PASCHAL MYSTERY: CENTER OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Discover the most essential teaching of the most authoritative teaching Council of our time

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WHAT IS THE CENTER OF OUR CHRISTIAN LIFE? 

The Paschal Mystery, which comprises his passion, death, resurrection, and glorification, stands at the center of the Christian faith because God’s saving plan was accomplished once and for all by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ. (Compendium of the CCC 112)

The Paschal Mystery is the center of the Christian life and the Christian year. This is above all the essential idea of the Second Vatican Council itself. (Benedict XVI, Feb 2013)

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16) These words express the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus’ death on the cross is love in its radical form. By contemplating his pierced side, we understand that “God is love”, and discover the path along which our life and love must move. (Benedict XVI)

 “Jesus loves you: he gave his life to save you; and now he is living by your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” Nothing is more solid, profound, secure, meaningful and wisdom-filled than this first and principal proclamation. All Christian formation consists of entering more deeply into this first proclamation. (Francis)

WHAT’S THE BENEFIT OF MAKING CHRIST’S PASCHAL MYSTERY THE CENTER OF OUR LIFE?

It grounds us.  The past event in Calvary in 30 A.D. is not just any center, but the “true center” around which all should revolve, especially our minds and hearts. “God loves us” is the bedrock reality of everything that exists. The air, the soil, events and trials are gifts of God the Amazing Lover—to unite us with him. This ultimate event of love “transcends all time while being made present in them all.” (CCC 1085) 

It makes us fall in love with Jesus, filling us with sweetness.  Love of God and others for him is the only goal of life, its bottom line. The Paschal Mystery is the only source of this love, giving it to us in the sacraments and in our contemplation of Jesus’ boundless love. Centering on Jesus’ love and sacrifice gives us a sense of joy and sweetness to which many saints have testified. “The death and passion of Our Lord is the sweetest and most compelling motive that can enliven our hearts.” (St. Francis of Sales) “The greatest pains are made sweet when one looks at Jesus on the cross.” (St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi)

It makes us a much better person. Centered on the Paschal event, we learn key habits for daily living: self-sacrificing service, humility, self-mastery, forgiveness, detachment from things, obedience, hope, etc.

It is the secret to a deep and constant conversion.  It is well-documented that the film The Passion of the Christ brought about a multitude of conversions. “The human heart is converted by looking upon him whom our sins have pierced.” (CCC 1432)  “The most holy Passion of Jesus Christ is the most efficacious means to convert hardened sinners.” (St. Paul of the Cross)

It is the most powerful cure for lust and all the evils of mankind.  The most common evil of our time that leads people to hell “more than any other sin” (Our Lady of Fatima) will be resolved if people are centered on the passion of Christ. “If the heat of lust rises in me, it is extinguished by recalling the wounds of Christ. I have not found a more effective remedy.” (Abbot John of Fécamp)  “All the remedies that humanity needs are found in the life and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta) “By his wounds, we are healed.” (Is 53:5; 1 Pt 2:24)

It is the shortcut. St. Josemaria’s habit of entering the wounds of Christ “led him to the highest peaks of spiritual life.” (Bl. Alvaro)

It identifies us with Christ.  His whole life was centered on this saving event and anticipated its power. (Cf. CCC 1115; Lk 24:26) 

HOW DO WE CENTER OUR LIFE ON THE PASCHAL MYSTERY?

See God’s love in everything and allow God to embrace you. The key to “the most important subject in life” –love—is not our loving, but “allowing ourselves to be loved by God”. (Cf. Pope Francis)

Treat the Paschal event as your greatest and most remembered book. “Know nothing except Jesus and him crucified.” (1 Cor 11:2)  Learn the Bible lesson of the Paschal event intently. “He who wants to keep on advancing in virtue and in grace should meditate continually on the Passion of Jesus,” (St. Bonaventure) to console and thank him, and to say sorry to him for the wounds we caused.

Be lovingly centered on images of Christ’s saving passion. “As a Christian, you should always carry your Crucifix with you. And place it on your desk. And kiss it before going to bed and when you wake up: and when your poor body rebels against your soul, kiss it again... When you see a cross, think of the Blood of Christ poured out for you, and don’t deny him what he is asking you for.” (St. Josemaria)   Put in your phone images and videos that portray the historic saving event and use them to pray. Give importance to the God-given, factual image of the Crucified God: the Shroud.

Put your sins to death. “Christ rises in us, if we become sharers in his cross and death.” (St. Josemaria) “Pascha means the crossing-over. The Son of God crossed over from this world to His Father. What’s to gain in celebrating unless you cross over from the darkness of evildoing to the light of virtue?” (St. Ambrose)

Act with the highest dignity, confidence and joy. For “believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ”—Son of God, the King of the universe! (CCC 1003)

Love and serve others as “Jesus in disguise” (Mother Teresa). Their needs and sufferings are “the wounds of Christ”. (Francis)

Set the Eucharist and Confession as the most important priority of your life.  In them the risen Christ makes his Paschal Mystery truly present, and with the greatest power unites us to himself and his saving, glorious work. Christ in the Eucharist as Self-giving Love is the “center and the source of the Christian life.”  (LG 11)

Be acutely aware that in the Mass the risen Jesus makes present, through sacramental signs, “the bloody sacrifice of the cross” (Trent; CCC 1366) and his victorious resurrection. Active participation, promoted by Vatican II, actually means “greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relationship to daily life.” (S Caritatis 52)  “In your mind’s eye transport yourself to Calvary.” (St. Padre Pio) “Offering the immaculate Victim [Jesus wounded on the cross], not only through the hands of the priest, but also together with him, they should learn to make an offering of themselves.” (Vat II, SC 48) Imagine and love Jesus as Mary saw him bleeding on the cross. And during Communion with the risen Jesus, rejoice with her and live a cheerful life of love of saving people.

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Leading scientists on the Shroud of Turin

Oxford Laboratory

There are ... other possible types of contaminant, and it it could be that one, or some combination of these, might mean that the Shroud is somewhat older than the radiocarbon date suggests. It is important to realise, however, that only if some enriched contaminant can be identified does it become credible that the date is wrong by 1000 years. As yet there is no direct evidence for this - or indeed any direct evidence to suggest the original radiocarbon dates are not accurate.

There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the Shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow and so further research is certainly needed. It is important that we continue to test the accuracy of the original radiocarbon tests as we are already doing. It is equally important that experts assess and reinterpret some of the other evidence. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the Shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information.

Christopher Ramsey (March 2008)

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Fresh tests on Shroud of Turin

David Rolfe, the director of [a new documentary on the shroud] said it was hugely significant that Prof Ramsey had thought it necessary to carry out further tests that could challenge the original dating.

He said that previous hypotheses, put forward to explain how the cloth could be older than the 1988 results suggested, had been "rejected out of hand".

"The main reason is that the contamination levels on the cloth that would have been needed to distort the results would have to be equivalent to the actual sample itself," he said.

"But this new theory only requires two per cent contamination to skew the results by 1,500 years. Moreover, it springs from published data about the behaviour of carbon-14 in the atmosphere which was unknown when the original tests were carried out 20 years ago."

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Editor of Nature, Philip Ball, He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years: "Attempts to date the Turin Shroud are a great game, but don't imagine that they will convince anyone...And yet, the shroud is a remarkable artifact, one of the few religious relics to have a justifiably mythical status. It is simply not known how the ghostly image of a serene, bearded man was made." (Nature online, January 2005)

Raymond Rogers, leading expert in thermal analysis, in the scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta (Vol 425, Jan 2005), “Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin”: The fact that vanillin cannot be detected in the lignin on shroud fibers, Dead Sea scrolls linen, and other very old linens indicate that the shroud is quite old. A determination of the kinetics of vanillin loss suggest the shroud is between 1300- and 3000-years old. Even allowing for errors in the measurements and assumptions about storage conditions, the cloth is unlikely to be as young as 840 years...The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/ms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud.

Robert Villarreal, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) chemist who headed a team of nine scientists at LANL which examined material from the carbon 14 sampling region. (Aug 2008): [T]he age-dating process failed to recognize one of the first rules of analytical chemistry that any sample taken for characterization of an area or population must necessarily be representative of the whole. The part must be representative of the whole. Our analyses of the three thread samples taken from the Raes and C-14 sampling corner showed that this was not the case.