What Does It Mean to be Resurrected?

Gospel Reflection for March 22, 2026, Passion Sunday - John 11:1-45

1 Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister.

2 (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.)

3 His sisters therefore sent to him, saying: Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

4 And Jesus hearing it, said to them: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God: that the Son of God may be glorified by it.

5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus.

6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he still remained in the same place two days.

7 Then after that, he said to his disciples: Let us go into Judea again.

8 The disciples say to him: Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee: and goest thou thither again?

9 Jesus answered: Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world:

10 But if he walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him.

11 These things he said; and after that he said to them: Lazarus our friend sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.

12 His disciples therefore said: Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.

13 But Jesus spoke of his death; and they thought that he spoke of the repose of sleep.

14 Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead.

15 And I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe: but let us go to him.

16 Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him.

17 Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave.

18 (Now Bethania was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off.)

19 And many of the Jews were come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.

20 Martha therefore, as soon as she heard that Jesus had come, went to meet him: but Mary sat at home.

21 Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

22 But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

23 Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again.

24 Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day.

25 Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live:

26 And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this?

27 She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who art come into this world.

28 And when she had said these things, she went, and called her sister Mary secretly, saying: The master is come, and calleth for thee.

29 She, as soon as she heard this, riseth quickly, and cometh to him.

30 For Jesus was not yet come into the town: but he was still in that place where Martha had met him.

31 The Jews therefore, who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she rose up speedily and went out, followed her, saying: She goeth to the grave to weep there.

32 When Mary therefore was come where Jesus was, seeing him, she fell down at his feet, and saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

33 Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews that were come with her, weeping, groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself,

34 And said: Where have you laid him? They say to him: Lord, come and see.

35 And Jesus wept.

36 The Jews therefore said: Behold how he loved him.

37 But some of them said: Could not he that opened the eyes of the man born blind, have caused that this man should not die?

38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the sepulchre. Now it was a cave; and a stone was laid over it.

39 Jesus saith: Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith to him: Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days.

40 Jesus saith to her: Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?

41 They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifting up his eyes said: Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast heard me.

42 And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

43 When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth.

44 And presently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: Loose him, and let him go.

45 Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in him. (John 11:1-45 DRA)

Appropriately, as we enter Passiontide and grow ever closer to the sorrows of Holy Week and the joy of Easter, this fifth Sunday of Lent focuses on the resurrection of the dead in each of the readings. But a question that is very important but rarely asked is: what exactly does it mean to be resurrected? Our Lord tells Martha that He is the resurrection and the life, but when Lazarus is brought back from the dead, he is not the same as Christ in His Resurrection – he will still suffer and ultimately die again.

This is also not how the saints will be when we are resurrected in the End Times, when we will be remade in the image of the resurrected Christ, whom for this reason St. Paul calls “the firstfruits of them that sleep”. (1 Cor 15:20) So what will the resurrection be like?

The clearest and most thorough theological answer to this question in history comes from the Angelic Doctor himself, St. Thomas Aquinas, drawing from and synthesizing Aristotle, Scripture and the Church Fathers. Based on the Old Testament (Dan 12:2, 2 Mac 7:14) and New Testament (Jn 5:29), St. Thomas taught that there will be a general resurrection, when all will be returned to their bodies, but there is one resurrection unto life for the just and one resurrection unto death for the damned.

All the resurrected will share certain qualities:

1. The same numerically identical body that they possessed in life (not a new body).

2. Perfect integrity and wholeness of the body: the correction of all defects, injuries, etc.

3. Incorruptibility: immunity from death, decay and dissolution.

But the blessed will also receive four gifts (dotes) which, like the transfigured and resurrected Body of Christ, will show forth the refulgence of divine glory in their souls through their participation in the Beatific Vision, which the saints already enjoy in Heaven even now:

1. Impassibility (impassibilitas)

The resurrected body will be impassible, i.e. immune to all suffering, pain, injury, sickness or harm.

2. Subtlety (subtilitas)

The resurrected body will be subtle and spiritualized, still remaining truly physical but perfectly subjected to the spirit, without the rebellion of concupiscence or the resistance of material limitations (hence why Christ could walk through locked doors, conceal His identity, etc. when He was resurrected).

3. Agility (agilitas)

The resurrected body, now spiritualized, can move instantaneously from one point in the material cosmos to another, just like angels, except that we will remain fully incarnate humans. The body will respond obediently to the will and nothing in Creation will hinder us.

4. Clarity (claritas)

Finally, like the Body of Christ at the Transfiguration (but intentionally concealed most of the time when He was resurrected), the resurrected body will shine from within with the participated glory of God. This is why Christ miraculously produced the Shroud of Turin: the glory of God imprinted His very likeness onto the cloth like a photographic negative at His Resurrection.

Although all the blessed will possess these qualities, they will vary in intensity by the hierarchy of holiness in the saints, so that the greatest saints, most of all the Blessed Virgin Mary who already enjoys this resurrection, will be the most impassible, subtle, agile and glorified. But the damned, even though they will also be resurrected, will still be very capable of suffering.

This hope which Our Lord gave to Martha and Mary is the same hope that enabled the Maccabees, particularly the mother and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7, to endure the most horrific torments of King Antiochus, previewing the heroic sufferings of martyrs in later centuries. This hope inspired one of her sons, at the very end of his tortures, to exclaim, “Thou indeed, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life: but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for his laws, in the resurrection of eternal life.” (2 Mac 7:9) And it gave the mother, even while witnessing the brutal murders of all her sons before her very eyes, the courage to say to them,

I know not how you were formed in my womb: for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws. (2 Mac 7:22-23)

But Our Lord also told Martha that those who believe in Him will never die, and indeed are already resurrected. How can this be? Christ was making an important point, once summarized by St. Augustine in his Tractates on the Gospel of John:

There are two resurrections: one of the soul, the other of the body. The resurrection of the soul takes place now; the resurrection of the body will take place at the end... The resurrection of the soul is by faith. The resurrection of the body will be at the last day.

Even now, the souls of the baptized are already resurrected, infused with divine life through sanctifying grace. We await only the resurrection of the body, which we will receive when Christ returns. But will we preserve this newness of life in our souls and thus receive resurrection unto eternal life? Or will we kill God in our souls through sin, and thus receive the resurrection of the damned unto eternal death?

This is the choice that lies before each one of us this Passiontide.

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