CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 3a:

• The Incarnation
• Our Blessed Lady
• Our Lord Jesus Christ
  • 31. Our Lord's Body
  • 32. The Conception of Christ
  • 33. The Mode of Our Lord's Conception
  • 34. The Perfection of Our Lord Before His Birth
  • 35. The Nativity of Christ
  • 36. The Manifestation of the New-Born Christ
  • 37. Legal Observances Regarding the Christ Child
  • 38. The Baptism of St. John the Baptist
  • 39. The Baptizing of Christ by St. John the Baptist
  • 40. Our Lord's Life
  • 41. The Temptation in the Desert
  • 42. The Preaching of Christ
  • 43. The Miracles of Christ: In General
  • 44. Miracles of Christ: In Particular
  • 45. The Transfiguration
  • 46. The Passion of Christ
  • 47. The Effecting Cause of the Passion
  • 48. The Efficacy of the Passion of Christ
  • 49. Actual Effects of the Passion of Christ
  • 50. The Death of Our Lord
  • 51. The Burial of Our Lord
  • 52. The Descent Into Hell
  • 53. The Resurrection
  • 54. The Risen Christ
  • 55. The Manifestation of the Risen Christ
  • 56. Causal Power of the Resurrection
  • 57. The Ascension
  • 58. Our Lord at the Father's Right Hand
  • 59. Our Lord's Power as Judge
• The Sacraments in General
• Baptism
• Confirmation
• The Holy Eucharist
• Penance

53. The Resurrection

1. Christ rose from the dead: (a) to manifest the divineJustice which exalts the humbled; (b) to instruct and establish usin the faith, for the Resurrection is the central truth of ourfaith; (c) to give us firm hope of our own resurrection; (d) toteach us to rise from the death of sin to newness of life; (e) tocomplete the work of our salvation, and, after enduring evil, torise triumphant to lasting good.

2. Christ rose on the third day. He delayed theResurrection long enough to establish the fact that he had trulydied. Yet he did not delay it so long that men might fail to see itas the unquestionable proof of his Godhead. Besides, the third daycommends to our notice the perfection of the number three which, asAristotle says, is the number of everything that has beginning,middle, and end. And, mystically, since Christ's one deathdestroyed our two deaths, the number three is significant. Thethird day also indicates the three epochs of mankind in theirrelation to God: before the Law, under the Law, and now undergrace.

3. Christ was the first to rise from the dead, to die nomore. Those who had been miraculously restored to life in the Oldand the New Testament, had to die again eventually. Not so withChrist who "is risen from the dead, the first fruits of themthat sleep" (I Cor. 15:20); "Christ rising again from thedead, dieth now no more; death shall no more have dominion overhim" (Rom. 6:9).

4. Scripture speaks of Christ (Acts 2:24) "whom Godhath raised up." Yet our Lord himself says (John 10:18):"No one taketh my life from me; but I lay it down, and I takeit up again." There is no conflict or contradiction here.Christ is God, and when he causes his own Resurrection it is Godwho raises him up. It is perfectly accurate, then, to say thatChrist himself is the cause of his Resurrection from the dead.

"If you wish to learn and appreciate something worth while, then love to be unknown and considered as nothing. Truly to know and despise self is the best and most perfect counsel."
Thomas á Kempis

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"Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good. "
St Philip Neri

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"A person who rails at God in adversity, suffers without merit; moreover by his lack of resignation he adds to his punishment in the next life and experiences greater disquietude of mind in this life."
St Alphonsus de Liguori

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