“We shall all rise with our bodies.”

Homily by St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.

Bk. x Comm. on Luke xxiv
We see here the marvelous nature of the Lord's glorified Body. It could enter unseen, and then become seen. It could easily be touched, but Its nature is hard to understand. The disciples were affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And therefore the Lord, that He might show us the evidence of His Resurrection, said: Handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see Me have. Therefore it was not by being in a disembodied state, but by the peculiar qualities of the risen and glorified Body that He had passed through closed doors. John xx. 19. For that which is touched or handled is a body.

And now, since our Lesson from Luke here faileth, let us have recourse to John, and consider how that, according to him, xx. 20, then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord, and received the grace of faith. According to Luke, He upbraided them with their unbelief, but according to John He said also, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Luke, not John, hath, Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. Indeed, to me it seemeth as though the one Evangelist had busied himself with the greater and higher matters, and the other with the narrative, and such things as are more human: the one with the course, the other with the essence, of history. For as it is impossible to doubt the word of him who testifieth of these things, John xxi. 24, and who saw these things, and concerning whom we know that his testimony is true, xxi. 24,so is it sinful to think of negligence or falsehood as attaching to the other, even Luke, who earned to himself to be an Evangelist, albeit he was not an Apostle, and therefore we hold that both are truthful, neither are they at variance one with the other, either in the difference of the words they use, or in the sacredness of their characters as Evangelists. For though Luke saith that at the first the Apostles believed not, yet he showeth that afterward they believed: and although, if we regard only the first fact, the Evangelists seem divergent one from the other, yet, when we consider what cometh afterward, we see that they are at one.