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“Jesus cried out again with a great voice and gave up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the church was torn in two, from the highest to the lowest: and the earth was shaken: and the stone was disintegrated: and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the fallen saints arose: and they came out of the tomb, after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many" (Matthew 27:50-53 ). When any victorious king, after having accomplished a great and generally useful feat, enters in triumph into the city he liberated, then usually everyone’s eyes are first directed at him alone, even if he is surrounded by many and significant persons: they see him alone, they talk about him alone, he is the same for everyone. “But when the gaze is saturated with the sight of a face loved by everyone and sacred to everyone, then they begin to notice other faces surrounding the winner, who participated in his feat, or serve as a sign and fruit of his victory. The same can be said about us. We are celebrating the greatest victory, the greatest feat, the likes of which have never been and never will be, the beneficial consequences of which are innumerable and extend not only to the entire human race, but to the entire world, not for years and centuries, but for all eternity. Is it surprising that our entire thought stopped on the great culprit of our triumph and our bliss; that we contemplated Him alone, sang and glorified Him alone, rejoiced and talked about Him alone? There will be such a person, such an object, not just for one week, but for the rest of one’s life, for all eternity. But this glory and triumph of this same Conqueror of hell and death requires paying some attention to other extraordinary persons surrounding Him during the Resurrection, as participants in His triumph, and as the fruit of His victory. Attention to them will not only not reduce attention to the Hero of the occasion, but will even further deepen and elevate it: for everything that is joyful, great and glorious in these faces, everything stems from Him and is turned entirely to Him. So, let us approach with reverent thought the bright host of the righteous who rose with the Lord, and consider: 1) who are they and when did they rise? 2) to whom did they appear and why? 3) where did they go after their appearance, and what happened to them after? 4) what is the connection between their resurrection and the Resurrection of the Lord - and with the general future resurrection of the dead? Who are the resurrected? Saints,” the evangelist answers, but he doesn’t say which ones exactly. By the way, of course, also because their names could not add anything to their resurrection. Whether this or that righteous person was resurrected is all the same; the power is not in the name of the resurrected, but in the resurrection, in the miracle. If, however, we judge by decency, which is not shunned even by miracles, then it was closest to those who were primarily united in the flesh with the Risen Lord, like Abraham and David, to be resurrected; or predicted His death and resurrection more clearly than others, like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel; or more clearly prefigured these events with their lives, like Job and Jonah. If we judge by the need to be recognized more quickly from those to whom the resurrected appeared after the resurrection, then it seems that those who had recently died should have been resurrected, such as John the Baptist, Simeon, Anna, Joseph and many others. Or perhaps all these considerations, as of a lower order, had no force in this case, but one higher consideration acted: -those were resurrected in whom, according to their inner man, the power of the death and Resurrection of the Lord was most reflected, that is, the most perfect righteous, although their number could also include those who were destined to be resurrected according to other relations that we have indicated. - Be that as it may, only the host of those resurrected was not small: “many bodies of the departed saints have risen”! – The ceremonial retinue of such a Conqueror and King as the Son of God could not be scanty and small in number. But my thought involuntarily stops at one expression of the evangelist about the resurrection of saints; “The bodies of the departed saints have risen,” he says. Why doesn’t he say: the saints have risen, or risen; and “their bodies arose and came out of the grave”; as if these bodies had long been lying in the tombs, ready for the uprising and exodus? – Such expressions could very well be used about the resurrection of the bodies of the saints of God, resting incorruptibly in our city. But we do not see at all from the history of the Old Testament Church that there were any incorruptible bodies of departed saints in it. Where did the bodies come from in Jerusalem that, according to the evangelist, “rose and came out of the tomb” at the hour of the Lord’s death? – You can answer differently; and it seems to me that this is a sign that in the tombs of the departed there are already in a mysterious way the firstfruits of those incorruptible bodies in which the souls are clothed on the last day; just as during the winter the bodies of future summer plants are already in the seeds sown in the fall; so that if, by some miracle, the summer sun should shine in the middle of winter, they would come out of their tombs and appear before everyone. When exactly did “the bodies of the departed saints arise”, and when “did they descend into the holy city and appear to many people”? – They rose up immediately after the death of the Lord on the Cross. For when, “Jesus... cried with a great voice, he gave up the ghost”; and when, as a result of this, “the veil of the church was rent,... the earth... shook,... the stone disintegrated”: - at the same time, according to the testimony of the evangelist, “the graves were opened: and many bodies of the departed saints arose.” But the coming out of the tombs, the entry into the holy city and the appearance to many, according to the instructions of the evangelist, did not suddenly follow the death of the Lord, but after, “after... His” glorious “Resurrection”. Here again there is some mystery. The death of the Lord seems like a great thunderclap that rang out throughout the whole world, shook the whole earth, crushed the strongholds of hell and awakened the bodies of the saints that were sleeping in the heart of the earth: - and so they arose, were freed from the bonds of death; but they did not perceive the fullness of renewed life until after the resurrection and from the Resurrection of the Lord, “that He,” according to the expression of the Apostle, “may be preeminent in all” (Col. 1:18). To whom did the resurrected saints appear? “Many,” the evangelist answers, “and to whom exactly,” he again does not indicate: perhaps precisely because the number of those worthy of the appearance was very large, and their names were not so remarkable. In fact, it is not clear that the risen saints appeared, for example, to the apostles. How much would this phenomenon mean to them when they had the happiness several times to see their resurrected Teacher himself? – Similar things, it seems, should be said about all the others who were honored to see the Lord Himself after His Resurrection. The resurrected saints were probably supposed to replace His appearance with their appearance: therefore, to whom He Himself appeared, they no longer appeared to him. And He Himself appeared to many, for the last time “he appeared,” according to Paul’s testimony, “to more than five hundred brethren” (1 Cor. 15:6); but the resurrected righteous, perhaps, appeared to the greatest number of the Lord’s followers; so that everyone who needed a speedy testimony of His Resurrection received it from those who rose with Him. Or perhaps some of those who had not previously believed in the Lord, but who had a disposition to believe in their souls, were also rewarded with this testimony; just as the highest mercy was later shown, in a special, extraordinary form, to Saul. The appearance of the resurrected righteous, by its very essence, was the strongest evidence of the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and His Divine dignity. When the resurrected one, appearing to someone, said: “I have been resurrected by the power of Jesus, crucified and risen; believe in Him as surely as you now undoubtedly see me,” then all doubts had to disappear, all objections would fall away by themselves. “What happened to the resurrected righteous after their appearance to many?” Neither the evangelist nor church history says a word to resolve this issue. But the very silence of the scriptures makes it clear that the righteous who appeared did not stay in Jerusalem, not only among the unbelievers, but also among those to whom they appeared. How would they begin to live on earth? The ground was clearly not for them; just as they are not on the ground. Where did they go? Are they really in the graves from which they came? This would be inconsistent with their resurrection. If Lazarus, resurrected, died again after a certain time had passed; then we must remember that Lazarus was resurrected with his former body, that is, with an ordinary human body; and the saints, resurrected by the death of the Lord, were resurrected in a renewed body, such as the bodies of all saints will be after the general resurrection, or something close to it. With such a body, how can the soul be separated again? How can such a body enter the tomb again and why? Therefore, from ancient times, the holy fathers piously believed that the resurrected saints did not die again, but invisibly accompanied the Lord to heaven during His Ascension, forming around Him the firstfruits of a renewed humanity, which was then joined in due time by the Mother of God, taken with her body to heaven, and, perhaps, other saints are joined from time to time. Let us turn to the last question: in what connection is this resurrection of the saints with the Resurrection of the Lord Himself? – Is it external only, by the action of the omnipotence of God, which called to life the saints at the moment of the death of the All-Holy One, in order to give testimony of His innocence and Divine dignity? Or also in an internal connection, as an action emerging from its cause directly, like an echo after the sound of thunder? If there were no internal, direct connection between the death of the Lord and the rebellion of the saints; then, it seems, it should not have happened at this time, so as not to be premature: for their appearance to many in the holy city was not to follow before the Resurrection of the Lord; therefore, then, and not before, their resurrection should have taken place, in order to thus avoid a period of time that would otherwise be completely unnecessary. Meanwhile, although the time to testify about the Risen One has not yet come, the saints are resurrected; and this happens precisely at that very moment when the Lord betrays His spirit to the Father on the Cross. How can one not think after this that they arise precisely from the all-powerful breath of this life-giving Spirit? That is why we likened the death of the Lord to such a great blow that shook the whole world and awakened, as the Church puts it, those who were dead from eternity. Everyone was excited, but the action did not occur in everyone equally, depending on the difference in those who were sleeping. For the most part, it was limited to the fact that those who had died, awakening from the sleep of death, could follow the Conqueror of death, after His descent into hell, and follow Him with their souls from hell. And others, who slept more subtly and more easily, upon their arousal, received so much life-giving power from the Risen Lord that they not only left hell in soul, but also took with them their very bodies from the graves, and, having clothed themselves with them, could, in gratitude, serve as their appearance for many, the Risen One, and then, as a reward, ascend after Him to heaven. - In this sense, Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer called the present resurrection of the saints a continuation and addition of the Resurrection of the Lord. Now judge for yourself, does the gaze turned to the resurrected saints diminish attention to the Risen Lord? Against! Everything that is bright and joyful in their face is all from the face of Him - the Conqueror of death and hell! Do not cease, brothers, to delve with reverent thought into all the circumstances of the Resurrection of the Lord: they contain an inexhaustible treasure of instructive thoughts and holy feelings. For this reason, the Holy Church continued the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ for fourty days, in order to give us time to observe everything in this glorious event. For this reason, we have chosen as the subject of this interview an event in the history of the Resurrection of the Lord, which rarely and little attracts attention, in order to give us some example of how every circumstance in the Resurrection of the Lord can be a source of reverent reflection and occupy you in your free hours at home. For this, let us turn once again to the face of the resurrected saints. -What does he teach us by his resurrection? Therefore, “firstly, that the source of life for all of us mortals and those subject to decay is one - our Lord Jesus Christ; - secondly, that this source, although equally open to everyone, is drawn from it, more or less, depending on how they make themselves capable of it by the purity of their faith and life, their soul and heart. In fact, at the hour of the Lord’s death, according to the testimony of the evangelist, the tombs of not only the righteous were opened; but why at that time did only the bodies of saints come out of their graves? Because they alone were capable of this at that time. In this case, something similar happened to what sometimes happens in visible nature, when heat warms the air and penetrates the earth; especially plants rich in vitality, even in the middle of winter, become excited from inactivity and produce shoots and leaves. Keeping all this in mind and loving life with all our hearts, let us love with all our hearts the only Source of life, the Lord Jesus - love not in word and tongue, but in deed and truth - listening to His word, fulfilling His commandments, imitating His example, uniting with Him in spirit and body through the holy sacraments. If we try to live and act in this way - purifying and destroying in ourselves through repentance everything that may come into our lives and our hearts that is unclean from the world and the flesh: then when our tombs are opened, our bodies will come out of them glorified, and will enter the holy city, heavenly Jerusalem, and will appear in multitudes - they will stand in the face of all the angels and saints, and we will be honored with eternal life. heavens - be with us all, by the grace of the Risen One! Amen. You might be interested in: