The Paschal Mystery

The Catholic claim

By his Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, Christ redeems the world. These are not four separate episodes glued together for Holy Week, but one mystery: the same Christ who obeys unto death is glorified in his body and brings our humanity into the Father’s presence.

The cross is sacrifice; the Resurrection is victory. Split them and you get either a death without hope or an empty triumph with no cost. The Paschal Mystery stands at the center of the Good News the Church proclaims (CCC 571). The liturgy celebrates it above all (CCC 1067).

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 571

  CCC 613

  “The Paschal mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world.…”

  Center

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  “Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," and the sacrifice of the New Covenant,…”

  Sacrifice

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Biblical evidence

Isaiah’s servant bears our sins, is wounded for our transgressions, and makes many righteous by his knowledge (Isaiah 53). Jesus takes that path as his own: the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). He tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up, as the serpent was lifted in the wilderness, so that whoever believes may have eternal life; God sent the Son not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:14–17).

Paul then states the effect. God has put forward Christ as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith, so that God himself is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21–26). Hebrews reads the whole as priesthood: Christ enters the sanctuary once for all by his own blood, and by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 9–10). The Mass applies that one offering under sacramental signs; it does not add a second slaughter.

John sets the death inside the Passover. Jesus dies on the day of Preparation, and not a bone of his is broken, the rule for the lamb (John 19:14, 36; Exodus 12:46). Paul calls Christ our Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). The cross can still look like nothing but a Roman execution. What makes it a sacrifice is the offering Jesus has already spoken at the table, and the meal the lamb requires. He leaves the supper saying he will not drink again of the fruit of the vine (Matthew 26:29). On the cross he drinks sour wine lifted on hyssop, the plant used to mark the doors with the lamb’s blood, and then says, “It is finished” (John 19:29–30; Exodus 12:22). The death completes the Passover he began upstairs.

• Isaiah 53

  “Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?”

• Mark 10:45

  “For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

• John 3:14-17

  “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish,”

• Romans 3:21-26

  “But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets;”

• Hebrews 9-10

  “Now indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service, and an earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared.”

• John 19:14, 36
• John 19:28-30
• Exodus 12:22
• Exodus 12:46
• 1 Corinthians 5:7
• Matthew 26:29

• Sacred Scripture

  Isaiah 53

  John 3:14-17

  “Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?”

  Scripture

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  “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish,”

  Scripture

  Suggest a correction

Tradition and magisterium

The Catechism treats the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension as one mystery rather than four separate episodes, because it is the same Christ who obeys unto death and is glorified in his body. Trent taught that on the cross Christ merited justification for us, and that the Mass makes present that same sacrifice in an unbloody manner. Nothing is added to Calvary and nothing is repeated; the one offering is applied.

The liturgy is where the Church actually teaches this. The Easter Triduum is celebrated as a single feast running from the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper to Easter Vespers, and Sacrosanctum Concilium says the Church never ceases to proclaim and celebrate the paschal mystery in her sacraments, above all in the Eucharist. Baptism puts a person inside that mystery rather than merely informing him of it, By the third century the Easter Vigil was a favored night for baptism. The Church also baptized at other times.

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 618

  “The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men." But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, "the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God,…”

  Discipleship

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• Ignatius of Antioch

  Letter to the Philadelphians 4 · A.D. 110

  To the church at Philadelphia.

  The church was splitting; he calls them back to one Eucharist and one bishop.

  “Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his Blood, and one single altar of sacrifice—even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all …”

  Fathers

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History and development

Atonement language diversified—victory, recapitulation, satisfaction, love—while liturgy kept the Cross and Resurrection together as one saving mystery. The Church never settled on a single metaphor as if the others were false, and she refused to let any one of them erase the event.

Mastery and practice

Define the Paschal Mystery as a whole: Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the one Christ, by which we are redeemed. Keep the cross and the Resurrection together, because a crucifix without Easter is despair and an Easter without the wounds is only sentiment.

If someone says atonement is cosmic child abuse, do not defend a cruel father and an unwilling victim. Name one divine will of love and the Son’s free offering: God does not delight in pain, and the Cross is Trinitarian self-gift. If someone asks why God could not just forgive, distinguish a shrug from a healing that costs the healer.

• Define Paschal Mystery as a whole.
• Reject abusive caricatures of the cross.
• Connect cross and Resurrection.

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 571

  CCC 613

  “The Paschal mystery of Christ's cross and Resurrection stands at the center of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world.…”

  Center

  Suggest a correction

  “Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," and the sacrifice of the New Covenant,…”

  Sacrifice

  Suggest a correction

Common objections

Sources

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