Everyone in heaven is dead.” That was the shocking statement made by the retreat master on a retreat I recently attended. He quickly added, “except for Jesus and Mary.”
That clued us in to the point he was making. What makes Jesus and Mary special among all the saints in heaven is that they have bodies. Jesus ascended bodily into heaven 40 days after the Resurrection, and Mary was assumed by God, body and soul, at the end of her earthly life. Our retreat master could have added Enoch and Elijah to that list, as the Old Testament records both of them being assumed bodily into heaven (see Gen 5:24 and 2 Kgs 2:11). But apart from this very select group, no one else in heaven has a body, which is why our retreat master could say, “Everyone in heaven is dead.” They are disembodied souls.
We are used to thinking of the saints as being alive, even more alive than we are here on earth; and in a sense that is true. Our Catholic faith teaches us that our souls survive death, so in that sense they are still alive. And the souls in heaven have been perfected and enjoy a union with God more complete than anything we experience here on earth. So it’s not wrong to say that they are alive. But it’s also not wrong to say they are dead, and if we skip over that point we neglect an essential aspect of our Christian faith: the resurrection.
Human beings are composite creatures. We are physical, material, mortal bodies and spiritual, immaterial, immortal souls. We are not souls that have a body or bodies that have a soul: we are both of these things together.
This is why the incarnation is so important. God did not simply communicate grace directly to our soul, but He took on a body like ours and suffered bodily death. He rose bodily from the grave and ascended bodily into heaven. Christ gave sacraments as ways to convey the grace of God to us in ways we can see and touch and taste. God made us body and soul and He redeems us body and soul.
When a human body and a human soul separate, we call that death. When the body is so damaged by illness or injury that it is no longer capable of giving expression to the soul, the soul leaves the body and the body dies but our soul lives on. After death, the Church teaches that we each face our particular judgment.
We will know at that time whether we will spend eternity separated from God in hell or united in God’s friendship in heaven, perhaps after first undergoing additional purification in purgatory.
But wherever we spend eternity, God did not make us to be disembodied souls – not even disembodied souls in heaven. A ghost – even a ghost in heaven – is not a full human being. It may be a happy ghost, a blissful ghost, even a holy ghost, but it is still a ghost. That means everyone in heaven is still dead because they still await the resurrection of their bodies (except for Jesus, Mary, Enoch and Elijah).
The hope of that glorious day to come is what separated the two largest Jewish sects in ancient times, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection and the Sadducees didn’t (that’s what made them sad, you see). That’s why the Sadducees ask Jesus ridiculous questions about the fate of widows who consecutively marry seven brothers (see Lk 20:27-38). They are trying to set Jesus up by ridiculing the idea of the resurrection.
Most Jews, like Martha of Bethany, believed in the resurrection. That’s why when Jesus told Martha that her brother Lazarus would rise from the dead, Martha replied with, “I know he will rise with everyone else on the last day” (Jn 11:24). Jesus revealed that her hope was closer than she realized when He said, “I am the resurrection” (Jn 11:25); a claim He proved by Himself rising from the tomb as the first fruits of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:20).
A major difference between Christians and pagans is the hope of the resurrection. The best the ancient pagans could hope for was a happy death somewhere in the pleasant fields of Elysium. But the Christian hope is more than a happy death. It is to conquer death.
The ancient Gnostics considered the soul to be the real person and the body just a shell. Salvation for them meant liberation from the body. Many in our culture – including professing Christians – seem to have adopted this same attitude. That’s why it’s important for us to not forget the final words of our Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” Our life’s end as Christians is not to die in a state of grace and go to heaven. As wonderful as that is, it’s an intermediate phase. We are meant to be more than happy ghosts. Our end is to be human beings fully alive, body and soul, reigning with Christ forever in the new Jerusalem.
On that great and final day, the last enemy to be conquered will be death (1 Cor 15:26). Christ will hand everything He has won over to the Father, and Death and Sheol (or Hades) will give up their dead for the final judgment (Rev 20:13). As Jesus describes it, “those in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation” (Jn 5:29). This is the general resurrection and the final judgment after which the universe itself will experience death and resurrection. There will be a new heaven and new earth where God will dwell with the human race and there will be no more tears, no more mourning, no more pain, and – most importantly – no more death (see Rev 21:1-3).
This is our faith. This is our hope; not for a happy death, but for eternal life. Let us pray for the hastening of that glorious and blessed day.
Deacon Matthew Newsome is the Catholic campus minister at Western Carolina University and the regional faith formation coordinator for the Smoky Mountain Vicariate.