Will we retain Wounds we have had after Resurrection?

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I have as well, and never really thought about the issue of recognition in Heaven. I had basically just wanted to know why that one person would think that Catholics would have this recognition of certain others, whereas he/she envisioned that protestants would be strangers in Heaven.

I’m certain that meeting others who are new to us won’t be any more of an issue in Heaven than it is here on earth, and I agree that our Lord will handle the introductions. We’ll have a joyful reunion with loved ones, and have a wonderful time getting to know others we haven’t yet met there.
 
I have as well, and never really thought about the issue of recognition in Heaven. I had basically just wanted to know why that one person would think that Catholics would have this recognition of certain others, whereas he/she envisioned that protestants would basically be strangers.

I’m certain that meeting others who are new to us won’t be any more of an issue in Heaven than it is here on earth, and I agree that our Lord will handle the introductions. We’ll have a joyful reunion with loved ones, and have a wonderful time getting to know others we haven’t yet met there.
If i may interject here, I suspect from reading the earlier post, that the person was being a bit tongue in cheek. Yes I suspect that there is a bit of min-understanding about how protestants view “saints”, but I don’t think he/she was trying to be overly serious in the remark.

Obviously when we get to heaven, we will have been perfected in Christ and so we will instictively recognize everyone else there. I can’t see recognition being an issue in any sense.

peace
James

Peace
James
 
Yes, he or she was probably being tongue-in-cheek. My comment had nothing to do with whatever the intent of that post was, really.

Having been Protestant once, that sudden comment about protestants being strangers in Heaven just seemed quite jarring as I read it. That’s really the only reason I pointed this out to the poster.

Peace to you as well, James :).
 
Yes, he or she was probably being tongue-in-cheek. My comment had nothing to do with whatever the intent of that post was, really.

Having been Protestant once, that sudden comment about protestants being strangers in Heaven just seemed quite jarring as I read it. That’s really the only reason I pointed this out to the poster.

Peace to you as well, James :).
Agreed. I could be seen that way.
One thing that these boards constatnly remind me of is how blessed we are to have the oral tradition of the Church. Not just the written words, but the emphasis and inflection that comes from oral speaking.
If we take that statement about protestants being strangers in heaven, we can easily see how reading it out loud in different ways can completely change the intent/meaning. One inflection makes it an insult, and another inflection makes it a joke. Add to that the difference it would make if the person were sitting with us and we could see his face as he made the remark. There is so much that just cannot be easily communicated by the written word. Thank you Lord for the Holy Tradition of the Catholic Church.

Peace
James
 
I think it’s more just one of those things that isn’t funny or kind as a joke. That’s all. So it wasn’t really about the inflection (joking or serious) :).

But I’ll join in your thanks to our Lord for Holy Tradition of the Catholic Church.
 
What is the point of bodies in heaven when there is not going to be reproduction there?
 
Which body? The one we had when we died? The one we had when we were a child? The arthritic body? The body with the congenital deformity? In heaven, our earthly bodies will no longer be; rather we will be distilled to the immortal part of us that is in communion with God, our souls. Will we be recognizable? Will we recognize others? I believe so, because we will retain our individuality, but all that is mortal will be removed, and what remains will be perfected.

After the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples and in several of those instances they did not physically recognize Him, but their souls did - “were not our hearts burning within us?”. That is how it will be for us - it will not be a physical recognition but our souls reaching out to one another in pure love within the cradle of the Lord.
 
What is the point of bodies in heaven when there is not going to be reproduction there?
Who said bodies were only for reproduction?

Arguably, reproduction is to provide a body for a new being; a body is for being alive, seeing, smelling, moving, etc. Even thought requires a body; your head is part of your body.

ICXC NIKA.
 
Which body? The one we had when we died? The one we had when we were a child? The arthritic body? The body with the congenital deformity? In heaven, our earthly bodies will no longer be; rather we will be distilled to the immortal part of us that is in communion with God, our souls. Will we be recognizable? Will we recognize others? I believe so, because we will retain our individuality, but all that is mortal will be removed, and what remains will be perfected.

After the resurrection Jesus appeared to the disciples and in several of those instances they did not physically recognize Him, but their souls did - “were not our hearts burning within us?”. That is how it will be for us - it will not be a physical recognition but our souls reaching out to one another in pure love within the cradle of the Lord.
He still had a body; the tomb was empty. Resurrection is not meningful unless you have a body. Bodies lie down, and it is as BODIES that we rise again.

Birth defects, ageing, et al are all part of being born into a flawed world. But God will get the best of each stage in forming your perfected body. You can’t have life without body.
 
If you need a body for life, then how do you explain the Holy Spirit not having one?
 
If you need a body for life, then how do you explain the Holy Spirit not having one?
Let me see if I can try to explain this. It will be elementary as I am not all that great at actually explaining things. :o And don’t forget that we can only comprehend God in mere human terms. He is so much more than that. This is my view, or take, on how I view God.

Remember that God is three in one. God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, Jesus Christ. God came to earth as Jesus Christ, so I would venture to guess that Jesus is the bodily… uhm… “form” of the Holy Spirit. Since they are all one, but separate.

Okay, Catholic apologists. I probably made a fool of myself but I’m trying. Correct me here where I am wrong. :confused:
 
He still had a body; the tomb was empty. Resurrection is not meningful unless you have a body. Bodies lie down, and it is as BODIES that we rise again.

Birth defects, ageing, et al are all part of being born into a flawed world. But God will get the best of each stage in forming your perfected body. You can’t have life without body.
Jesus’ body, His appearance after He was raised, was very, very different from His body before He died.

Why does resurrection require a human body? Why can’t you have life in heaven without a physical body? Why would we want it, and why would God want us to have it? Our earthly form is subject to pain, to pride, to shame, to degeneration. Why would we want to be reminded of that into internity? That makes no sense at all.

We will leave this earth behind and we will leave our earthly form behind. We will no longer need it. Our NEW bodies will have no resemblance to our current bodies as we (meaning the part of us that will ascend to heaven) will be wrapped in the Spririt and be transformed to a higher existence.

I think we have a problem separating ourselves from the ties we have to our mortal existence, and have a difficult time conceiving of how we could be alive without our bodies. But Jesus existed before He became a man, as we supposedly did as well. As do the angels in Heaven now, and all of that without human form.
 
Ah, speculation is fun, isn’t it?

This question came up in our bible study a few months back. The accepted answer went something like this:
When we enter into the great feast of Heaven, we will be given new bodies, which will be somehow similar to ours here on earth. They will be free from blemishes, beautiful to behold, perfected. However, there will be one, only one, who carries scars. They are the honor marks, reserved to remind us of the great price paid for our salvation and of the wondrous love of God.
After time to reflect, and hearing others’ thoughts, I would add a few things to that thought:
  • Jesus could be recognized sometimes by his disciples, and sometimes not. Perhaps the martyrs will be able to display their wounds at times, as St. Paul tells us that some will have crowns.
  • When the faithful have received their new bodies, they will not be the ones they left on earth. The vast majority of those bodies will have long since decayed, as the rest of the world will one day. The Lord provides new bodies for them. However, Jesus, when rising from the tomb, took up his own body. He has the power to perfect the body he had at the time and did not need someone to fashion a new one for him. In that case, he chose to retain those wounds, presumably for more of a purpose than convincing St. Thomas.
Just a few thoughts…
 
Jesus’ body, His appearance after He was raised, was very, very different from His body before He died.
And yet he retained the wounds of His Passion.
Why does resurrection require a human body? Why can’t you have life in heaven without a physical body? Why would we want it, and why would God want us to have it? Our earthly form is subject to pain, to pride, to shame, to degeneration. Why would we want to be reminded of that into internity? That makes no sense at all.
We will leave this earth behind and we will leave our earthly form behind. We will no longer need it. Our NEW bodies will have no resemblance to our current bodies as we (meaning the part of us that will ascend to heaven) will be wrapped in the Spririt and be transformed to a higher existence.
I think we have a problem separating ourselves from the ties we have to our mortal existence, and have a difficult time conceiving of how we could be alive without our bodies. But Jesus existed before He became a man, as we supposedly did as well. As do the angels in Heaven now, and all of that without human form.
The main reason we believe in the Resurrection of the Body is because God said so. It is a part of the Creed, “…We believe in the resurrection of the body…”
Perhaps this section of the catachism will help the discusion.

**“I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY” **
990 The term “flesh” refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. The “resurrection of the flesh” (the literal formulation of the Apostles’ Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our “mortal body” will come to life again.
997 What is “rising”? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.
998 Who will rise? All the dead will rise, “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”; but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, “all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear,” but Christ “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body,” into a “spiritual body”:
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel. . . . What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . The dead will be raised imperishable. . . . For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.
1000 This “how” exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ’s transfiguration of our bodies:
Just as bread that comes from the earth, after God’s blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection.
1001 When? Definitively “at the last day,” "at the end of the world."557 Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ’s Parousia:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Peace
James
 
To clarify chaunceygardner’s post…

Jesus’ body when resurrected was the same body when he died. Only transformed from being a corruptible body to an incorruptible one. Didn’t mean that the old banished and he had a new one - meaning two different bodies.

He retained his wounds and memories. So being ‘brain-dead’ did not affect his memory after resurrected. There was no lapse.

For us… maybe we’ll clothed with new bodies and we’ll get our memories back and be able to think back of our deeds - good and bad. (because maybe they’re written in our souls ‘that animate our bodies’ not just pulses from neurons inside our brains) so that we’ll be able to recognize others and understand and not complain when we receive our final judgment - a reward or a condemnation.
But for us who repented and lived in obedience… we have a hope of Him to “… not remember our sins no more”. 👍

Yup! Speculating is fun. I’m hoping we’re still under the radar of our beloved CC. 😃
God bless everyone…
 
This thought occurred to me the other day and I wanted to get other opinions.

When Jesus Rose from the Dead he retained his wounds. After all Thomas put his fingers and hand into them. This got me thinking.

At resurrection will we also retain our “wounds” like missing organs (appendix or tonsils)?
What about a person killed violently with grave wounds?
What about someone who was “blown to smithereens” in war?

What is the common understanding of this at resurrection?
Will we rise as we are (or aren’t) or will we rise completely healed?

Peace
James
HI James,

I’ve supposed that when we rise we will be as perfect as Our Creator had originally intended us to be. Any detraction from that divine intention will have occurred as result of evil – moral evil or physical evil. With the banishment of all evil we’ll be supernaturally perfect. Seems entirely logical but I haven’t the faintest idea what such a blissful state of affairs might actually look like.

A thought that occurs to me is that Christ ascended physically into heaven. According to the Nicene Creed He sits at the right hand of the Father. I recall, too, that the first martyr, Saint Stephen, declared just before he was murdered that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So I’ve imagined that Saint Stephen’s physical body would have become inert as he died a physical death but somehow at that very same moment he would have been welcomed into paradise by Christ Himself who had just stood up to receive him. I don’t know how such a thing is possible. Bilocation, maybe? Some believe that it worked for Padre Pio. With God all things are possible.

Another thought that comes to me is that at the Transfiguration, Christ’s face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light. Evidently Moses and Elijah were physically present on the mountain and they were able to talk. I guess they were wearing clothes? Will we be wearing clothes in heaven? Elijah was taken up to heaven within a whirlwind in a chariot of fire by horses of fire but Moses died a physical death and was buried in the ground. So how was it that Moses appeared at the Transfiguration with a physical body talking with Christ when Moses had died at least a thousand years earlier and had been buried in the ground at Moab – although I have sometimes wondered how come the location of Moses’ grave faded from the collective Jewish memory. And that thought takes me on to wondering how Moses and Elijah were even identified at the Transfiguration. Did either or both have some physical characteristics that made it obvious who they were? After all, Peter, James, and John could have had no clue as to what Moses or Elijah actually looked like. It seems unlikely that they would have been wearing nametags so I guess Christ told the inner three afterward as they descended the mountain?

In conclusion, then, I’ve absolutely no idea where I’m going with these trains of thought since I’ve pretty much no idea what I’m talking about. 🙂

Peace,
Mick
👍
 
HI James,

I’ve supposed that when we rise we will be as perfect as Our Creator had originally intended us to be. Any detraction from that divine intention will have occurred as result of evil – moral evil or physical evil. With the banishment of all evil we’ll be supernaturally perfect. Seems entirely logical but I haven’t the faintest idea what such a blissful state of affairs might actually look like.

A thought that occurs to me is that Christ ascended physically into heaven. According to the Nicene Creed He sits at the right hand of the Father. I recall, too, that the first martyr, Saint Stephen, declared just before he was murdered that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So I’ve imagined that Saint Stephen’s physical body would have become inert as he died a physical death but somehow at that very same moment he would have been welcomed into paradise by Christ Himself who had just stood up to receive him. I don’t know how such a thing is possible. Bilocation, maybe? Some believe that it worked for Padre Pio. With God all things are possible.

Another thought that comes to me is that at the Transfiguration, Christ’s face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light. Evidently Moses and Elijah were physically present on the mountain and they were able to talk. I guess they were wearing clothes? Will we be wearing clothes in heaven? Elijah was taken up to heaven within a whirlwind in a chariot of fire by horses of fire but Moses died a physical death and was buried in the ground. So how was it that Moses appeared at the Transfiguration with a physical body talking with Christ when Moses had died at least a thousand years earlier and had been buried in the ground at Moab – although I have sometimes wondered how come the location of Moses’ grave faded from the collective Jewish memory. And that thought takes me on to wondering how Moses and Elijah were even identified at the Transfiguration. Did either or both have some physical characteristics that made it obvious who they were? After all, Peter, James, and John could have had no clue as to what Moses or Elijah actually looked like. It seems unlikely that they would have been wearing nametags so I guess Christ told the inner three afterward as they descended the mountain?

In conclusion, then, I’ve absolutely no idea where I’m going with these trains of thought since I’ve pretty much no idea what I’m talking about. 🙂

Peace,
Mick
👍
You may not always know what you are talking about, but you always say it so well…😃

Peace
James
 
To clarify chaunceygardner’s post…

Jesus’ body when resurrected was the same body when he died. Only transformed from being a corruptible body to an incorruptible one. Didn’t mean that the old banished and he had a new one - meaning two different bodies.

He retained his wounds and memories. So being ‘brain-dead’ did not affect his memory after resurrected. There was no lapse.

For us… maybe we’ll clothed with new bodies and we’ll get our memories back and be able to think back of our deeds - good and bad. (because maybe they’re written in our souls ‘that animate our bodies’ not just pulses from neurons inside our brains) so that we’ll be able to recognize others and understand and not complain when we receive our final judgment - a reward or a condemnation.
But for us who repented and lived in obedience… we have a hope of Him to “… not remember our sins no more”. 👍

Yup! Speculating is fun. I’m hoping we’re still under the radar of our beloved CC. 😃
God bless everyone…
Thanks for clarifying my post. However, I would dispute one point, that Jesus’s body after His resurrection was the same as before. It may have appeared the same in some ways, but several times the disciples who saw Him often did not recognize Him or noted a “difference”. After His resurrection, Jesus could also appear suddenly inside locked rooms, or to people in different places within a short period of time. So, no, His resurrected body was clearly not the same as His pre-death, human body.

JKRH quotes from the catcheism. Note that it points out that we will have a glorified body, not the body we had during our human existence. Also, consider what Paul said in 1 Corinthians (emphasis added):

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible.
It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one…
This I declare, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

Perhaps it is just semantics and the difficulty in understanding and agreeing on what this all means. We will all find out the answer in God’s time.
 
The bible tells us that our Lord Jesus has laid down his life and had the power to take it back again. He is the author of life, He has the power over death. Before father Abraham was He is.🙂

All that was created was by Him. He is the master of the universe. The master of all elements - known and unknown to human. There is ONLY ONE BEGOTTEN SON of the Father - none other. Like I previously said… He transformed his old body to a glorified one. What elements his glorified body is made up we don’t know. But He was recognizable to the apostles especially the doubting Thomas. He even (actually?) ate with them… so what does that tell you? Does his new body need nutrients from the food still? Then He appears and disappears… walking through closed doors and walls. No longer bounded by science. Just simply amazing!!! 👍

I do not read well. Construction is my field. But I am eager to read answers to these question posed by the OP. Although mostly speculative, they’re interesting.🙂
 
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