E27: Living the Paschal Mystery

What is the Paschal Mystery?

Why does the Church love Lent so much when it seems like the hardest season of the year?

How can prayer, fasting, and almsgiving become a more impactful experience for me rather than simply fulfilling my obligation as a Catholic?

Join us for this month’s episode of Catholicism 101 as we get to the heart of Christ’s Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and what these events mean for each of us during the Lenten season.

Transcript

– Intro & Episode Overview

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Hi, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101 Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today we are a bit over the halfway point of Lent. We we are past the halfway point of Lent. In fact, this Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent. And it is not like any other Sunday of Lent because the priest will be wearing rose, pink, but rose, you know, liturgically it's rose. And it is Letare Sunday. And Letare is a word that means rejoice. So just as we have Gaudete Sunday and Advent that marks we're past the halfway point, rejoice, the time of the fulfillment of the promise is near. Same thing for Lent. Rejoice. Our preparations are nearly over. The time of the promise is coming soon. Now, whereas Gaudete Sunday and Advent, the promise that is about to be fulfilled is inherently incredibly joyful. Like overwhelmingly joyful. You don't seem to have too much of a trituum that happens before the celebration of Christmas and before that promise is fulfilled. Now with Lent, we do have Holy Week and we do have the trituum, and we have the events of the Paschal mystery, which, you know, it is best summarized by the mysteries of the rosary that encapsulate this, which is the sorrowful mysteries. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of agony, um, anguish, sorrow, and just a great deal of suffering that happens before this promise of Easter, of the resurrection, and then of the ascension really is fully fulfilled. So we have to go through a great, great deal of suffering. And they are connected in a very, very beautiful way. But um we're not going to get into too much of the connections between Advent and Lent today, but we are going to focus today on those events of the Paschal mystery and what these events

– What Is the Paschal Mystery?

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really mean for our lives today and the peace and the comfort that they bring in the midst of, you know, the confrontation that they bring to us with our own sinfulness. So, all that being said, let's go ahead and get right into it. So, what is the paschal mystery? Let's let's just like dissect this a little bit. You know, as Catholics, we refer to the events of the Passion, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ as the Paschal mystery. And when we speak of the paschal mystery in these events, these are the means by which we have been saved. Now, Paschal, it comes from the Hebrew word pesa, meaning Passover, right? So Christ's Passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. These events, they are the fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Passover. And this is when it's in Exodus. It is the story of after the 10 plagues, you know, it's actually the tenth plague, and it's the death of the firstborn, is what it is. And Moses has gone to Pharaoh and said, Let my people go, let my people go. On behalf of the Lord, let my people go. So he sends the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn. And Passover is the night when the angel of death passes over the homes of God's chosen people, the Hebrews, because they have followed the instruction of the Lord, and they had spread the blood of the paschal lamb, the unblemished lamb, the sacrificial, the sacrificial lamb on those lentils and doorposts of their home. So when the angel of death sees the blood on the lintels and doorposts of the of the homes, he passes over it. Now, just as the Hebrews, God's chosen people, as they were saved from slavery, they were also saved for the promised land. They were rescued and saved from slavery, and they were saved for the promised land and really the journey there too. And this is all by the blood of the Paschal Lamb. Now, we too are saved from slavery, but slavery to sin and from eternal death, we're saved from eternal death, but we are also saved for a promised land. We are saved for the promised land, the promise of the heavenly kingdom. And this also happens by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ. And just as God commanded the Israelites to keep the feast of Passover each year and to pass it down through the generations, you know, lest they forget how they have been saved, we too were commanded to keep the solemn feast of Christ's Passover from death to life. Now, that's when we celebrate Holy Week. That's when we celebrate Lent and Holy Week. In particular, Holy Week. So even though we only celebrate Holy Week once a year, actually we're invited to enter into the passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ just in the experiences of our daily life. Now, human suffering and death, we know that it occurs every day in various ways, you know, both quite literally, but also not necessarily in the literal sense. There are these spiritual, there are these emotional, mental, um, just like meta metaphorical

– Christ’s Passion, Death & Resurrection

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deaths and sufferings that we experience in our daily lives. So the events of the Paschal mystery, they contain the story of how God fully enters into our human suffering, into our death, um, both literal and spiritual, and he transforms them from the inside out. Now, remaining aware of this very fact that he has fully entered into our deaths, he has fully entered into our sufferings, um, in the very many ways that we die and that we suffer, when we remain aware of this in the middle of our many trials, um, our deaths, our victories, it transforms the day-to-day events of our lives into a living prayer. We become a living prayer, truly. Now, other than the fact that yes, Lent and Holy Week is the time where we do formally observe and celebrate um the means by which we have been saved, that we have been commanded to keep throughout the generations. You know, um, Lent is also that time where we most intentionally enter into the paschal mystery, right? There is, there's those three elements of Lent. It's prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And, you know, um, when we commit to prayer during Lent, we aren't committing to like checking off a box every day, being like, all right, I said my rosary today, get to check off that box and then go along with my day. Um, because I've already done one task that I said I was gonna do. That's not what it is, uh, what what what your prayer is during Lent. It is that invitation into deeper friendship. Um, it is an invitation into like closer companionship, honestly, uh, because the Lord walks with us every day. Um and simply we whenever we commit to prayer, we commit to being more present to him, to us being more present to him, because he's always present to us. And so really what that acknowledg what that means is that we know that he is present with us and we invite him into our daily lives. Um, even if it is Monday and it's making seating charts. Whatever it may be, we we are called to invite him into that and truly become a living prayer. Now, the other thing um that has to do with Lent in the midst of the year, but also um the time of Lent that we're in. We're in about the fourth week of Advent, or well, Lent, excuse me, the third to fourth week of Lent here. And this is about the time, I know that it is the time for me, where um our Lenton commitments, it's like, all right, my feet are dragging, my feet are dragging, and I need some sort of boost, right? I need some sort of revitalization. And typically, you know, what helps me, I know what helps me, and what tends to help a lot of people is being reminded of why I'm doing what I'm doing. And that doesn't necessarily mean being, you know, told maybe the exact same thing or whatever it was when I started, and maybe it very well could contain that, but sometimes um my boost needs a little, a little extra oomph. It needs a little, uh, I guess you could say like more concentrated oxygen. That's the only thing that's coming to my brain. But um, you know, as as we enter into each of these events, you know, the passion death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ in this episode, um, I I

– Living the Paschal Mystery Daily

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pray that it is um both for you and I, just both that reminder of why we do what we do, but also um I hope to give you a little more of like a concentrated boost of oxygen uh and maybe give you a new perspective um or just refresh a perspective that maybe you've heard before about the Pasco mystery and how it directly applies to our daily life. And as I uh talk about these events, um I keep I want to just keep reminding you that everything I am speaking about is both on the literal level, but also on the spiritual level, the metaphorical, you could even say metaphysical level if you want to get fancy. Um but yes. So the first thing, the passion and death of Christ. We are not alone. We are not alone. Now, the catechism in paragraph 624 says, By the grace of God, Jesus tasted death for everyone. In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his son should not only die for our sins, but should also taste death. He should experience the condition of death, the separation of the soul from his body. Now, just as I said, there's that twofold meaning. So the literal meaning, quite literally, he dies. Um, literally, his heart stops beating, he loses breath from his lungs, um, his soul leaves his body. I have two really beautiful quotes here. And the first one is from uh St. John of the Cross, and he says, In the twilight of life, we shall be judged on love. Now, twilight, um, if you're about my age, you might think of like Edward Colin and um all of the vampire books and movies and stuff. That was just really prevalent uh when I was a teenager. But um in the twilight of life, in the evening time, in the night, um, when it is growing dark, when you are losing sight, um when things become more vulnerable and more scary, and the darkness is just really beginning to descend. Um the Lord Jesus knows how scary that is. Um and you know, we we taste that on a daily basis, you know, quite literally with the evenings and the night. Uh, but it it is all that more amplified when someone is dying. Um, and and he knows that. He knows that he knows how frightening it is, and he knows how awful it is, because again, we were never supposed to die. We were never supposed to die. Now, the other quote that I have here is from Saint Gregory Nazianzus. I'm not sure that I'm saying that right, but I've really given it my best shot. But Saint Gregory he says, What has not been assumed has not been healed. What has not been assumed by Christ has not been healed. Meaning what Jesus has not taken on in his own very experience has not been redeemed. We know that um death no longer has the final say, we know that death um is no longer the end for us, and it is no longer an experience of just pure, desolate sorrow and grief. There is there is hope. There is hope because Jesus experienced it and he has redeemed it. And we have a greater hope with the resurrection, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself just yet. Now, in a spiritual sense of many, there's a couple that I kind of want to focus on here. But first, you know, Jesus not only experienced that physical death, but also the depths of human sufferings, the sense of death that we experienced when we were betrayed, the sense of death we experienced when we are abandoned, when we are rejected, the sense of death whenever we are in just anguish or in an interior darkness. There is a death that happens. Um and this this is a lot of this is caused by sin. It is the darkness that sin brings into the world. So in this way, you know, he experienced the wounds that are caused both by the sins of others against us, but also the wounds that are caused by our own sins. Because whenever we sin, whenever I sin, I experience an interior division. You and I both do. Uh St. Paul describes this really, really beautifully when he talks about the struggle between the flesh and the spirit. And it's in Galatians 5, 17. Um, and he talks about, you know, sin fractures the harmony within us, and we feel pulled apart from the

– Lent, Sacrifice & Spiritual Growth

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life that God created us to live. You know, in Galatians, there he says, you know, I do not the things I want to do, but I do the things that I do not wish to do. Uh and it is just this tension and this pull of, you know, spirit and fallen humanity, you know, uh, and whenever we say spirit and flesh, we don't just mean soul versus body. That's not at all, that's not at all what that means. You know, spirit and flesh, whenever we talk about flesh, what we actually mean and what St. Paul means truly is flesh meaning your human will and intellect separated from the spirit, separated from God. So whenever he speaks of flesh, he doesn't just mean like your body. He means your body apart from God, which is sin. Whenever, whenever you sin. Whenever we sin, we forget who we are. We are not flesh. We are not flesh. Now, like I said, sin fractures that harmony within us, and we experience that into interior death. Um and he he he he has felt this on our behalf. He truly has. He we know, true, that he um he experiences that abandonment and that spiritual anguish too. Uh, and that's most clear in his cry from the cross of my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Even more so. Um, we have Holy Saturday, and Holy Saturday uh seems to be for a lot of people a very quiet day. Um it seems just sometimes bland. It's like, well, we're all waiting around and we're just sitting here and we're waiting because we know what's going on. But I do want to remind us that on Holy Saturday, like truly the day after Christ passed, um, the day after Christ was killed, you know, that was a day of deep grief. That was a day of deep grief. People were quite literally experiencing their own version of hell. Um, and what truly happens, what was Christ doing on Holy Saturday? He wasn't just laying in the tomb. He descended into hell, as we say in the creed. He quite literally went to the place of complete and utter misery. He truly went to hell. He did not shy away from it. So, because he has entered the depths of hell, both literally and spiritually, there is no suffering, there is no guilt, there is no shame, and there is no interior struggle that is not known to him, and not known necessarily from a distance. He knows it intimately. Um none of this is foreign to him. Again, he doesn't just know about it, he truly knows it. He has experienced it. Christ has gone before us. There's no darkness beyond redemption. Again, he's not absent from our own personal hells or watching from a distance, like, that stinks. I'm glad I'm not there anymore. That's not at all what it is. That's not at all what it is. He is truly there with us. Truly there with us. There is there is a comfort in being kept company at the cross. Now there is this really, really beautiful quote from an ancient homily that's in the office of readings for the liturgy the hours on Holy Saturday. And um it is it is what um a saint, and he's not named. There's some speculation, but anyway, it it's from an ancient homily, and he says this from the perspective of Jesus Christ speaking to Adam on Holy Saturday in the depths of hell. He says, I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. There's a lot of really, really beautiful art. Um, I'm thinking particularly Eastern art of the church, of you know, Christ ascent into hell, where he goes and he rescues Adam and Eve and he pulls them out of their, he pulls them out of their graves in hell. And it is they're beautiful. They're beautiful. I love them. They're one of my favorite um Eastern icons. But I also really, really love this quote um from this ancient homily. He comes down there and he's like, hey, I've done this for you. I'm with you. I know how it feels. I'm because I'm feeling it right now, my guy. But listen, I'm not staying here and neither are you. Get up, let's

– Prayer, Fasting & Almsgiving

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go. And where does he go? On the third day he rose again from the dead, uh, from the apostles' creed, the resurrection. So if the story of Christ, if it ended with his death on the cross, then Christianity would be a tragedy. It'd be an absolute tragedy, it wouldn't really even be much of a thing, honestly. Um, but I mean, as we all know, death does not have the final say because Christ truly rises from the dead on Easter Sunday, and we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. Now, I do want to say that there is um this difference that gets kind of glazed over sometimes. I really like to point it out because it really makes an impact on me. There's a difference between resurrection and resuscitation. So whenever someone is resuscitated, like we think CPR, right? That's correct. We think CPR. When someone's resuscitated, they regain their breath and they regain their heartbeat. But their condition prior to dying, you know, however brief that death was, their condition prior to death does not disappear. When they are resuscitated, they are still sick. They are still sick. Now, when resurrection occurs, the person does indeed come back to life. They have the same body. They um they they come back to life with breath in their lungs, they come back with a heartbeat. Um, but the thing is, they are no longer ill. They are transformed. As I said, they have the same body, but it is glorified, it becomes superhuman. It is divinized. The resurrection is really like a bodily fulfillment, a quite literal fulfillment of when when Christ says in John 10, 10, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Like, yes, I'm gonna bring you back, but I'm gonna bring you back better than ever. So the resurrection, it gives us hope that is not unreasonable, it is not unfounded, because Christ Himself did it. And he promises it to us. You know, and we we know this because we have been united with Christ in his suffering and death, both again on the literal and spiritual levels in our daily deaths. But we know that we will rise again in glory with him. Both literally, we will quite literally have the resurrection of the dead where we will be reunited with these same bodies, but glorified, glorified and beautiful. But also on like again, that spiritual metaphorical level. Because of the resurrection, we know that all of our sufferings are only temporary. One of my absolute favorite verses from scripture comes from St. Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter eight. He reminds us of the great hope that we have in Christ because of the resurrection. In verses 18 and then in 28, he says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing to be compared with the glory that awaits us. And we know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Honestly, what um what this means for me, how this resonates with me, is that he is not allowing me to experience any good Friday without the promise of an Easter Sunday. Whether it's three days, three weeks, three months, three years, however long it is. He does not allow me to experience, you know, whether by the choices of others or my own choices, because he works all things for my good. There is always the promise of an Easter Sunday. It's up to us if we decide to if we s if we decide to really unite with him in that. Now Jesus really fiercely, like fiercely desires that in the midst of these good Fridays, in the midst of the betrayals on Holy Thursday, um the agony, um, being kept in the cell overnight after he's arrested and just absolutely mocked and spit upon. And I mean, he fiercely desires that we keep faith in him and we hold on to the hope of his resurrection. And he like deeply hopes for our hope. One of my uh, I say one of my absolute favorite book in the Bible is the Song of Songs. And um, it's the song between a bridegroom and a bride, and you know, there you do have to take it on a literal level in order to understand the spiritual levels. You know, you can't just bypass the literal level of scripture. It it's a gateway to the spiritual level. So it's a song of a bridegroom and a bride, and you know, we the church, we are the bride of Christ. All men and women of the church, we are the bride of Christ, and then Christ is the bridegroom, right? So this is a song of the bridegroom and the bride, and really, this is actually the bride saying this to her bridegroom in the song of songs. But we can also read it whereas Christ the bridegroom is singing this to us. It says, Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, longing is fierce as sheol. Its arrows are arrows of fire, flames of the divine. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor rivers sweep it away. Were one to offer all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly despised. I mean, he fiercely desires that we we set him as a seal upon our hearts, as a seal on our arms. He fiercely desires that we keep our eyes fixed on him,

– Entering the Mystery Through the Liturgical Year

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and he knows how difficult it is to keep our eyes fixed on him, on the Father, and to live with hope whenever we're struggling, when we're sorrowful, when we're really tempted to despair. I mean, in a sense, Jesus is still experiencing the agony in the garden through all of our own agonies. He still gives that cry from the cross of my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Whenever we experience abandonment, both by others, um, I mean, even when we feel abandoned by God, when we are rejected by others, he still experiences that in us, with us, and for us. But at the same time, Jesus also knows, greater than any of us, how joyful, how peaceful, and how utterly just worth it the heights of glory are when you refuse to quench or sweep away your longing for love, your longing for love himself for God. Um when we we do not when we do not quench these things or sweep them away, either with things that don't truly fulfill us or even pretend that we don't desire life in its fullness, a life that is in this overflowing, this this fun word of superabundance, this overflowing of peace, of joy, and of love. Now back to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, real quick. Um, prayer, yes, like we said, becoming a living prayer, inviting Christ as truly a companion, not just a companion, not any other companion, you know, but truly inviting him to every moment of your life, especially in these moments of temptation, despair, sorrow, and struggle. But whenever we talk about fasting, this is why we fast. Right? This is why we fast. We fast to gain self-control. We fast so that we are truly able to feast. Because again, he knows how difficult how difficult it is to be in suffering, to be in a struggle, and how easy it is to give into temptation, to just ease any sort of suffering, to ease any sort of suffering by either um, you know, filling it with something that truly doesn't fulfill us, or taking the other route and acting like, eh it's whatever, it's not really a true suffering, other people have it worse, and then just absolutely kind of numbing that. There, there's two, there's two uh different ways, different extremes you can go to. And it says on there, love is strong as death, longing is fierce as sheol. Sometimes longing for something um is absolute just hell in and of itself, whether that be um longing for the end of a suffering or truly just longing for something greater. You may already have something good, but longing for something greater. Longing hurts and it is hard. And whenever we try to fill it with things that don't really fulfill us, uh we end up emptier. And whenever we try to numb ourselves and pretend like we don't really want or need anything at all, um, it that is actually incredibly damaging. That is incredibly damaging. So the reason we fast is to gain self-control, to stay in the harmony between those two extremes of just this ache and longing, you know, being able to say no to the things that we know we need to say no to, but also having the courage to say yes when we know that this suffering and this struggle and um just staying in the ache, the fruit that that has, because again, Jesus, Jesus knows the heights of glory. And he is with us in this, and he is with us when we fast. Because again, we fast so that we can truly feast, so that we can not only taste the heights of glory with him, but I mean fully live it, fully live it. Now we've covered his passion, his death, and his resurrection, and we have lastly the ascension to cover. And as the apostles' creed says, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Again, Jesus does not stop with the resurrection. He promises us the resurrection of our bodies. But he again, he really means it when he says he came for us to have life and have it abundantly, there in John chapter 10, verse 10. Forty days after the resurrection, Jesus gives his apostles the promise of the Holy Spirit. And he tells them that where he's going, we will follow. But he first has to go to prepare a place for us. He reminds us that we have not only been saved from sickness of sin and death, but we have sit been saved for life in the fullest, life that is overflowing with

– Baptism & New Life in Christ

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peace, joy, love, beauty, truth, and just pure absolute goodness. And you know, part of the ascension and the promise of Christ is that we will not be resurrected and glorified alone. We are a people of community, we are a people of relationship and communion. Now, back to fasting, prayer or prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Almsgiving, it gives us that glimpse. It gives us all a glimpse, both the ones who are giving alms and those who are receiving. It gives us a glimpse of the glory of union, of communion that is promised by the ascension. And it gives us a reminder of it, that we are not alone. You know, not only are we united with Christ in our suffering, but we are united with one another, all in the suffering death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Now, because he has ascended, Jesus, as as we say in this in the creed, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. So as he sits at the right hand of the Father, Jesus constantly acts as our mediator to the Father. He is extending his divine mercy to us, especially whenever we fail to overcome temptation. He is constantly, constantly pouring out the graces of the Holy Spirit on us. And this is forevermore. This is absolutely forever. With the ascension, um we're all incredibly tempted, and we do feel it the way that the apostles felt after he ascended. And it's like, no, don't leave us. And just the whole thought of like, hey, life would be a lot easier. I would feel a lot more comforted if the Lord uh was like maybe right next to me and could like literally tell me in my ear and quite literally give me a hug. You know, we all feel that way at some time or another. But uh one of my absolute favorite quotes comes from uh the late Pope Benedict XVI, and he said, You were not made for comfort. This world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. And yes, Jesus does still offer us comfort, he does still give us comfort because he knows that we're human and we need it. But more importantly, he offers us greatness. And he offers us greatness from the right hand of the Father, extending that divine mercy to us because we need that. Truly, we need that more than we need comfort. And honestly, that in and of itself is a comfort. Um that it is not too late. It is not too late. Actually, the the fifth Sunday of Lent, the gospel reweek hello, we will read this year, um, is the story of Lazarus, the raising of Lazarus. And something that has been really sticking out to me more and more lately is how Lazarus was in the tomb for four days. And it is traditionally held that the body begins to decay on the fourth day. Now, Jesus, Jesus was in the tomb for three days. His body did not know decay, as it was said in the scriptures that his beloved would not know decay. God's beloved shall not know decay. But now Lazarus had been in there for four days. He was decomposing. And, you know, everyone, Martha and Mary were like, Jesus, do not tell them to open his tomb. He is decaying, it's gonna stink. It's gonna stink. And Jesus is like, No, it's not too late, open the tomb. And he says, Lazarus, come out. It's never too late for any of us. Um, and so the fact that Jesus is forever interceding for us and he is forever um extending his divine mercy to us from the

– Final Reflections & Living the Mystery

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right hand of the Father, that in and of itself is a great, great comfort. Please know um Ev, my prayers for you as you know, you conclude your Lenten journey, or if you're just curious about Lent, or if you're just curious about the Paschal mystery, um, and you know, maybe why the church loves Easter, or excuse me, well, yes, we do love Easter, but why the church really goes all in on Lent and why Lent is such a huge, huge seal in the church, even though for many and most of us it really is the hardest time of the year. Um, so please do know as we are heading towards the home stretch of Lent, know of my prayers for you and just for yeah, a new uh that concentrated burst of oxygen to be breathed into your lungs uh and just uh the reignite of a fire of the Holy Spirit in your heart. Um and please do pray for me too, because I am not exempt from the rough and toughness of Lent. But again, um we hold fast to the hope we have in Christ, in his resurrection, and in his ascension. Um because though though sometimes Lent may feel uh fierce as shield, um we know that the heights of glory are coming. We know that Easter Sunday is coming. So until then, I hope you have a blessed day.