Friday, May 23, 2008

1Cor 15, 55-57 Where, O death, is your victory?

(1Cor 15, 55-57) Where, O death, is your victory?
[55] Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" [56] The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. [57] But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(CCC 1014) The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord" (Roman Missal, Litany of the Saints); to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us "at the hour of our death" in the Hail Mary; and to entrust ourselves to St. Joseph, the patron of a happy death. Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience.... Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren't fit to face death today, it's very unlikely you will be tomorrow.... (The Imitation of Christ, 1, 23, 1). Praised are you, my Lord, for our sister bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape.Woe on those who will die in mortal sin! Blessed are they who will be found in your most holy will, for the second death will not harm them (St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Creatures). (CCC 1018) As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer "bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned" (GS § 18). (CCC 1017) "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).

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