“If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1.)
Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Reading proclaimed at Mass today.:
“But he who keeps the commandments not in perfect love, but in dread of future torment and in fear of punishments is indeed also himself a son of Abraham; he too receives gifts, that is, the reward of his work … nevertheless he is inferior to that person who is perfected not in slavish fear, but in the freedom of love. “Leaving the word of the first principles of Christ,” he is borne to perfection. “Seeking the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, not the things that are on the earth,” he “looks not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” In the divine Scriptures he does not follow “the letter which kills” but “the spirit which quickens.” From those things he will doubtless be one who does not receive “the spirit of bondage again in fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father.” (Homilies on Genesis, 7.)
Collect
O God,
Who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal
brought by Your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Who on this day,
through your Only Begotten Son,
have conquered death
and unlocked for us the path to eternity,
grant, we pray, that we who keep
the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection
may, through the renewal
brought by Your Spirit,
rise up in the light of life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the
unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen
