St Leo the Great: The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

Part of today’s second reading from Vigils (which sounds so much better than Office of Readings!), is taken from a sermon on the beatitudes by Pope St Leo the Great (5^th century), and addresses the question I raised here and here about the resurrection of the body.

In explanation of “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5), Leo argues that “earth” denotes not the present world but the world of the new creation – i.e. the transformed and glorious resurrection-body which we shall receive in heaven

The earth, then, which is promised to the meek, and is to be given to the gentle in possession, is the flesh of the saints, which in reward for their humility will be changed in a happy resurrection, and clothed with the glory of immortality, in nothing now to act contrary to the spirit, and to be in complete unity and agreement with the will of the soul.

The key point about the resurrection body in this passage is that, unlike our present earthly body, it acts in complete conformity with the soul instead of fighting against it. Salvation for Leo isn’t about deliverance from the body. On the contrary, in the present life it is in and through the body that the soul knows and loves God and serves God and neighbour in a “threefold round” of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. However, when we attain the vision of God in the next life, the kind of body in which we work out our salvation in the present life is no longer of any use, and, indeed, would be an obstacle to perfect happiness, so it is changed into a glorified, immortal and incorruptible body which can act in perfect harmony with the soul and share fully in its reward.

For then the outer man will be the peaceful and unblemished possession of the inner man: then the mind, engrossed in beholding God, will be hampered by no obstacles of human weakness nor will it any more have to be said “The body which is corrupted, weighs upon the soul, and its earthly house presses down the sense which thinks many things” (Wisdom 9:15), for the earth will not struggle against its tenant, and will not venture on any insubordination against the rule of its governor.

For the meek shall possess it in perpetual peace, and nothing shall be taken from their rights, “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53), that what was a danger to them may turn into their reward, and what was a burden become an honour.