CFS-WB-CH18

and the miracles done in the name of Jesus through the intercession
of His mother Mary and the saints, none of which can be explained
without the Resurrection. Considering all this evidence, we can be confident
in Christ’s Resurrection. The more confident we are in Jesus’
Resurrection, the more confident we can be about our own resurrection.
And the more confident we are about our own resurrection, the
better we will be able to respond when we experience suffering in this
life.
What do we mean by our own resurrection? In 1 Corinthians 15, St.
Paul went on to express the unique Christian belief in the resurrection
of the dead: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the
first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came
death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as
in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (20–22). We
express belief in the resurrection of the dead every time we profess our
faith at Mass: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life
of the world to come.” This means that we believe and hope that just as
Jesus rose from the dead and now lives forever, so, too, will we rise again
when He returns in glory, and live forever, in body and soul, with Him.
Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of
the Christian faith from the beginning but has always faced opposition
and misunderstanding. While many people will accept that the soul lives
In his epistles, St. Paul
expresses the uniquely
Christian belief in the
resurrection of the dead.
St. Paul, by El Greco.
© Sophia Institute for Teachers
Unit 7, Chapter 18: The Christian Understanding of Suffering
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