We say Easter, resurrection. That means it has already begun, the definitive future has already started. The transfiguration of the world is no ideal, no postulate, but a reality. The history of nature with its developments and self-transcendence has already—though for the moment only in its exemplar—reached its unsurpassable culmination: material reality which, wholly transfigured, is for eternity the glorious body of God. The most tremendous and definitive self-transcendence of the material world (through the grave-given power of God alone, of course) has already taken place. It has leapt beyond itself into the infinity of God’s spirituality and, in this upward flight into God’s immeasurable flame, it has not been consumed but has survived, definitively transfigured.
If we thought about it correctly, we Christians would really have to say that we, not the others, are the most radical materialists, for we say that God’s pure and substantial self-utterance (the divine Word of God) has a true body for all eternity. The history of humanity, so we say when we celebrate Easter, has already reached its goal in a representative or, rather, in the representative of this whole history (in Him and through Him for the others).
And this has happened where not simply spirit and glorified soul, but the one human being in His totality who acted and suffered this history of His, attained perfect fulfillment, where everything abides, nothing is lost, and everything is disclosed as meaningful and glorious. This end, which is the beginning of the fulfillment of all things, has arrived and has manifested itself to humanity still advancing through history, just as the front of a procession which has reached the goal calls back with cries of triumph to those still marching: we are there, we have found the goal, and it is what we hoped it would be.
The place at which such a beginning of the end and completion has appeared is called Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen. Because his tomb is empty, because he who was dead has shown himself to be living in the unity of his whole concrete humanity, we know that everything has already really begun to be well. Almost everything is still on the way. But on the way to a goal which is not a utopian ideal but an already existent reality.
Saint Hippolytus of Rome
Christ is Risen: The world below lies desolate
Christ is Risen: The spirits of evil are fallen
Christ is Risen: The angels of God are rejoicing
Christ is Risen: The tombs of the dead are empty
Christ is Risen indeed from the dead, the first of the sleepers,
Glory and power are his forever and ever.
Saint Gregory the Great
Your Radiant & Magnificent Resurrection
Dear Lord Jesus Christ, by Your radiant and magnificent resurrection, You broke the bonds of death and rose from the grave as a conqueror. You reconciled Heaven and earth. Our life had no hope of eternal happiness before You redeemed us. Your resurrection has washed away our sins, restored our innocence, and brought us joy. How inestimable is the tenderness of Your love!
Saint Richard of Chichester
Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen.
New Saint Joseph’s People’s Prayer Book
Lord, the resurrection of Your Son has given us new life and renewed hope. Help us to live as new people in pursuit of the Christian ideal. Grant us wisdom to know what we must do, the will to want to do it, the courage to undertake it, the perseverance to continue to do it, and the strength to complete it.
Pope Leo the Great—Sermon 12: On the Passion
Thus we celebrate in a proper manner the Passover of the Lord with the unleavened bread of purity and truth, while, having once rejected the leaven of ancient evil, the new creature drinks and eats of the Lord himself. Participation in the Body and Blood of Christ does nothing else than make us enter into what we take and carry everywhere, in spirit and flesh, the one in whom we are dead, in whom we have been buried, in whom we are raised, as the apostles says: “After all, you have died! Your life is hidden now with Christ in God.”
Nature and dignity 