– Rev José Mario O Mandía
We have seen that Christ’s suffering and death were part of God’s plan. This is why in the Creed, we profess our belief that He “died and was buried.” The burial is a kind of proof that His death was real. The CCCC (no 124) says, “Christ underwent a real death and a true burial.”
When a man dies, his “soul is separated from the body” (CCC 1005). Jesus was no exception. His soul separated from his body at the moment of death.
There is something unique about Jesus’ death, however. It has something to do with the fact that He not only has a human nature but a divine nature as well. What happened to this divine nature when Christ died?
Point 626 of the CCC teaches us that death did not separate the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity from either his body or his soul, though body and soul were separated from each other in death.
“Since the ‘Author of life’ who was killed (cf Acts 3:15) is the same ‘living one [who has] risen’ (Luke 24:5-6), the divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death: ‘By the fact that at Christ’s death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word’ (St John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa 3, 27).”
What is the consequence of the fact that the divine Person was united to the body? Divine power, present in the divine Person, preserved the body of Christ from corruption (cf CCCC 124). On the day of Pentecost, Peter declared: “he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (Acts 2:31).
What does “being buried with Christ” mean?
In the same way that we Christians follow Christ in every aspect of His life, we also follow Him in death and burial, in giving up our own life, in order to gain a new Life in Christ.
CCC 628 tells us: “Baptism, the original and full sign of which is immersion, efficaciously signifies the descent into the tomb by the Christian who dies to sin with Christ in order to live a new life. ‘We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life’ (Romans 6:4).”
To be buried means to be hidden and forgotten, to reject pride constantly in order to give ourselves in service to God and to others. To be buried means to practice the hidden life.
What is the hidden life?
“The practice of the hidden life has, therefore, two aspects: the first, negative and mostly exterior, consists in hiding ourselves from the eyes of others and even from our own and in dying to glory and worldly honours. The second, which is positive and entirely interior, consists in concentrating on God in a life of intimate relations with Him. The first aspect is the condition and measure of the second: the more a soul is able to hide from creatures, and even from itself, the more capable it will be of living ‘with Christ in God,’ according to the beautiful expression of St Paul: ‘You are dead: and your life is hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3)” (Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD, “To Be Hidden With Christ in God,” Divine Intimacy, p 342).
What is the “hell” into which Jesus descended?
CCCC 125 teaches us: “This ‘hell’ was different from the hell of the damned. It was the state of all those, righteous and evil, who died before Christ. With his soul united to his divine Person, Jesus went down to the just in hell who were awaiting their Redeemer so they could enter at last into the vision of God. When he had conquered by his death both death and the devil ‘who has the power of death’ (Hebrews 2:14), he freed the just who looked forward to the Redeemer and opened for them the gates of heaven.”
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