1. Turning now to the
subject, you have to say that the first thing that is offered to our
consideration is the burning desire for the resurrection of the Lord, in
accordance with what the prophet says: Get up, Lord. And really, such a
resurrection deserved, not only to be desired with medullary cordial love, but
also to be celebrated with mouthfuls of accents sweet as honey because of three
privileges that the risen Christ had, which are highly convenient for
us. As the first privilege, the primacy of novelty not used before (the resurrection
itself); as a second privilege, the virtuality of one's own power and, as
a third privilege, the example in order to our resurrection or in order to the
need that we have of the resurrection.
Coming to the first,
it must be said that Christ had primacy over the unused novelty. The reason is
because Christ, deposed from the miserable oldness of death, rose from the
dead, inaugurating the inestimable joy of new life, since the Lord Jesus
Christ, as a man, was the firstborn among mortals, who, after having subjugated
the empire of death, was crowned with the diadem of the new
incorruption. And, to tell the truth, who would have been the
first to overcome the sadness enclosed in inveterate death and to initiate the
joy that comes from our perpetual life but he whose key opens the door of
eternity? He is, in fact, the one who, as having authority, could order the
angels when he said: ¡Raise up, ¡oh princes!, your gates; and you, ¡oh
doors!, get up. And it is that the fruit of my blood are the reparation of
universal concord and the remission of judicial punishment. In view of
which, what I now want is that, the flaming sword being removed from the
entrance of paradise, the gate of heaven be opened, as I, the Lord of hosts,
having defeated the devil, conquered, at a price of my blood, the kingdom of
heaven. From where we have that Christ is, not only as God, but also as
man, the King of glory. And, no doubt, it was to this kind of novelty that
St. Paul was referring in his first letter to the Corinthians, c15: Christ, says the
Apostle, rose from the dead as the firstfruits of the dead. For, as
through a man death came, so through another Man came the resurrection of
the dead. And as all die in Adam, so all will be revived in Christ. And from there it is
that the Apostle, being discreet and prudent, when pointing out the new
qualities that compete as the first fruits of the risen Christ, offers our
consideration two things: firstly, in effect, so that consolation is not
diluted in joy, it puts before our eyes the misery of death, matter of
desolation; and this when it is said: by a man death came; and then,
so that desolation is not absorbed in sadness, the Apostle proposes to us the
medicine of the resurrection, matter of consolation; and this when it is
added: So also by a man, that is, by Christ, came the resurrection of the
dead. Consequently, his intention was to mitigate one with the other, that
is, misery with medicine, or desolation with consolation; and since
death Although it has the enemy's fraudulence as its occasion, it
recognizes, however, as its origin or cause, the arrogance of the mind and, as
its consummation, the concupiscence of the flesh; for this reason the
Apostle says: As in Adam, because of the demerit of his
transgression, all die. And because the medicine of
death comes from divine mercy in attention to the merits of the Lord's passion,
for this reason it is added: So also all will revive
in Christ by the merits of his passion. - From where we
have tal the first and immediate cause of death is not God,
since God is to be supreme and indeficient, and death the maximum defect
among all penal miseries, but the will of man that deviates
from rectitude and justice. perpetual rule of justice, according to that of
Wisdom, c.1: God did not make death
nor does he rejoice in the extermination of those who die, He created, on the
contrary, all things so that they would last, and healthy are all those that
are born in the world; nor is there the beginning of death in them nor is
there an infernal kingdom on earth. Because justice is perfect and
immortal, and injustice has death as a stipend.
As for the second,
Christ, by resurrecting, showed how virtuous his own power is. It was not
necessary for him, in fact, although he saw himself constituted as the obliging
center of the celestial army, to resort neither to devout prayer nor to angelic
ministry; And to this, without a doubt, the psalm refers: for the misery
of the helpless and the groaning of the poor, I will rise right now, says the
Lord. It is to be known that poor and destitute came to be the holy
fathers held as in a very dark prison in limbo, who were, in truth, impotent to
free themselves; and for this reason, reduced to a miserable and
lamentable state, they eagerly desired to see the benefit of the resurrection
accelerated. The Lord heard such vehement desires, in meaning of which we
have that the Lord says: I will rise again right now;
But perhaps some
physical philosopher may say: ¿How can an animal body, corruptible and composed
of contrary elements, ¿become incorruptible and perpetually enduring? To
which the theologian responds: If you want your argument to be universally
valid, in all matters, you must deal with many inconveniences or absurd
nonsense.
That's right,
indeed. The first nonsense is that you claim that God is not superior to
nature in power, nor is the artist superior to his work; and how absurd it
is to say this, there is no one who can doubt it. The reason is because
the entire argument of the physicist is summed up in this: It is impossible
according to nature; then it is absolutely impossible. And it is
manifest that such a consequence cannot be inferred in any way. The second
nonsense or inconvenience is that you claim that, on the one hand, nature
contains hidden things, which we also admit, since many, in truth, we they
are latent, as is to be seen in the calamite that iron is attracted to, in the
salamander that is preserved in the fire, and in other similar things and in
what do you want, for another, that God has only operations accessible to your
eyes; and it is true that saying this constitutes maximum nonsense, since,
according to the sentence of Ecclesiasticus, c.43: We have seen little of
his works, and many things greater than these are hidden. The third
drawback is that you claim that God has promised obedience to
nature; which, if it were true, we would have to admit that God neither
gave sight to the blind, nor health to the lepers nor life to the dead.
And finally, the
fourth inconvenience is that you proceed based on presuppositions that are not
granted, such as when you affirm that the body is corruptible and is composed
of contrary elements, since the soul's preservation in perpetual and immortal
life implies, not already corruptible animality, but spirituality, elevation
and disposition, above the variety of contrary elements, by virtue of the
deiform habit of glory. Such a feeling can be inferred from the words of
Saint Augustine in his letter to Consentius, where he expresses himself as
follows: human frailty measures divine things never
experienced and is arrogant, boasting of sharpness when he says: if there is
flesh, there is blood; if there is blood there are also the other
humours; and if there are humors there is corruption" In this way he
could say: If there is a flame, it burns; if it burns, it burns; and
if it burns, then he burned the two young men in the furnace of
fire. However; ¿If you believe that such a case was a miracle, why do
you doubt wonderful things? And if you don't believe them, I take it for
granted that your blindness is greater than that of the Jews. Therefore,
it must be said that the divine power can remove from nature the qualities it
wants, leaving it others, and, for the same reason, strengthen, corruptibility
removed, the mortal members, conserving them in force, so that the form is
true. bodily, but without any blemish; let the movement be true, but
without fatigue; the ability to eat is true, but without the need to
suffer hunger".
And finally,
regarding the third, it must be said that the resurrection of Christ should be
desired as an example of our resurrection or of the requirement or necessity
that our resurrection demands. Christ, in effect, being as he is the head
and exemplary cause of our resurrection, had to rise again to communicate to
those of us who are his members the certainty about it, since it is a monstrous
thing to raise the head without the members. Hence, against those who
denied the resurrection, the Apostle argued, not without great reason and
effectiveness, in the first letter to the Corinthians, c.15, with these words:
if the dead do not rise, Christ has not risen either. In effect:
since it is necessary for Christ to rise again, since what happened in fact has
not happened is not possible at present, the resurrection of the dead
necessarily follows. To which cause the Apostle goes on to
say: Because what is corruptible must put on
incorruptibility, and what is mortal must put on immortality. In context with
which, to insert in the hearts of the faithful, removing doubts, mistrust and
bitterness of despair, the Apostle writes in the first letter to the
Thessalonians, c.4: If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so too God
will take with Him those who have fallen asleep in Him, and here we conclude that
those of us who have firm hope, like blessed Job, should not be saddened
without consolation by the death of a good Christian like the others who lack
hope.
SOURCE: SAN
BUENAVENTURA
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