Reborn for the Kingdom of God

Join the worldwide Magnificat family by subscribing now: Your prayer life will never be the same!

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Piero della Francesca, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

If, moreover, God thinks it fitting to call them to himself, freed and cleansed from the dregs of sin, let them without hesitation and sadness go to him, with whom and through whom they also begin to reign. Nor should they fear the chariot of death, in which the very one who calls first ascended. For just as by rising he brought himself to the Father, so also, he who came down to earth without departing from heaven to summon you will bring you back before the Father by resurrection. ... Paul the Apostle speaks about what our future bodies will be like: It is sown corrupt; it will rise incorrupt. It is sown in weakness; it will rise in strength. It is sown in reproach; it will rise in glory. It is sown as a fleshly body; it will rise as a spiritual one (1 Cor 15:42-44). This incorruption, power, glory, and living spirit will make us equal to the angels of God, so that we may live with them in eternal life in one immortal and eternal homeland. In that homeland our eternal life will be Christ himself: For he is true God and life eternal (1 Jn 5:20).

Corruption will no longer have dominion over us as we live in immortality and dwell with Eternal Life himself. Nor will we need clothing, for there we will be dressed in immortality; nor will we lack food when we have the Living Bread that came all the way from heaven to earth for us. For he will satisfy our souls with his presence. Nor, with the Fountain of Life present, will we lack drink. For he will satiate us with the abundance of his house, and he will provide water for our hearts with the torrents of his delights. We will not suffer from the heat there, for our refreshment is there, the one who sheltered and shelters us under the shade of his wings. We will not suffer from the cold there, for there is where the Sun of Justice is. He it is who warms our hearts with his love and who give sight to our eyes with the rays of divinity, so that we will see the divinity and equality of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We will not get tired there, for our Strength will be with us, the one to whom we say I love you, Lord, my strength (Ps 18:2). We will not sleep there, for there is no darkness there that can blot out everlasting day. No commerce, no slavery, no labor will be there. And what are we going to do there? Perhaps what is written: Be still and see that I am the Lord (Ps 46:11). This leisure of contemplation itself will constitute our activity, so that we delight to contemplate and contemplate to see with delight. To see what? The good things of the Lord (Ps 27:13). What good things? We will be able to express what neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor arises in the heart of man (Is 64:3; 1 Cor 2:9). We will be able to explain how God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:28).