The Greatest Sign: the Resurrection
Friends in Christ, today, Jesus is asked for more proof of who he is. ‘We wish to see a sign from you,’ they said. Our Lord worked thousands of cures, raised at least two people from the dead, walked on water, multiplied loaves and fishes, and turned water into wine – all these signs, yet those who have hardened their heart to the gospel demand more signs. Always more signs. They had no Faith.
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The Lord says, an evil generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except? Except the sign of Jonah. Our Lord is saying, ‘you’ve seen many, many signs already, yet the most glorious miracle you will also reject. What is the most glorious miracle? The resurrection.
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‘As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth.’ The greatest miracle of Christ is the resurrection, foretold in figure, by Jonah. His resurrection did two things: First, it proved that he is God, for only God can raise himself form the dead. And second, it shows us our own destiny. Follow me in this short life, Jesus says, and you too will rise from the dead, in a beautiful and glorified body. Not as some kind of floating disembodied soul, but in the resurrected body.
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This is the greatest hope of Christians. The Church teaches right in the Catechism, that the earth will be totally renewed in the next world. This is why we call heaven, Paradise.
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Our glorified body will have agility – this means that if we wish to go to another part of that great Paradise, our will, will bring us there.
Our Body will be youthful no doubt – Present defects in our body, or weakness from age will be gone in that world. I know a young man with MS; I said, ‘Well, you won’t have MS in the resurrection!’ No defects will remain.
And best of all, we will be in the Eternal Presence of God and Mary and the saints.
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What will time be, in heaven? If we think of lovers, lost in their gaze at the other; seeing the time they often say something like: ‘Where’d the time go?!
Happiness makes time fly. It will be something like this in heaven.
