unaware, after all, of what you are doing—that this vigil has been dedicated to
SERMON 223D
AT THE EASTER VIGIL
Date: after 3961
The preferred vigil
1. It's well known to you, my dearest brothers and sisters—you aren't unaware, after all, of what you are doing—that this vigil has been dedicated to the Lord, and is preferred above all the vigils devoted to the worship of God, for the purpose of renewing in it by means of such an annual solemnity the memory of the Savior, who was handed over on account of our transgressions and rose again on account of our justification (Rom 4:25); so that his whole Church, which is his body, might sing, I, though, will exult in the Lord, and will rejoice in God my savior (Hb 3:18).
Christ rose again during the night, as light shining out of the darkness
2. For us too, you see, once the night of this age is done, there will be a resurrection of the flesh for the kingdom; it's the model or sample of this that has already occurred in our head. That, indeed, is why the Lord wished to rise again at night; because, in the apostle's words, God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts (2 Cor 4:6).
So the Lord represented light shining out of darkness by being bom at night, and also by rising at night. Light out of darkness, in fact, is Christ out of the Jews, to whom it was said, / have likened your mother to night (Hos 4:5 LXX).2 But in that nation, as it were in that night, the virgin Mary was not night but
or other a star of the night; which is why a star also signaled her child-bearing, guiding a far distant night, that is the Magi from the East to worship the light. Thus in them too would be realized the command to the light to shine out of darkness.
Another harmony between the resurrection and the birth of Christ: just as in this new tomb no other dead person was laid before him and none afterso in that virgmal womb no other mortal was conceived before him, and none'after