the parishes of northeast Arkansas. In March 2010, he was re-assigned to his monastery, Conception Abbey, Conception, in Missouri 64433. He can be contacted there at, 660-944-2877, or by email: rjcleary@juno.com. |
Religion
2007-09-01 09:59:00
Do some of the saints have to die a natural death again?
Question: I have always thought that until the Last Judgment, only the souls are in Heaven, and following the Last Judgment, the souls of all will be reunited with their bodies. But in the Gospel of Matthew 27:52-53, we read that , at the moment of Jesus’ death, “the graves opened, and many bodies of saints who had died, were raised to life. After Jesus’ resurrection they came forth from their tombs, and entered the holy and appeared to many persons. What happened to them after this event?
Did they have to die a natural death again? Were their souls and bodies reunited and then entered Heaven?
Answer: Here we are dealing with a fascinating detail from the Gospel, about which we have no further information. This strange incident is told only in Matthew’s Gospel. We are not told what happened to the saints between our Lord’s death and his resurrection, nor what happened to them afterwards. Possibly their graves remained empty, and they were translated into heaven when Jesus ascended. The fact that graves were opened is a symbol declaring that Jesus conquered death. In dying and in rising again he destroyed the ultimate power of the grave. The grave has lost its power, and death has lost its tragedy, because neither is absolute and eternal. Just as Jesus lives after death, so we too shall live again after death! The Creed concludes with this definitive statement: “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.”
The prophet Elijah ascended into heaven without having died (cf 2 Kings 2:11). Jesus raised from the dead the son of the widow of Naim (Luke 7:15), and the daughter of Jairus (cf Luke 8:55), and also his friend Lazarus (cf John 11:43-44). The saints too, whose souls were reunited to their bodies at the time of Jesus’ death, are obliged by the universal law of dying. Certainly, God can dispense them from that law. But then, having never died, Elijah and Lazarus would be lacking in some degree their resemblance to Jesus, the exemplar of perfection, who underwent death. Accordingly, it is most probable that Elijah and Lazarus experienced natural death in some manner unknown to us. Those other saints mentioned above had already undergone death and resurrection. Therefore, as I said, they could have accompanied Jesus in his Ascension right into heaven.
However, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, along with some earlier Christian writers, offered as their opinion that these saints experienced only a temporary resurrection, and then died again and their bodies corrupted naturally: so that they will rise again, their souls and bodies reunited, along with all human beings, at the Last Judgment and final resurrection. The Church has not and will not decide the issue of this question; so it remains open for speculation.
