"I Know You! I Know You!"

 A few years ago, I had an experience that intrigued but somewhat puzzled me, and that I continue to think about even to this day.   I had gone to see a friend of mine who now has Alzheimer's Disease.  For several years, she had not recognized her own children, and she was then living in a memory-care residence.  As I came down the hall toward her, she was standing outside her door, as they had told her she had a visitor.  Eagerly, she looked at me, and then gradually broke into a smile as, clearly, some recognition dawned upon her:  "I know you!  I know you!" she cried in some sort of triumph after so long not knowing or recognizing people.

She did not recall my name of course, but there was an instant re-connection of spirit to spirit as we embraced and visited for the next hour.  She and I had been in a prayer group in the 70's, and had additionally spent many hours together visiting, studying scripture, and taking care of one another's children.  She once had walked through a knee-deep flood to rescue my youngest child from school when I could not reach her by car.

What was it that instantly connected the two of us even beyond the limitations of a mind ravaged by Alzheimer's? Why, when she could not recognize her own children, could she recognize me?

Today I was reading the last chapter of a wonderful book by Bishop Robert Barron -- Light From Light: A Theological Reflection on the Nicene Creed.  The final chapter deals with the final statement of the Creed, "we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come."  In reflecting on what kind of "body" and what kind of "life" might exist in the "world to come,"  Barron states, "...there must be both continuity and discontinuity between our present world and the world to come."

In speaking of the soul, he characterizes it as "the organizing pattern that guarantees identity over the course of one's life, even as one's body undergoes extraordinary change."  He points out that absolutely none of the atoms and cells that made up the seven-year-old are present in the body of the elderly person.  Yet we confidently affirm that it is the same person, since the selfsame pattern has perdured throughout the changes.

When the person dies, that organizing pattern is subsequently used by God as the template for the resurrection of the person at a higher pitch of perfection.  Ultimately, it is not the literally selfsame matter that guarantees the identity of one's earthly body and one's heavenly body, but rather the enduring sameness of one's soul.

When I thought about that, I remembered that after Jesus' resurrection, no one who saw Him recognized Him at first -- not Mary, not the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, not even the disciples.  They came to know who He was in their interactions with them.  In other words, they knew Him "soul to soul" rather than "body to body."

When I think of Margaret's recognition of me even before we spoke, I think that we must have connected "soul to soul" in that moment, bypassing the limitations of both body and mind.  Barron says, "In seeing God face-to-face, we shall also see all those beings and events that participate in God" (p.174).  I think it was our shared participation in God that sparked her recognition.

St. Paul says, "But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Phil. 3:20-21).  In heaven, we will all be physically changed, but to the extent that our souls have been transformed by the divine life, we will continue to cry out to God and to one another, "I know you!  I know you!"