Office For the Dead

CHRIST WILL DRAW ALL PEOPLE TO HIMSELF
From a sermon by St Athanasius of Antioch 3
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“To this end Christ died and rose to life that he might be Lord both of the
dead and of the living. But God is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

That is why the dead, now under the dominion of one who has risen to
life, are no longer dead but alive. Therefore life has dominion over them and,
just as Christ having been raised from the dead, will never die again, so too they
will live and never fear death again. When they have been thus raised from the
dead and freed from decay, they shall never again see death, for they will share
in Christ’s resurrection just as he himself shared in their death.

That is why Christ descended into the underworld, with its imperishable
prison-bars: to shatter the doors of bronze and break the bars of iron and, from
decay, to raise our life to himself by giving us freedom in place of servitude.

But if this plan does not yet appear to be perfectly realized – for people
still die and bodies still decay in death – this should not occasion any loss of
faith. For, in receiving the first-fruits, we have already received the pledge of all
the blessings we have mentioned; with them we have reached the heights of
heaven, and we have taken our place beside him who has raised us up with
himself, as Paul says: In Christ God has raised us up with him, and has made us
sit with him in the heavenly places.

And the fulfillment will be ours on the day predestined by the Father,
when we shall put off our childish ways and come to perfect manhood. For this
is the decree of the Father of the ages: the gift, once given, is to be secure and
no more to be rejected by a return to childish attitudes.

There is no need to recall that the Lord rose from the dead with a spiritual
body, since Paul in speaking of our bodies bears witness that they are sown as
animal bodies and raised as spiritual bodies: that is, they are transformed in
accordance with the glorious transfiguration of Christ who goes before us as our
leader.

The Apostle, affirming something he clearly knew, also said that this
would happen to all peoples through Christ, who will change our lowly body to
make it like his glorious body.

If this transformation is a change into a spiritual body and one,
furthermore, like the glorious body of Christ, then Christ rose with a spiritual
body, a body that was sown in dishonor, but the very body that was transformed
in glory.

Having brought this body to the Father as the first-fruits of our nature, he
will also bring the whole body to fulfillment. For he promised this when he said:
I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.

3 Oratio 5, de Resurrectione Christi, 6-7,9: PG 89,1358-1359. 1361-1362. From the Liturgy of the Hours vol. III, p. 1886.