From the Friars: Easter and Tattoos
“Father, is it okay to get tattoos?” I was at a Young Adult Retreat and some of the young men and women were discussing the pros and cons of getting tattoos. Some thought that there was nothing wrong with it, others recalled some Biblical injunction against tattoos. “So, Father, what’s the right answer?” one young man asked me. I answered the question with another question. “On the Last Day, when you get your body back, do you think that there will still be tattoos on them; if you got tattoos in this life?”
Resurrection of Jesus, by Wolfgang Sauber – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
It seemed obvious to me, that if the young man thought about it, he would soon realize, “No, my tattoos will not be part of my glorified, Resurrected body,” and further conclude that, “God must not count such things as essential to our bodies or His glory in the world to come, and perhaps it is better to go without them in this life“. [I am not saying that tattoos are bad or sinful. I was just trying to make the young man think about our life in Heaven.] To my surprise, the following exchange took place: The young man’s face dropped. His gaped mouth and wide eyes proclaimed his utter astonishment, and half-dazed asked: “We get our bodies back?!?”
It was as if, he had never even heard of the Resurrection before. “Yes, we get our bodies back,” I replied. “That’s what the ‘resurrection of the dead” which we pray each week in the Creed means. It means that God will raise us up on the Last Day and we will live forever with Jesus, if we followed His Will and kept the Commandments in this life. That is the whole point of Easter. Sin and death do not have the last say.
The young man immediately went over to a young girl who was helping him with the after-dinner cleanup and whispered something into her ear. “What?!?” she exclaimed, “we get our bodies back?!?…O, my God…that’s incredible!” She immediately told another friend and that friend told yet another friend on the retreat. The news spread like wildfire. All of them were utterly astounded. I saw firsthand the excitement and joy in their faces when the Gospel of the Risen Lord was proclaimed.
Yes, Brothers and Sisters, let us rejoice with gaped mouth, wide eyes, and utter astonishment on this Easter Sunday, because we will live forever with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and Mary and all the angels and saints…and, yes, we will get our bodies back!
— Fr. Andrew