Thursday in the Sixth Week of Easter, May 29, 2025

John 16, 16-20

Jesus said to his disciples:  “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.” So some of his disciples said to one another, “What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” So they said, “What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks? We do not know what he means.” Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”  The Lord Jesus is speaking at the Last Supper and preparing his Apostles for his Death and Resurrection as well as for the time after he ascends into heaven.  He has just taught them of the Holy Spirit, who will come to them at that time.  He now returns to the subject of his departure from this world in the crucifixion.  This will take place “in a little while”.  He says, “You will no longer see me”, meaning, “as you see me now”, for after his rising from the dead he will appear to them in his glorified Body in which the wounds of his Death will be evident.  The Lord also speaks in this way to assure the Apostles that although he will go from them in death, he will not vanish forever or stop existing. And, “in a little while” they will see him again, glorified.  This also applies to the great day of judgment at the end of the world.  The Lord will return to the earth: “Behold, he comes with the clouds, and every eye shall see him: and they also that pierced him” (Revelation 1, 7).  “A little while later and you will see me.”  This can also refer to our resurrection, for on the day of judgment our souls will rejoin our bodies again and in our own glorified bodies we will see the Lord Jesus.  And, finally, these words apply to each of the saved, for the one who dies in the state of grace after a holy life will see the Lord whom each has served.

What can be said about the risen body?  We can learn about it by studying the Lord’s appearances after his Resurrection and from the teaching of the Apostles.  We know, first, that his glorified Body is no longer subject to death.  It is immortal: “Christ, rising again from the dead, dies now no more. Death shall no more have dominion over him” (Romans 6, 9).  We also know that his Body is subject neither age or suffering of any kind, for in heaven the saints, body and soul united again, are “are as the angels in heaven” (Mark 12, 25).  Next, the glorified Body of Jesus Christ possesses great beauty.  As St. Paul teaches about the risen body in general, “It is sown in dishonor: it shall rise in glory. It is sown in weakness: it shall rise in power.   It is sown a natural body: it shall rise a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15, 43-44).  St. Matthew describes the hint of his glorious Body in his account of the Transfiguration: “His face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow” (Matthew 17, 2).  The Lord appeared to the Apostles in more prosaic forms — or, he caused them to see him in these forms — but this is something like he appears in heaven to the saints and angels.

The Lord’s Body also possesses the quality which philosophers call “agility”.  That is, the Lord, united to his glorified human Body, can change his location in an instant.  Should he wish to appear on a planet at one end of the universe, he could do so in the same moment as he desired it even were he on a planet at the other end of the universe.  Thus, in Luke 24, 31, he vanished from the presence of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, and appeared again in some other place.  Another quality of the glorified body is the complete dominion of the soul over the body.  St. Paul lamented, “For, to will is present with me: but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not: but the evil which I will not, that I do” (Romans 7, 18-19).  He understood why this was: “I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me” (Romans 7, 21).  That is, our fallen human nature tends to sin.  But this will no longer be so in heaven: “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes . . . the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21, 4).  The meaning of which is that the glorified body will be entirely free of the effects of original sin.  Not only will there be no more temptation, the the saint in heaven will be completely free from anything that would hinder him from doing the will of God, in which he delights.

Lastly, among the qualities which are known, will be the capability of beholding the Beatific Vision.  The senses of the human body in its natural state are very limited in what they can detect about the world and can in no way “see” God face to face.  But the glorified body can do this.  Almighty God equips the risen body of the saint with what we might call “glorified senses” so as to see him as he is.

All these qualities the Body of the Lord possesses in heaven, and these shall come to us too if we persevere in holiness.