Now let’s look at the same issue from a more ontological point of view. What happens to the humanity of Jesus because it is the humanity of the Word, that is, because it is united to the Word? This humanity should receive a higher way of being in virtue of that union. While it remains a genuine human nature, it is transformed so that it is the humanity of the Word. Emile Mersch in The Theology of the Mystical Body makes this kind of transformation central to his understanding of the Christian mysteries, and Maritain and Mersch complement each other in creating a theology of the Incarnation which safeguards Jesus’ identity as the Word and yet allows us to glimpse how he could be genuinely human, as well. Yet Maritain and Mersch, engrossed in creating these powerful theological tools, did not examine what would happen if the same principles were applied to the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Let’s imagine it this way. Jesus dies and his body is placed in the tomb. His soul lives on, and is now flooded with the light that comes from his union with the Word. But this light flows from the soul of Jesus into his body and not only brings it back to life so it has that entity of union which comes to it in virtue of its union with the human soul, but it now has a higher form of union because the soul that it is united to is a soul that has been transformed by its union with the Word. Therefore, the body of Jesus is a transformed body. This body not only comes alive, but has a higher way of existing and acting. It is no longer in the tomb, but it has not left the tomb in virtue of being a resuscitated body, but a body which has a different relationship to space.

In order to try to understand the distinction between seeing and recognizing more deeply, we can turn to the encounters people had with Jesus during his lifetime. They certainly saw Jesus in the physical sense, and we could say that they encountered the being of union that the body of Jesus received by being united to his soul, and this entity of union was expressed in his voice and smile and gestures. But there was another, deeper dimension in the personality of Jesus, another entity of union in which his human soul took on a higher way of being due to its union with the Word, and that transformation of the soul could not but transform his body and his words and deeds. Therefore, while everyone saw Jesus, it took a certain interior disposition on their part to see him more deeply, to see the light of the divinity that rippled over the surface of his humanity. Why would this change after his death and resurrection? It would not change, but only become more intense. Because of its union with a glorified soul his body was transformed into a resurrection body. So it was a real body that could be seen, but it was only with the eyes of faith that someone could go farther and encounter Jesus as the risen Lord.50