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Show j y I WE SHALL RISE IN OUR BODIES. The possibilities presented by the j doctrine of the resurrection of the body as a subject for the most inspiring re-I re-I flections are wonderfully set foth in ! an article by Rev. Henry E. O'Keefe, j C. S. P., in the Catholic World Magazine Maga-zine for February. He has sounded the highest note of praise and touched the deepest chord of the human consciousness conscious-ness in' his interpretation of this exalting exalt-ing belief that the body shall, with every single one of its faculties refined and perfected, be reunited to the sanctified sanc-tified soul some day in" heaven, and for all eternity. Even now, he says, "the bjessed sigh for their bodies; and it is a thought among the holy that souls do not lapse into the being of God unt!l they have received their supreme perfection per-fection from their union with their body." And again he remarks: "The philosophic conviction is that body and 5oul enter into the essence of each other. Body and soul do not acquire the respective perfection of their nature until they are joined together." "Since, then," he concludes, ';we are beholden to -the body, let us look to it that we reverence it in decent fashion. It is for us believers the temple of the Holy Spirit; of immensely more historic interest in-terest than the temple of Jerusalem. Guard the walla of ; the city and the temple will be secure. Exercise custpdy, and do not permit the exterior senses to wander at will. Close all the city gates by night, so that the wayward traveler with his camel cannot pass through the eye of the needle. "The defilement of the human body might be more tragic in its consequences conse-quences than . the spilling of a 'prophet's blood in the portico, of the temple. The body has its laws prerogatives, capacities; capaci-ties; and it is serious '-to thwart or destroy de-stroy them. Else nature will turn the throb of health to a nervous tremor and the crimson glow of youthful' beauty beautiy to the hectic pallor of disease. "Then, from a moral consideration, how horrible to think that in some manner we take, with us in death bodily habits contracted in life; it would seem of momentous importance, therefore, to lay on the lash, and whip disordered inclination into subservience to the sweeter instinct of the soul." |