by
Damien F. Mackey
At the beginning of my:
Resurrection and the
Shroud: ‘a New Dimension’, ‘a New Science’.
I wrote:
Reading through, this Lent
and Easter,
by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,
I was struck by his marvellous
discussion of
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ –
“a divine action in history and nature
that changed history and nature in a
radical way”.
This subject
of the Lord’s Resurrection is treated in some detail by Josef Ratzinger in his
controversial Chapter 9.
The Rev.
Donald Sanborn, who has caustically criticised the pope’s book, has lined up
this particular chapter for his main frontal attack. “The principal error, indeed heresy, of this book is [Ratzinger’s]
denial of the Resurrection of Christ” (Modernism Resurrected: Benedict XVI
on the Resurrection). http://www.traditionalmass.org/images/articles/RazResArt.pdf
.... Now someone might say that I am going too far
in this accusation, since Ratzinger professes belief in the Resurrection of
Christ. I respond that Ratzinger believes something about the Resurrection of
Christ, but that he does not believe in the Catholic dogma of the Resurrection.
For in order that we qualify as Catholics, it is necessary that we accept the
dogmas of the Catholic Church according to the same sense in which the Church
has always understood them.
Sanborn then goes on to test whether “Ratzinger [does] profess belief in
the Resurrection in the sense that the Church originally held it”, before
concluding emphatically that he doesn’t.
But one always needs to read most attentively what
Josef Ratzinger actually writes.
Let us firstly, though, refresh our minds on what
the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say on the matter of the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ:
- The Historical and Transcendent Event
639
The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a
real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New
Testament bears witness. In about a.d. 56, St. Paul could already write to
the Corinthians: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance
with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the Twelve
…" [I Cor 15:3-4]. The Apostle speaks here of the living
tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the
gates of Damascus. … [Cf. Acts 9:3-18].
The empty tomb
640
"Why do you seek the living among the dead?
He is not here, but has risen." …. [Lk 24:5-6]. The first element
we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself
it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ's body from the
tomb could be explained otherwise. … [Cf. Jn 20:13; Mt 28:11-15].
Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery
by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the
Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women, and then with
Peter. … [Cf. Lk 24:3, 12, 22-23]. The disciple "whom Jesus
loved" affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and discovered
"the linen cloths lying there," "he saw and believed." … [Jn
20:2, 6, 8].
This suggests that he realized from the empty
tomb's condition that the absence of Jesus' body could not have been of human
doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the
case with Lazarus. … [Cf. Jn 11:44; 20:5-7].
The appearances of the Risen
One
641 Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to
finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the
Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the
Risen One. … [Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1; Jn 19:31, 42]. Thus the
women were the first messengers of Christ's Resurrection for the apostles
themselves… [Cf. Lk 24:9-10; Mt 28:9-10; Jn 20:11-18].
They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter
had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers … [Cf. I Cor
15:5; Lk 22:31-32], and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the
basis of his testimony that the community exclaims: "The Lord has risen
indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" … [Lk 24:34, 36].
642
Everything that
happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles - and Peter in
particular - in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As
witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church.
The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of
concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among
them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his
Resurrection," but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of
more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and
also of James and of all the apostles…. [I Cor 15:4-8; cf. Acts
1:22].
643 Given all these
testimonies, Christ's Resurrection cannot be interpreted as something outside
the physical order, and it is impossible not to acknowledge it as an historical
fact. It is clear from the facts that the disciples' faith was drastically put
to the test by their master's Passion and death on the cross, which he had
foretold. … [Cf. Lk 22:31-32]. The shock provoked by the Passion was so
great that at least some of the disciples did not at once believe in the news
of the Resurrection. Far from showing us a community seized by a mystical
exaltation, the Gospels present us with disciples demoralized ("looking
sad"… [Lk 24:17; cf. Jn 20:19]) and frightened. For they had
not believed the holy women returning from the tomb and had regarded their words as an "idle tale."
… [Lk 24:11; cf. Mk 16:11, 13]. When Jesus reveals himself to the
Eleven on Easter evening, "he upbraided them for their unbelief and
hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had
risen." … [Mk 16:14].
644 Even when
faced with the reality of the risen Jesus the disciples are still doubtful, so
impossible did the thing seem: they thought they were seeing a ghost. "In
their joy they were still disbelieving and still wondering" … [Lk
24:38-41]. Thomas will also experience the test of doubt and St. Matthew
relates that during the risen Lord's last appearance in Galilee "some
doubted" ….[Cf. Jn 20:24-27; Mt 28:17]. Therefore the
hypothesis that the Resurrection was produced by the apostles' faith (or
credulity) will not hold up. On the contrary their faith in the
Resurrection was born, under the action of divine grace, from their direct
experience of the reality of the risen Jesus.
The condition of Christ's risen
humanity
645 By
means of touch and the sharing of a meal, the risen Jesus establishes direct
contact with his disciples. He invites them in this way to recognize that he
is not a ghost and above all to verify that the risen body in which he appears
to them is the same body that had been tortured and crucified, for it still
bears the traces of his passion. … [Cf. Lk 24:30, 39-40, 41-43; Jn
20:20, 27; 21:9, 13-15]. Yet at the same time this authentic, real body possesses the new properties of a
glorious body: not limited by space and time but able to be present how and
when he wills; for Christ’s humanity can no longer be confined to earth and
belongs henceforth only to the Father's divine realm. … [Cf. Mt 28:9,
16-17; Lk 24:15, 36; Jn 20:14, 17, 19, 26; 21:4]. For this reason
too the risen Jesus enjoys the sovereign freedom of appearing as he wishes: in
the guise of a gardener or in other forms familiar to his disciples, precisely
to awaken their faith. …. [Cf. Mk 16:12; Jn 20:14-16; 21:4, 7].
646
Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life,
as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before
Easter: Jairus' daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were
miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by Jesus' power
to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again.
Christ's Resurrection is essentially different. In his risen body he passes
from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus'
Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares
the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is
"the man of heaven" … [Cf. I Cor 15:35-50].
[End of quotes]
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Whilst in the controversial case of the Last Supper we may be missing
the body of a real lamb, with the Resurrection we are not, despite criticisms,
missing the real body of the Lamb.
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Actually, I think, Josef Ratzinger’s case for the Resurrection
harmonises with all of this and fully accords with its sense. He takes up this
last point (# 646), for instance, when he writes on page 243,
differentiating the raising of Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus from Christ’s
Resurrection:
Now it must be acknowledged that if in Jesus’ Resurrection
we were dealing simply with the miracle of a resuscitated corpse, it would
ultimately be of no concern to us. For it would be no more important than the
resuscitation of a clinically dead person through the art of doctors. The
miracle of a resuscitated corpse would indicate that Jesus’ Resurrection was
equivalent to the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Lk 7: 11-17), the
daughter of Jairus (Mk 5: 22-24, 35-43 and parallel passages), and Lazarus (Jn
11: 1-44). After a more or less short period, these individuals returned to
their former lives, and then at a later point they died definitively.
And, in the case of the Pope’s p.
269: “… the Resurrection. … Luke ends up contradicting his own narrative …”,
this appears to be only the “view”, as he says, “Most exegetes take …”, not
necessarily the Pope’s own view.
Sanborn, commenting on this very section,
wrongly concludes: “So despite his assurance that Christ is “embodied” (page
268), [Ratzinger] again shows his revulsion for the Catholic dogma by reacting
to St. Luke’s account of our risen Lord’s eating a fish (Luke XXIV: 42)”.
But it is apparent from various
references by the Pope to the risen Jesus’s eating with his disciples (eating
grilled fish; breaking bread with the disciples of Emmaus, p. 269; sharing
meals, p. 271) that the author has no such reactive issue to these phenomena.
It is also quite clear from a
close reading of the book, too, that it is the same Jesus who was crucified
(“he is the same embodied man”, p. 266, “complete with his body”, p. 274), who
rose, and who appeared to his disciples, but “not a ghost (spirit)”, “he does
not belong to the realm of the dead [Hades], but is somehow able to reveal
himself in the realm of the living” (p. 273). This whole transcendental paradigm
presents an immense challenge to our narrow human thinking (pp. 274-275):
Essential, then, is the fact that Jesus' Resurrection was not just about
some deceased individual coming back to life at a certain point, but that an
ontological leap occurred, one that touches being as such, opening up a
dimension that affects us all, creating for all of us a new space of life, a
new space of being in union with God.
It is in these terms that the question of the historicity of the
Resurrection should be addressed. On the one hand, we must acknowledge that it
is of the essence of the Resurrection precisely to burst open
history and usher in a new dimension commonly described as eschatological. The
Resurrection opens up the new space that transcends history and creates the
definitive. In this sense, it follows that Resurrection is not the same kind of
historical event as the birth or crucifixion of Jesus. It is something new, a
new type of event.
Yet at the same time it must be understood that the Resurrection does not
simply stand outside or above history. As something that breaks out of history
and transcends it, the Resurrection nevertheless has its origin within history
and up to a certain point still belongs there. Perhaps we could put it this
way: Jesus' Resurrection points beyond history but has left a footprint within
history. Therefore it can be attested by witnesses as an event of an entirely
new kind.
Indeed, the apostolic preaching with all its boldness and passion would
be unthinkable unless the witnesses had experienced a real encounter, coming to
them from outside, with something entirely new and unforeseen, namely, the
self-revelation and verbal communication of the risen Christ. Only a real event
of a radically new quality could possibly have given rise to the apostolic
preaching, which cannot be explained on the basis of speculations or inner,
mystical experiences. In all its boldness and originality, it draws life from
the impact of an event that no one had invented, an event that surpassed all that
could be imagined.
[End of quote]
To sum up
the two hotly debated topics of Josef Ratzinger’s book:
Whilst in the controversial case of the Last Supper we may be missing
the body of a real lamb, see:
‘Western Logic’ and the ‘Logos’. Part Two: Did Jesus Eat the Passover Lamb?
with the Resurrection we are not, despite
criticisms, missing the real body of the Lamb.
