Saturday, November 2 : Saint Ambrose

And what reason would Christ have had for dying, except that of rising again? For, seeing that God could not die, Wisdom could not die; and inasmuch as that could not rise again which had not died, flesh is assumed, which can die, that whilst that, whose nature it is, dies, that which had died should rise again. For the resurrection could not be effected except by man; since, “as by man came death, so too by man came the resurrection of the dead.” So, then, man rose because man died; man was raised again, but God raised him. Then it was man according to the Flesh, now God is all in all. For now we know not Christ according to the flesh, but we possess the grace of that Flesh, so that we know Him the firstfruits of them that rest, the firstborn of the dead. Now the first-fruits are undoubtedly of the same nature and kind as the remaining fruits, the first of which are offered to God as a petition for a richer increase, as a holy thank-offering for all gifts, and as a kind of libation of that nature which has been restored. Christ, then, is the firstfruits of them that rest. But is this of His own who are at rest, who, as it were, freed from death, are holden by a kind of sweet slumber, or of all those who are dead? “As in Christ all die, so too in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team