Easter Sunday Morning

The Catholic meaning of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most complete truth about these sacred events. We need their Catholic meaning in order to fully enter into Holy Week and Easter.

God has not left it up to each Catholic to decide for himself or herself the meaning of things, including the meaning of the Passion and Resurrection. We find Catholic meaning through doctrine, the Magisterium’s authoritative clarification of Revelation and Faith that must be accepted as objectively true in order to be Catholic. Once we agree with the Catholic meaning, we are free to add a personal meaning that does not contradict the Catholic meaning.

This column will identify and explain the doctrines that give us the Catholic meaning of the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord.

The Passion

In the context of Jesus’ life, the word “passion” means what it originally meant in Latin: suffering. The same Latin root that gives us the English word “passion” also gives us the English word “patient” that we use for someone needing medical care because he or she is suffering. So the Passion of Jesus is the suffering of Jesus from His agony in the Garden through His death on the Cross.

Although Jesus’ Passion began immediately after the Last Supper, the Last Supper is integral to its meaning. At that meal, Jesus said that the bread He gave was actually His Body and the wine He gave was actually His Blood. Jesus thus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 610-611, 1323).

The Eucharist is a ritual sacrifice, and every ritual sacrifice needs a priest to offer it. The bread that is consecrated into Christ’s Body is called the “Host” because it translates the Latin word hostia, which means “sacrificial victim.” The sacrificial victim at Mass is Christ Himself. Thus Jesus also instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders at the Last Supper (CCC, 611, 1341). (However, when we say “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts,” “hosts” here comes from the Latin hostis and means “armies.” “Lord God of hosts” means “Lord God of armies of angels” in reference to Isaiah 6:3.)

Jesus ate the Last Supper only with the Twelve Apostles. The fullness of Holy Orders is received only by bishops, who are the successors of the Apostles, and is shared with priests and deacons (CCC, 1554-1571). Neither Mary Magdalene nor any of the women who ministered to Jesus nor even the Blessed Mother was included by Him in the Last Supper, and so Holy Orders can only be received by men (CCC, 1577-1578).

After the Last Supper in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ prayer to His Father that He did not want to die, but that His Father’s will be done, shows that He freely chose to accept His death (CCC, 609, 612).

After Judas’ betrayal and His arrest, Jesus was taken to the highest Jewish authority, which is a council called the Sanhedrin, led by the high priest. The Sanhedrin found Jesus guilty of blasphemy (disrespecting God) because Jesus did not deny to these leaders of the religion dedicated to the one true God that He is the Son of God. Jesus’ refusal to make such a denial amounts to His claiming to be God. So they sentenced Him to death (CCC, 596). Jesus is innocent of the Sanhedrin’s charge, but only because He really is God the Son.

When the leaders of the Jews took Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who had the authority to execute Jesus, Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews. Because Jesus did not deny it, the Roman charge against Jesus is not blasphemy, which is a religious charge, but rebellion against the Roman emperor, which is a political charge. Jesus is innocent of the Roman charge, but only because His Kingdom really is “not of this world” (John 18:36).

The Crucifixion

The most important point about the death of Jesus is that it saves us from our sins (CCC, 599-606, 613-618).

In all cases, wrongs must be righted by returning things to the way they were before the wrong. We have several words for righting wrongs: atonement, making amends, reparation, penance, compensation. For example, if I steal your wallet, it is not good enough if I feel bad about it or even if I apologize to you. I need to give your wallet back to you. So the wrong done to God by Original Sin and our own personal sins must be righted – there must be atonement, making amends, compensation.

In order to right the wrong humanity commits when it rejects God’s perfect love, it takes perfect love to repair our relationship with God and put things back the way they were before sin. Perfect love can only be given for humanity by someone who is both God and human and who takes upon Himself the guilt of all, even though He Himself is innocent, and pays the penalty that we need to pay. That perfect love from humanity to God could only be given by Jesus’ death on the cross. If Jesus were not God, then His death would NOT save us from our sins and would be only a sad story.

Jesus’ words over the bread and wine at the Last Supper anticipated His saving death. When Jesus said (and as the priest repeats at Mass when he consecrates the host into the Body of Christ), “This is My Body, which will be given up for you,” He meant that His body would be given up on the cross for us. When Jesus said (and as the priest repeats at Mass when he consecrates the wine into the Blood of Christ), “This is My Blood, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins,” He meant that His blood would be poured out on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. The Eucharistic nature of the Crucifixion is powerfully captured in the film The Passion of the Christ when it presents the Last Supper not chronologically before the Crucifixion but as a series of flashbacks during the Crucifixion.

All sinners throughout history are to blame for Jesus’ Crucifixion and His entire Passion (CCC, 597-598).

Although Jesus died for our sins, we can NOT do whatever we want and still gain eternal salvation (CCC, 654). Jesus’ death “opens the gates” of the Kingdom which had been “closed” by Original Sin, but each human being must choose (intentionally or unintentionally) to “go through” those gates and enter the Kingdom. God will not force anyone to love Him. Sin cannot be in the direct presence of God.

Jesus really died. He experienced human death – His immortal soul separated from his dead mortal body (CCC, 624-626). Yet His corpse did not undergo corruption (CCC, 627). While Jesus was dead, He descended into “Hell,” which in this case is the archaic word for the abode of all the dead, not the word for the abode only of the damned. Jesus did not free anyone from damnation nor did He eliminate damnation, but brought into Heaven the righteous who had died before Him (CCC, 631-635).

The Resurrection

Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the Jewish week, which in our calendar is Sunday. The Resurrection is an actual event (CCC, 639). Although no one was an eyewitness to the Resurrection Itself, over five hundred persons later encountered and experienced the Risen Christ (CCC, 642).

The most important point about the Resurrection is that Jesus rose NOT to the same life He had before He was killed, BUT to the fullness of life that can ONLY be had by entering the Kingdom of God (CCC, 655).

Jesus’ own gospel – the good news that He had preached – had been that the Kingdom of God is coming. The Kingdom came for Jesus when He rose from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead, He rose into the Kingdom of God (CCC, 560, 652, 654).

Jesus’ Resurrection fully reveals what the Kingdom is (CCC, 645-646, 652). When Jesus rose from the dead, His immortal soul was reunited with a now-immortal body that will never get old, never need food and other necessities, never get sick and injured, and never die again. Ever since Jesus rose from the dead, He has NOT only a natural existence with a physical body, NOT only a spiritual/supernatural existence like a ghost without a body, BUT both a physical and a supernatural existence at the same time. Even though there is something physical about Jesus’ resurrected body, Jesus is no longer bound by space and time. Jesus has a glorified body. He has perfect human existence and therefore perfect human happiness. This kind of rising from the dead is the first of its kind in human history.

It will be the kind of resurrection experienced at the Second Coming of Christ by all who had died and will have their immortal souls reunited with their now-immortal bodies. It will be the kind of transformation experienced by all who are living when Christ comes again in glory (CCC, 655). It will be so whether the living and the dead enter eternal life or eternal punishment (CCC, 1038). Just as Jesus experienced perfect human existence after He rose from the dead, existence in the Kingdom of God will include both a new heaven and a new earth, the restoration of the Garden of Eden, with saved human beings in perfect relationship with God, each other, and the universe (CCC, 1042-1050).

Jesus’ Resurrection completed His Revelation of the Kingdom which had begun with His teaching (CCC, 543-546) and miracles (CCC, 547-550). Jesus revealed that the Kingdom of God is far more than the Chosen People’s expectation of a new era of greatness similar to what they had experienced during the reign of King David. Just as no one before Jesus expected the promised Messiah to be God, no one expected the promised Kingdom to be perfect human existence and happiness. There is no greater Revelation than the Resurrection to show who God is and what God wants for humanity. The Resurrection completes the Revelation that had begun with Abraham. The Resurrection is the most important event in human history (CCC, 638-644, 647).

Jesus’ Resurrection also completed His Revelation that He is God (CCC, 589-590, 651, 653). The Risen Lord proved what He claimed during His public ministry – that He did indeed have the divine authority to forgive sins, that He is greater than Solomon and the Temple, that “Before Abraham was, I AM,” that “I and the Father are one.”

Now

Jesus Christ is more alive now – 2,000 years after His Crucifixion – than He was during His earthly life before He was murdered. Jesus is the most important person in human history. He wants to be the most important person in our lives, have friendship with us, and lead us to the fullness of life in the Kingdom of God. Friendship with Jesus is best found in the fullness of the means of salvation – the doctrine, worship, prayer, and morality – which is only found in the Catholic Church established by Jesus.

Let us rededicate ourselves. To imitate Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and do what the Father wants when it is not what we want. To live our lives in thanksgiving to Jesus for dying for our sins so that we can have eternal life. To make sacrifices for others that will make their lives objectively better, as Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for us. To take responsibility for entering the Kingdom, now that Jesus’ death has opened the gates of the Kingdom for us. To make relationship with Jesus Christ the most important relationship in our lives by trying our best to assent with our minds, hearts, and actions to all Catholic doctrine.

When did the incarnation and ascension of God’s Son begin?

How was the rest of creation rendered unable to attain the purpose for which it was made by God (Rom.8:20)?

A mystery hidden for generations and centuries has now been revealed to us (Col.1:26).