Vigils Reading

THE FIRST AND THE SECOND

RESURRECTION

By Blessed Guerric of Igny

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“Blessed and holy is he who has a share in the first resurrection”. “I am the

resurrection and the life”, Jesus said. He indeed is the first resurrection; he is

also the second resurrection. For rising from the dead as the first fruits of those

who sleep, Christ both brings about for us the first resurrection by the mystery

of his own resurrection and by the example of that same resurrection will bring

about for us the second. The first is that of souls, when he raises them together

with himself to newness of life; the second will be that of bodies, when he forms

this humbled body of ours anew, molding it into the image of his glorified body.

Christ does well then to proclaim himself the resurrection and the life

since it is through him and into him that we rise in order to live according to him

and with him; now according to him in holiness and justice, afterwards with him

in happiness and glory. Now the first resurrection of our Head, the Lord Jesus

Christ, is the cause and the proof of the second resurrection, which will be that

of his whole body. So also for each of us the first resurrection of the soul, by

which it comes to life again from the death of sin, is the proof and the cause of its

second resurrection, by which the body will be freed not only from corruption of

death but also from every tendency to corruption and death. That the one is the

proof and cause of the other St Paul shows clearly in the words: “If the Spirit of

Christ who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he will give life also to your

perishable bodies on account of his Spirit who dwells in you”.

It is well said then: “Blessed and holy is he who has a share in the first

resurrection”. Holy, that is, on account of the first, which he has already

obtained through the renewal of his soul; blessed on account of the second,

which he happily awaits when his body is restored. The reason for his

blessedness is indicated by the same passage of Scripture, which goes on: “Over

these (who have a share, that is, in the first resurrection), the second death has

no power, even if the first death has seemed to exercise its dominion over them

for a passing hour. For death has reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those

who did not sin according to the likeness of Adam’s transgression. But as with

Christ so with the Christian; rising from the dead, he dies no more; death has no

more dominion over him.

So over those blessed neither has the second death any power nor will the

first keep the power, which it had for a time. For the one death of Christ

triumphed over both of ours, setting free from the one those who were already

its captives, from the other, those who would be its captives. It prevented us

from falling into the one, from remaining in the other. How true, how devout

and at the same time how magnificent is that threat he uttered as he died: “I will

be your death, O death”. How fittingly and wonderfully he triumphed who

tasted death on behalf of all and so swallowed up his own death and all the dying

of all humanity. Free from fear he may mock at it, whomever that blessed man is

who has a share in the first resurrection: “Where is your victory, death? Where

is your sting, death?”