Oration on the Myrrhbearing Women and on the Burial of the Divine Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and on Joseph of Arimathea, and on the Three-day Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (St. Gregory of Antioch)

Oration on the Myrrhbearing Women and on the Burial of the Divine Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and on Joseph of Arimathea, and on the Three-day Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ

By St. Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch (+ 593)

This law of the Church also is praiseworthy, which prepares us to celebrate the remembrance of the depositing of Christ among the dead. For who, reflecting on the life-giving death of the Savior, will not consider that the dead in their coffins lie stretched out as in tents, awaiting the heavenly trumpet, which will call all of us to the dread day of Judgment?

And who, looking toward that saving tomb, does not draw near to the tombs as to chambers of life? Who, believing that the Lord has risen from the dead, does not behave in a way that shows that he himself also is about to rise, attaining the resurrection through Him?

Since therefore, obeying the good law of the Church, you who are watchful have run to those who sleep in the tombs, and the place constrains you but your longing gladdens you, because you are so many and have pressed together like a cluster of grapes — for this reason listen, as you desire, concerning the mystery of death, which one may learn, but no one is able to possess.