325. Wounds in the resurrection body
325. WOUNDS IN THE RESURRECTION BODY
A number of saints and visionaries have seen the blessed in Heaven, especially those who were tortured and martyred, with their wounds, as they are pictured in traditional Christian art. Is this a projection of culturally conditioned prejudices? Or is it prophetic?
We seem to have a dilemma here. On the one hand, all bodies in Heaven are supposed to be perfect, and wounds are imperfections. On the other hand, Christ’s resurrection body, which is the only certain example we have of a resurrected body and which certainly must be a perfect one, still had its wounds, which “Doubting Thomas” touched (Jn 20:27).
On the one hand, Mother Teresa’s wrinkles were obviously cosmetic imperfections, but from a deeper point of view they added to her beauty and glory, in fact they were not imperfections but perfections because they were caused by love and wisdom, and they manifested and radiated that love and wisdom. Will she still have them in Heaven, like badges of honorable warfare, things for which to rejoice after the costly victory is achieved?
Are there two kinds of wounds, some of which will be removed and others of which will not?
The scars or wounds will not be in the saints, nor were they in Christ, in so far as they imply a defect, but as signs of the most steadfast virtue whereby the saints suffered for the sake of justice and faith, so that this will increase their own and others’ joy. Hence Augustine says: We feel an indescribable love for the blessed martyrs so as to desire to see in that kingdom the scars of the wounds in their bodies which they bore for Christ’s name. Perchance indeed we shall see them, for this will not make them less comely but more glorious. A certain beauty will shine through them, a beauty though in the body, yet not of the body but of virtue.
Nevertheless those martyrs who have been maimed and deprived of their limbs will not be without those limbs in the resurrection of the dead, for to them it is said (Lk 21:18) A hair of your head shall not perish (S82,1).
The answer to the long question above is yes to all its parts. And Heaven will resolve the apparent dilemma between the parts. But even now we can partly understand the resolution, if we are wise, when we compare the cosmetically perfect but vapid and empty face of a callow, egotistical movie star with the beauty of Mother Teresa’s love-wrinkles. We can actually see in this world, with our eyes (if the eyes of the head line up with the eyes of the heart) a foretaste of the kind of beauty St. Thomas ascribes to the Heavenly bodies.
Notice also how St. Thomas makes Scripture come alive, not by taking it less seriously, as mere metaphor or exaggeration, but by taking it more seriously. Nothing good will perish in Heaven, not even a literal hair.