Saturday, November 22 : Saint Gregory the Great

Let us minutely search out in the words of blessed Job, if there will be a true resurrection, and the true body in that resurrection; for, lo, we are no longer able to doubt of the hope of the resurrection, in that he says, And that I shall rise at the last day from the earth. Moreover he has removed all doubting of the true renewal of the body, in that he says, And I shall be again encompassed with my skin. And he still further adds, with the view of removing the misgivings of our thought; And in my flesh shall I see God. He owns the resurrection, ‘the skin,’ ‘the flesh,’ in explicit words. What is there left then, by which our mind should have occasion to doubt? … We, following the faith that blessed Job held, and truly believing the palpable Body of our Redeemer after His resurrection, confess that our flesh after the resurrection will be at once both the same and different, the same in respect of nature, different in respect of glory, the same in its reality, different in its power. Thus it will be subtle, in that it will be incorruptible; it will be palpable, in that it will not lose the essence of its very and true nature. But that same assurance of the resurrection the holy man subjoins with what sure hope he holds it, with what certainty he awaits it. It goes on; this my hope is laid up in my bosom. We suppose that we hold nothing more surely than what we have in our bosom; and so he kept ‘hope laid up in his bosom,’ in that he laid hold beforehand on true certainty concerning the hope of the resurrection.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team