ESCHATOLOGICAL MAN

    What about the experience of embodiment and our longing for union in the eschaton? Didn't Christ say we'll no longer be given in marriage at the resurrection (see Mt 22:30)? Yes, but this doesn't mean our longing for union will be done away with. It means it will be fulfilled. Sacraments are merely earthly signs of heavenly realities. We no longer need signs to point us to heaven, when we're in heaven.

Heaven is the eternal consummation of the marriage between Christ and the Church. "For man, this consummation will be the final realization of the unity of the human race, which God willed from creation. ...Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, 'the holy city' of God, 'the Bride, the wife of the Lamb'" (CCC, n. 1045). This is the union for which we're ultimately created. And this is what the "one flesh" union points us to from the beginning (see Eph 5:31-32).

Hence, in the resurrection of the body we rediscover - in an eschatological dimension - the same nuptial meaning of the body in the meeting with the mystery of the living God face to face (see Dec 9, 1981). "This will be a completely new experience," the Pope says, but "it will not be alienated in any way from what man took part in from 'the beginning,' nor from ...the procreative meaning of the body and of sex" (Jan 13, 1982).