Scimus Christum surrexisse a mortuis vere.
We knjow that Christ is truly risen from the dead.

Easter Sequence Victimæ paschali

H/eltdf_dropcaps]ÆC dies quam fecit Dominus. This is the day the Lord has made: let us rejoice and exult (Ps 117 [118]:24). The Psalmist hails the dies dominica foretold since the time of the Old Testament as the day of the restoration of the divine order in Christ. 

The messianic prophecies reveal to us the fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery. The glorious Messiah, conqueror of sin and death, is hailed by Sacred Scripture as the beginning, the firstborn of those who rise from the dead, so that He might have primacy over all things (Col 1:18); the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, who loved us and cleansed us from our sins by His blood (Rev 1:5). Christ is the testis fidelis, the witness worthy of belief, for His testimony was brought to fulfillment through His faithfulness, even unto death.

As the primogenitus mortuorum, He perfectly fulfills what Old Testament primogeniture prefigured. This institution established the firstborn male as the heir (Dt 21:17), the holder of priestly rights (Ex 13:2; 22:28–29; 34:19–20), and the mediator and sanctifier of the family he represented before God. The firstborn was not merely the first in chronological order, but the one who—by being offered and consecrated to God—rendered the entire “harvest” of the family or the field acceptable and blessed. If the firstborn was properly offered or redeemed, God blessed the rest of the offspring and possessions. This principle applied to everything that opens forth into life (Ex 13:2): the offering of the first and best portion—the firstborn or the firstfruits—sanctified and guaranteed the whole.

The birthright of the Old Law was, therefore, a prefiguration of that which Our Lord Jesus Christ has perfectly realized. He is the Firstborn not because He was created, but because He is the very principle of Creation in the order of nature, and of the new creation in the order of Grace. By His divine nature, Our Lord possesses the fullness of the paternal inheritance. He is the only Son by essence; everything that the Father has is His (Jn 16:15; 17:10). Through His glorious Resurrection, He reclaims in His humanity this universal inheritance; an inheritance that constitutes Our Lord the True and Only Redeemer, by virtue of the Incarnation, ensuring that through His Sacrifice we are redeemed from the bondage of sin and death: So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then also an heir through the grace of God (Gal 4:7).

We can thus understand how the Jews of that time could readily grasp what Saint Paul was referring to when he designated Christ as the one Mediator between God and men (1 Tim 2:5). Mediator and Sanctifier: Indeed, the One who sanctifies (Heb 2:11) is Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30). Christ is the true High Priest who, by entering the heavenly tabernacle with His own blood (Heb 9:11–12), definitively sanctifies the people. All this is because He is precisely the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15).

This concept is linked to the doctrine of the Mystical Body: since Christ is the first to rise, He is the Head from whom the entire Body receives new life. His Resurrection is the firstfruits that guarantee the resurrection of all the just, just as the firstborn was the guarantor of the blessing of his brothers. Since Christ is the Head of the new family of God—the Holy Church—each of us, by virtue of our baptism, becomes a co-heir with Him through participation in His Divine Sonship: If we are sons, we are also heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Rom 8:17). For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29).

This inheritance is not merely in the future (heavenly glory) but begins in the present life; for, as co-heirs with Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit even now as a down payment on our inheritance (Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:14). Indeed, as co-heirs, we are already citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, by virtue of being living members of the Holy Church. And it is the Church, in Her sanctifying mission, who dispenses by means of the Sacraments the gifts of the Paraclete as a guarantee of the irrevocable covenant sealed by God in the Blood of the Lamb.

Divine Wisdom, in the eternity of time, had foretold it: Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum (Ps 138 [139]:18)—I have risen, and I am still with You. It is the voice of the Eternal Word who, from the eternity of time, responds obediently to the will of the Father: Then I said: “Behold, I come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me that I am to do Your will” (Ps 39 [40]:8). And this will is our salvation, through the Cross.

In the last few days, during the recitation of the Breviary, we have prayed repeatedly with the words of Saint Paul: Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis (Phil 2:8). The Mystery of Christ’s Passion is a supreme act of filial obedience, which becomes the very foundation of our Redemption and our divine inheritance. Christ Jesus, though being of divine nature, did not regard his equality with God as a treasure to be jealously guarded, but emptied himself, taking on the condition of a servant and becoming like men; and, appearing in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, death on a cross (Phil 2:6–8). Christ’s obedience stands in contrast to the disobedience of Adam: while the progenitor of the human race refused, out of pride, to obey God – thereby forfeiting the divine inheritance for himself and his descendants – Christ, the New Adam, obeys to the very extreme—the most ignominious death, that reserved for slaves—and thereby regains that supernatural inheritance: To all who received him, he gave the power to become children of God: to those who believe in his name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (Jn 1:12–13).

Thus Our Lord, obeying even unto death on the cross, receives from the Father the name that is above every other name; so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow – in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth – and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9–11). Our Lord makes us co-heirs of this same glory.

And yet, without this crucified obedience, there would be neither Resurrection nor any divine inheritance. It is an obedience that renders deaf and blind those who do not accept the sacrificial dimension of the Divine Kingship and the Divine Priesthood of Our Lord: You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross! (Mk 15:29–30). Let Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe (Mk 15:32). The insults and mockery of the crowd, the chief priests, and the scribes reveal a rejection of the immolation, of the Cross, of the sacrifice of the Firstborn, despite the fact that Sacred Scripture clearly indicated that the Divine Messiah would suffer and offer Himself in sacrifice. Even the words that Satan addressed to Christ from the pinnacle of the Temple are no different from those of the mob: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” (Mt 4:6).

Upon the throne of the Cross, the Incarnate Word — firstborn of the Father as True God, and firstborn of men as True Man — wins the spiritual inheritance for the benefit of His brothers, of all of us, restoring us as heirs of God and co-heirs with Him.

This inheritance, dearest brothers, is not guaranteed to us without conditions. It requires of us a willingness to become, in our turn, imitatores Christi (1 Cor 11:1), following the Firstborn on the path of the Cross, so that we may then triumph with Him: if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him (Rom 8:17). For there is no Resurrection without Calvary; and whoever rejects the Cross and the humiliation of the Son of God at His First Coming will not sit at His right hand when He returns in glory at His Second Coming to judge all of mankind.

On that day—a day of wrath, that day; a day of anguish and affliction, a day of ruin and extermination, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and obscurity (Zeph 1:15)—Christ’s obedience, even unto death on a cross (Phil 2:8), will become the criterion of judgment for all. Those who have shared in His sufferings shall be co-heirs of His glory; those who have rejected the Cross shall hear these words: Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt 25:41). And then they shall truly see and understand what it means to have dared to defy the Lamb, the Ruler of the earth (Is 16:1), whom the Father has exalted and glorified: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet (Ps 109:1-2, cited in Acts 2:35). His enemies are humiliated at the feet of the Risen Redeemer, compelled to acknowledge that it was precisely upon the Cross that the Messiah revealed Himself as the princeps regum terrae (Rev 1:5).

On the day of Pentecost, Saint Peter summarizes the messianic prophecies to the men of Judea and proclaims the faith of the Church: Let the whole house of Israel therefore know with certainty that this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). For Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20). 

If we wish to be heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, we must cling fast to the Cross, which has been transformed from an instrument of death and defeat into a symbol of life and victory: spes unica, our only hope. For it is God who is at work within you, enabling you both to will and to act according to His good pleasure. Do everything without grumbling or hesitation, so that you may be blameless and innocent—children of God without blemish in the midst of a corrupt and perverse generation—in which you shine like stars in the world (Phil 2:13–15). And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Viterbo, 5 April MMXXVI
Dominica in Resurrectione Domini