The Catechism of the Summa - Tertia Pars - L. OF THE RESURRECTION (A)

(A)
What will happen immediately after the great conflagration?

There will be heard an order, a voice, the sound of a trumpet, so speaks St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, which will awaken the dead from their tombs, and command all men to stand before the Judge of the living and the dead; and this Judge will descend from heaven in all the glory of His majesty (LXXV. 1).

Which are those who will come to life at this moment?

All those who were already dead; and also all those who are still living when Jesus Christ appears.

But how can these last also rise from the dead?

In this wise: if all comes to be as it were instantaneously as St. Paul seems to say (1 Cor., chap. xv., ver. 51), by the power of God all those human beings who are living will die an instantaneous death, and will rise again immediately in the state which they have merited and which will be theirs for all eternity (LXXVIII. 1, 2).

Will the bodies of all the just who rise from the dead be instantaneously transformed and become glorious?

Yes.

But will these bodies now resplendent with glory be the same bodies that the just had when they lived this life?

Yes, they will be the same bodies with this difference, that there will be no imperfections or troubles or sicknesses such as they were subject to on earth; on the contrary, these bodies will have perfections that will in some sense spiritualise them (LXXIX.-LXXXI.).

How can all this come about?

By the almighty power of God, who having created all things can change and transform them as He wills.

Next - The Catechism of the Summa - Tertia Pars - L. OF THE RESURRECTION (B)