MIRACULOUS BODILY PHENOMENA IN THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS— A PREVIEW OF THE RISEN BODY
"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible: and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption; and this mortal . . . immortality."
—1 Corinthians 15:52-53
It is reported of Padre Pio that in his sufferings he sometimes hit temperatures of 120-125 degrees that broke thermometers. A burning candle held near St. Bernadette's arm while she was seeing the Blessed Virgin Mary brought no reaction. Certain Catholic mystics have been called "salamanders" because, like the mythical animal, they suffered and survived intense heat. Some mystics have "died" again and again without dying.
The three children of the Old Testament survived their enclosure in the fiery furnace, and St. Francis of Paola worked in a blazing furnace without harm. St. Christina survived similar and worse fires. St. John of God emerged unscathed after returning again and again to a terrible hospital fire to lead many patients to safety. The bodies of these saints in their miraculous experiences were more like impervious spirits than flesh and blood.
St. Maur ran on the water of a lake to rescue Placid. Other saints, like Francis of Paola, Raymond of Pennafort, and Hyacinth, used their cloaks to sail good distances over water. They were seemingly weightless. Still others, like the prophet Habacuc or St. Anthony of Padua, were miraculously transported over great distances. And there are many marvelous cases of the spiritual phenomenon of bilocation.
To search the lives of the saints is to find numerous wonders and extraordinary gifts. These give us some idea of the qualities that will belong to the resurrected spiritualized bodies of the just on Judgment Day. The supernatural or preternatural realities witnessed on earth support the promises of God for the future life.
It is one of the great works and glories of God that He can take a creation of His that is material or "animal," in that man has a body, and by giving it a soul, elevate that material creature to a state similar to that of the pure spirits; the Scriptures state that man is "a little lower than the angels."
Yet the spiritualized bodies of the blessed in Heaven after the resurrection will be gifted with qualities and powers no human body in its earthly state could exhibit. Man's body then will still be truly human, but it will be relieved of many of its present lowly functions, embarrassments, and limitations.
Food and drink are basic necessities common to any physical being. But in Heaven there will be no eating or drinking, as we now understand these actions. Nevertheless, all man's senses will be gratified in Heaven—though not by corruptible objects. Many saints lived for years without food—an anticipation of the life of Heaven.
St. Lydwine of Schiedam (1380-1433) lived without any food, or at certain times with very little. St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) did without food except for the Eucharist for years, as did many others for long periods: St. Angela of Foligno, St. Colomba of Rieti, and St. Peter of Alcántara. More recently, Therese Neumann (1898-1962) went over 30 years without food or water, except for the Blessed Eucharist. And Alexandrina Maria da Costa went from March 27, 1942 until her death on October 13, 1955, with only the Eucharist as daily food.
Neither Therese nor Alexandrina had any ill effects from their abstention, nor did they have the usual bodily eliminations. Alexandrina was bed-ridden, but Therese Neumann engaged in her regular day-to-day activities. In fact, she steadily gained weight and became quite heavy despite her proven abstinence, so that her weight pattern matched that of her relatives. Truly, "not by bread alone doth man live," but by the Lord God—in a holy consecrated wafer that is His own Flesh!
Sleep is also a necessity for man. Like food and drink, without it man cannot survive for long. Saints like Peter of Alcántara (friend of St. Teresa of Avila) functioned with very little sleep, perhaps less than one hour in 24. St. Catherine de Ricci slept one hour a week. Others, like St. Catherine of Siena, Christina the Admirable, and St. Colette needed very little sleep. These saints were very active and were often burdened with heavy trials and sufferings.
Concupiscence of the body is something that troubles many good people, along with St. Paul, who bewailed a sting of the flesh and the pull of lower nature against the law of the spirit. But there have been saints like St. Thomas Aquinas who, for his heroic resistance to temptation against purity (a harlot sent by Thomas' family members to break his resolve to join the Dominican Order), was girded by an angel with a miraculous cincture which preserved him from temptations of the flesh for the rest of his life. There have been similar gifts of control over various other human temptations. This gives a preview of Heaven, where the flesh will no longer war against the spirit, and the integrity of human nature will be perfectly restored.
Levitation often accompanies ecstasy. Innumerable saints have been levitated to heights, thus defying the law of gravity. St. Teresa of Avila used to beg her fellow nuns to hold her down so she would not be embarrassed before the others. St. John of the Cross twisted bars of an iron grille in a convent as he resisted being drawn upwards. St. Francis of Assisi went so high he disappeared from sight. St. Joseph of Cupertino would hover near the ceiling of the chapel, and he "flew" in the air so often that he is now the patron of those who fly. "Floating" or "flying" are terms sometimes applied to such movements.
Transportation in miraculous ways impossible to ordinary mortals has also occurred among the saints. There is "mobile ecstasy," where saints have run above the ground rapidly or skipped the steps going up stairways. The saints were sometimes transported over long distances, as when St. Anthony of Padua was journeying from Padua in Italy to Lisbon in Portugal to help his father who was facing trial; St. Anthony suddenly found himself in Lisbon. Other saints have had similar experiences, such as a priest going on a sick call to another village and arriving there impossibly fast and without any tracks in the snow.
In addition, some saints in ecstasy have become so light that they could be easily moved with a mere push of the finger. On the other hand, some saints have become incredibly heavy, far beyond their normal weight. This happened to Agnes, the sister of St. Clare of Assisi, when several of her male relatives tried to remove her from the convent she had run away to join under cover of night.
Bilocation is perhaps one of the most mysterious wonders of all. Yet many saints have bilocated and continue to do so even today. There are such claims for more than one person living at the time of this writing. A few of the saintly persons who are known to have bilocated are St. Alphonsus Liguori, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Martin de Porres, Venerable Mary of Agreda, and Padre Pio.
For example, on one occasion St. Anthony of Padua was preaching from a pulpit when he stopped short, sort of reclined easily, and remained in that position for some time. The people, knowing of the wonders that surrounded St. Anthony, did not disturb him. After a good while he came to himself and resumed his preaching. In the meantime, St. Anthony had been present at another Mass, at which he had promised to participate, but which he had temporarily forgotten about.
St. Catherine of Siena would often experience a swoon in which her soul seemed to have left her body, leaving the body apparently dead. Some time later, she would return to normal. Therese Neumann often experienced a similar phenomenon.
Penetrating locked doors or other material substances has also been done by the saints. St. Rita of Cascia was a widow who had tried a number of times to enter a convent as a religious but was refused because of her age. Finally, a few of her patron saints—St. Augustine, St. John the Baptist, and St. Nicholas of Tolentino—took her in the middle of the night and placed her right within that convent, all the doors of which remained locked. The sisters then saw the hand of God and accepted Rita into their convent.
This miracle was like Our Lord miraculously appearing in the midst of the Apostles on Easter Sunday when the doors were locked, or emerging from His sealed tomb. St. Raymond of Pennafort had a similar experience with locked doors, and there is a person alive at this writing who is believed to have "passed through" a locked door.
These are obviously great miracles. The ordinary person would gain only bruises should he try to go through a brick wall or negotiate the hard timber of a closed door. This shows how the Lord can "exalt" the human body to operations above its natural abilities, without destroying the body which is being exalted.
Healing and the curing of all possible diseases, hurts, wounds and other disabilities are common in the lives of the saints and even after their deaths (sometimes through the application of their relics). These restorations forecast how, at Judgment Day, the raised bodies of the just will be free of any physical sickness, blemish, injury, malformity or bodily ailment.
The incorruption of the bodies of many of the saints, the bodies often remaining fragrant, supple, and undecayed against all the normal laws of death, is another dramatic indication of the ease with which God will be able to raise the body on Judgment Day. If God created the creature, man, out of nothing, He surely can restore him.
Two of the most remarkable cases are those of St. Bernadette Soubirous, who died in 1879, and St. Catherine Laboure, who died in 1876. St. Bernadette's body rests in a glass case in her convent in Nevers, France, visited by thousands of pilgrims every year. St. Catherine Labouré's body rests in a glass case in the chapel of the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity at 140, rue du Bac, in Paris. In 1986 there are sisters at this convent who remember the exhumation of St. Catherine Labouré's body in 1933. They describe the body as having been so flexible and supple that the arms and legs could be moved freely, like those of a living person. (The book entitled The Incorruptibles treats of 102 cases of incorruption, and there have been many more.)
There have been many instances of the restoration, strengthening, elevation and transformation of man's superior or spiritual faculties—of his memory, intellect, and will. For some very brief examples: the wisdom given to Solomon, the intellectual gifts given by Our Lady to St. Albert the Great (and subsequently taken away before the saint's death because he had chosen human rather than divine knowledge), the practical intuition into the state of hearts of the Curé of Ars and Padre Pio, and the prophetic knowledge of Blessed Anna Maria Taigi—not to mention the sublime wisdom and expansion of the soul in infused contemplation.
Lives of the saints and other holy persons are full of such wonders. The point is that if one assembles together all these various gifts found individually in God's holy ones, he will find no difficulty in seeing how the bodies of ordinary mortals will possess similar qualities in a unified whole on Judgment Day.
In First Corinthians St. Paul says, "It [the body] is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption. 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 Cor. 15:42-44).
After the resurrection on Judgment Day, the bodies of the just will take on the properties which naturally belong to spirits, not to bodies—yet they will remain true bodies. This will be a perfection, not a deprivation, of bodily nature. Our Lord told St. Thomas to touch His glorified body after His Resurrection and, moreover, to put his hand into the wounds made in His body by the nails and by the thrust of the spear. He said: "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have." (Luke 24:39). These wounds proved that He had a real human body—His own body. Yet Our Lord restrained the full light and splendor that would radiate from Him in Heaven.
There are four qualities that theologians generally attribute to a glorified body: impassibility, subtility (subtlety), agility, and clarity.
Impassibility means that the body will no longer be able to suffer any physical evil. Weariness, weakness, frailty, exhaustion, sorrow, disease, injury, discomfort from heat or cold or hunger and thirst, pain and death—all these will be no more. Every risen body of the just will be strong, healthy, robust, virile, in the bloom of perfect health. It will be integrated in a more wonderful way than any top athlete's, even at the peak of his physical maturity. "And death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more." (Apoc. 21:4). The risen body will be absolutely perfect and eternally incorrupt, as well as spiritualized and glorified.
The body of St. Charbel Makhlouf, Lebanese monk and hermit, remained incorrupt from his death in 1898 until his beatification in 1965. The body was soft and supple, and the flesh was of natural color; it used to bleed when cut, and it "perspired" a fluid years after Charbel's death. Charbel was called "the living dead saint." If the dead body of St. Charbel did not suffer the effects of death for 67 years, what then will the omnipotent God be able to do for risen bodies on Judgment Day? (Needless to say, thousands of miracles have been worked through St. Charbel.)
Subtility refers to the lightness and spiritual quality of the risen body. "It is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:44). This comes about because of the body's perfect subjection to the soul. But though it takes on the qualities of spirit, it remains a body. St. Thomas says that the risen body is subtle through completest perfection of bodily nature, and not through lack of that nature.
The third quality of the glorified body will be agility. "It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in power." (1 Cor. 15:43). This is another quality which properly belongs to spirits. The Creator has given man lordship over His lower creations on earth. But what is in store for man beyond this world and this life? The body will be so perfectly under the dominion of the soul as its mover that the person will be able to move almost instantaneously, and without labor, and will be able to move other bodies with a like velocity. With the gift of agility, spiritualized bodies will find no difficulty in traversing great distances in an instant. The body will become a perfect instrument, alert and quick to obey the soul.
There have been similar qualities miraculously given to the bodies of saints on earth. Such bodies were free from the usual weight of matter caused by the gravitational pull of the earth. Or they defied the nature of water, as when Hyacinth or Ceslas crossed rivers on their cloaks. Or they levitated, like Joseph of Cupertino, whose body, though far heavier than air, floated as if lighter than air.
It is said that St. John of the Cross, when offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, had to do violence to himself to avoid levitating. He would bite the chalice in order to prevent this—like a person will bite his lips to avoid crying. The teeth marks can be seen on this chalice yet today. Likewise, St. Philip Neri had to hurry through Mass in order to avoid levitating.
Some scientists and explorers would give their lives—and in some cases perhaps also their souls—to accelerate the speed of travel into far-off regions of space. Yet the littlest old lady, or some good small child, who was obedient and faithful to God, will be able to do infinitely more after Judgment Day than all the Cape Kennedys and Soviet launching pads can today, because of the agility of their spiritualized bodies.
On earth, the body is slow and sluggish in responding to the commands of the soul, and often it is rebellious. The body may even enslave the soul if the soul surrenders to physical urges. But in Heaven the dominion of the soul and spirit will be absolute over an obedient and totally responsive body.
Some of the saints performed wonders of abstinence from food and drink, extreme penances, and various heroic acts of self-denial, as evidenced by their continual labors and in the terrible trials they underwent. But all this will seem miniscule compared with the powers they will possess and exercise in their spiritualized and glorified bodies.
Obviously, one cannot know all that is in store for the blessed when they enter into eternal union with the all-generous God who has much more than the entire universe at His disposal. No one knows what the triumphant faithful may perform in the matter of supervising the material universe. St. Paul said, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him." (1 Cor. 2:9). Though lost in the contemplation of the Beatific Vision, the blessed will not be "frozen" in Heaven, but will enjoy the perfect exercise of all their powers of body and soul. (The Happiness of Heaven, by Fr. J. Boudreau, gives a good description of the wonderful joys and holy pleasures in store for the blessed.)
The fourth quality of the risen body is clarity. "It is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory." By clarity is signified glory, resplendent radiance, and beauty. The beauty of the beatified soul will flow over and communicate itself to the body. St. Thomas says that the glory of the soul will shine through the body even as a glass vessel shows the color of that which is contained within it. The degree of each saint's bodily glory will depend on the degree of glory of his soul, and this will depend on his degree of merit before God.
This quality of the glorified body was shown forth by Our Lord on Mount Thabor when He "was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow." (Matt. 17:2). This was even before Our Lord's Passion and Resurrection; His purpose, at least in part, was to encourage His Apostles to believe in Him and to persevere through the dark days of Good Friday and the sepulcher because of the glory of the future which they had glimpsed. In Heaven, like St. Peter at the Transfiguration, the elect will exclaim before the glorified Christ, "Lord, it is good for us to be here!" (Matt. 17:4).
Our Lord once showed St. Catherine of Siena the soul of a woman named Palmerine, whom Catherine had saved from Hell by her prayers and fasting. This soul, though suffering in Purgatory, was yet exquisitely beautiful. St. Catherine's biographer, Bl. Raymond of Capua, states: "It was so brilliant that she told me she could find no words capable of expressing its beauty. It was not yet admitted to the glory of the beatific vision, but had that brightness which creation and the grace of Baptism imparts." If such is the radiant splendor of a soul in Purgatory, what will be its radiance in Heaven? And this soul will render the risen body likewise glorious and radiant.
Impressed as one may be with the powers of agility, such as levitation, bilocation, or other miraculous transport to far places, these abilities may seem quite unremarkable in Heaven compared to the glory, the clarity, of the risen body. After all, the light and splendor of the sun are more impressive than its movement.
There have been many instances of saints or other holy persons, particularly contemplative ecstatics, who have been seen with light, halos or aureoles around them. Sometimes the light has flooded the room of the person in ecstasy, calling attention to the graces he or she would have preferred to keep hidden. At other times witnesses have seen a light falling in a shaft upon them or radiating from their figures.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai his face shone so brightly that two horns of fire seemed to come from his head. The people were awed, and the Bible says that to hide this radiance Moses had to wear a veil. So also have saints in ecstasy or levitation appeared gloriously radiant, as when St. Bernadette saw Our Lady in the grotto of Massabielle at Lourdes. St. Philip Neri was often raised in ecstasy and surrounded by light. King Ferdinand I of Naples saw St. Francis of Paola elevated in light when the saint was in the King's palace.
Many saints who were granted visions of Our Lord or the Blessed Virgin Mary claimed that the light surrounding the heavenly visitor was more brilliant than that of the sun. Nevertheless, the witnesses were saved from blindness by a special softness of that celestial light. By a special divine dispensation, the glory of Christ's soul did not overflow into His body from the first moment of His conception; this was so that He might fulfill the mysteries of our Redemption in a passible body.
Sometimes the face of a saint or holy person is transfigured, like that of St. Benedict Joseph Labre, to appear like that of Christ. St. Catherine of Siena was also thus transfigured. There were what seem to have been such transfigurations in the lives of two persons still living at this writing. If this can happen on earth, what then will be the appearance of the blessed in their glorified bodies, remade according to the pattern of Christ's glorified body? "Now not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal. 2:20).
Some saints have become radiant and beautiful as they lay dying, seeming to be in the flower of youth despite their aging, emaciated, or tortured bodies. St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Teresa and St. Rose of Lima are but a few of those so glorified. St. Francis Xavier, the exhausted missionary, had a beautiful appearance in death. St. Catherine de Ricci's face glowed; her body was radiant and gave off a perfume. St. Louis Bertrand's entire body shone at death like pure crystal and, like those of many other saints, remained incorrupt.
"Our Lord Jesus Christ will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory, according to the operation whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." So claimed St. Paul in Philippians (3:20-21).
Perhaps one of the most remarkable cases was that of St. Lydwine of Schiedam, who had been wasted by plague and who had suffered so many ailments that her body seemed to be held together only by her clothing. This saint at death became as fresh and fair as if she were a girl of 17, smiling in her sleep. Lydwine had also been disfigured by a cleft in her forehead, which disappeared completely at her death, giving way to a serene and beautiful appearance. And a similar wonder: The nuns who prepared the body of St. Therese the Little Flower for burial stated that she seemed no older than 12 or 13 years old, although she died at age 24 after terrible physical and spiritual sufferings.
Some saints, tortured and martyred, disfigured and beheaded, cut to pieces by swords or mangled by wild beasts, seemed to have ended their lives in humiliation, disgrace, and utter destruction before their merciless tormenters. In some cases, martyrs were temporarily healed by God to testify to the truth of their faith and to glorify God. Usually this has not happened; but on Judgment Day the roles shall be reversed: the persecuted shall judge their persecutors. Then shall the saints appear totally different from the way they looked in those last bloody scenes on earth. Then will they shine in glory, and their enemies will shudder with shame. The risen bodies of the saints will then be comely and beautiful, strong and supple, perfect, radiant, and glorious.
No person ever dies. Once a soul has been created, it can never die, but will live forever, in either great joy or in terrible misery. Only the body dies, because the soul must leave a physical instrument in which it can no longer operate. At "death" the indestructible soul goes right on living either in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or possibly in Limbo, and it is the saved soul that shall reclaim a resurrected and glorious body on the day of Christ's Second Coming.
Will spiritualized bodies perform their usual physical functions? St. Paul says, "Meat for the belly, and the belly for the meats; but God shall destroy both it and them." (1 Cor. 6:13). A spiritualized body will have no need of earthly material food or drink. Nevertheless, the blessed will somehow be rewarded in all their senses—including taste and smell.
Regarding sex and marriage, although reason could tell us that there will be no marriage or sex in Heaven, Christ's words were very specific on the subject: "For when they rise again from the dead, they shall neither marry, nor be married, but are as the angels in heaven." (Mark 12:25). In a word, marriage was given as a passing institution to increase and multiply human beings on earth. Its purpose is not just to populate an impermanent world, but to populate the eternal kingdom of God in Heaven. Hence the horror of those sins that prostitute the nobility and preciousness of a holy use of sex in marriage, perverting the plan of God.
Neither God the Infinite Spirit, nor the multitudinous angels, who are finite, limited spirits, have either bodies or sex. But they enjoy a happiness superior to all physical pleasures, even as spirit is superior to flesh. Nevertheless, man's elevated life in Heaven will not exclude a special love or friendship forever between those who were husband and wife on earth.
God's elect will enjoy a glorious life in the hereafter with resurrected, spiritualized and glorified bodies. But the physical body, which so occupies human attention on earth, in eternity will be more like a setting for the scintillating jewel of the soul. A setting can be beautiful, but the precious stone it holds is much more valuable and entrancing. In eternity the soul will sparkle with its superior strength and comeliness, in the beauty and the grandeur of its intellectual and volitional endowments, and in its great joy in the perpetually present Beatific Vision, from which flow all its other joys. And this great happiness will never end.
Then it will be the soul that will rightly have first place. The body will assume its proper submission to the soul in perfect harmony. Men will commune with each other, with angels, and every man will commune with God. In the eternal embrace, the finite but wonderful soul of man, reunited in perfect harmony with the body in rectification of the tragic sin of Adam, will be face to face with the Infinite Spirit. Man will once again be able to walk with God in the garden of Paradise.
In the meantime, let us make the very best use of the time given to us in this our earthly sojourn, this transitory pilgrimage which is, in truth, but a passing moment compared to eternity. All the wonders of Heaven will be ours if—and only if—we have been faithful to the law of God here on earth.
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!