CCC 649 As for the Son, he effects his own Resurrection by virtue of his divine power. Jesus announces that the Son of man will have to suffer much, die, and then rise.1 Elsewhere he affirms explicitly: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. .. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”2 “We believe that Jesus died and rose again.”3
CCC 989 We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.4 Our resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the Most Holy Trinity:
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.5
CCC 1001 When? Definitively “at the last day,” “at the end of the world.”6 Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ’s Parousia:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.7
CCC 1012 The Christian vision of death receives privileged expression in the liturgy of the Church:8
Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.9
CCC 1025 To live in heaven is “to be with Christ.” The elect live “in Christ,”10 but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name.11
For life is to be with Christ; where Christ is, there is life, there is the kingdom.12
CCC 1687 The greeting of the community. A greeting of faith begins the celebration. Relatives and friends of the deceased are welcomed with a word of “consolation” (in the New Testament sense of the Holy Spirit’s power in hope).13 The community assembling in prayer also awaits the “words of eternal life.” The death of a member of the community (or the anniversary of a death, or the seventh or 30th day after death) is an event that should lead beyond the perspectives of “this world” and should draw the faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen Christ.
1 Cf. Mk 8:31; 9:9-31; 10:34.
2 Jn 10:17-18.
3 I Th 4:14.
4 Cf. Jn 6:39-40.
5 Rom 8:11; cf. 1 Thess 4:14; 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14; Phil 3:10-11.
6 Jn 6: 39-40,44,54; 11:24; LG 48 § 3.
7 1 Thess 4:16.
8 Cf. 1 Thess 4:13-14.
9 Roman Missal, Preface of Christian Death I.
10 Phil 1:23; cf. Jn 14:3; 1 Thess 4:17.
11 Cf. Rev 2:17.
12 St. Ambrose, In Luc., 10, 121: PL 15, 1834A.
13 Cf. 1 Thess 4:18.