Friday, December 1, 2006

Life and death and life

I've got a toothache today. it's not a bad toothache, though it's probably an indication that the tooth will soon have to come out. Its another sign of age, of the rot of that feeble edifice that is my body. Created by God not to last through eternity, but only for a very short human lifetime.
And then what? I can look forward to the slow decline of life, or perhaps the unexpected extinction of life too short. And then death. But if I die in a state of grace, thanks to the salvation given to me by my Lord, given and not earned, for nothing I can do can effect my Salvation except through the Grace of God, I will eventually go to my God.
I will exist only as spirit, but that will not be my final state, because I have a promise:
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; --John 6:54
and
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. --Rev 21:1
"We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess" (Council of Lyons II: DS 854). We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a "spiritual body" (cf. 1 Cor 15:42-44). --CCC 1017
So someday I can look forward to a new body, with good teeth.

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