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ThePaschal mystery is central to Catholic faith and theology relating to thehistory of salvation. According to the Compendium of theCatechism of the Catholic Church, "The Paschal Mystery of Jesus, which comprises hispassion,death,resurrection, andglorification, stands at the center of the Christian faith because God's saving plan was accomplished once for all by the redemptive death of himself as Jesus Christ."[1] The Catechism states that in the liturgy of the Church "it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present."[2]
Catholic,Anglican,Lutheran, andOrthodox Christian churches celebrate thismystery duringHoly Week andEaster. It is recalled and celebrated also during everyEucharist,[3] and especially on a Sunday, which according to Catholicism is the Pascha of the week.[4]
According to theBook of Exodus, God commandedMoses to tell theIsraelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors in order that theAngel of Death would pass over them. Paschal refers to the passage of God's destroying angel on the night of Passover. The angel "passed over" the houses of the Israelites but killed the firstborn child in the houses of the Egyptians.[6]
Catholicism says that asacred mystery is a divine mystery which cannot be grasped by mere human reasoning and can only berevealed by God throughgrace.[7][8]
The first known use of the termPaschal mystery (literallyMystery of the Pascha) was found in the homily ofMelito of SardisOn the Pascha written between A.D. 160 and 170:[9]
Understand, therefore, beloved,
how it is new and old,
eternal and temporary,
perishable and imperishable,
mortal and immortal, thismystery of the Pascha:
old as regards the force
but new as regards the Word;
temporary as regards the model (gr.typos),
eternal because of grace
perishable because of the slaughter of the sheep,
imperishable because of the life of the Lord;
mortal because of the burial in earth,
immortal because of the rising from the dead
— On the Pascha, 2-3
According toRaniero Cantalamessa, thepatristic interpretation of the paschal mystery in its major facets and constituent dimensions may be summarized in four points:
The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, states that "The Paschal Mystery of Jesus, which comprises his passion, death, resurrection, and glorification, stands at the center of the Christian faith because God's saving plan was accomplished once for all by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ."[11]
According to Pope Benedict XVI, the most important and essential message of the council is "the Paschal Mystery as the center of what it is to be Christian and therefore of the Christian life, the Christian year, the Christian seasons".[12] The termMysterium paschale was used repeatedly duringSecond Vatican Council (1963–65) as a meaningful designation of the Christian redemption proclaimed and now accomplished in theliturgy. Council Fathers endorsed the fruit of the work of scholars of theLiturgical Movement, specificallyDom Odo Casel and the wholeMaria Laach Abbey. The termmystery of salvation made its way to the Council documents not without some opposition or misunderstanding. Some fathers expressed doubts saying that it was a vague and chimeric idea, its orthodoxy was dubious, and that it was ignored by soundtheology. Eventually the Council decided to confirm the importance of the term. It is reflected especially in the Constitution on the liturgySacrosanctum Concilium.[13][14] In the very beginning of 1st chapter, where the Council document speaks aboutrestoration and promotion of theliturgy,paschal mystery is shown as the wayChrist has redeemed mankind:
The wonderful works of God among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude to the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God. He achieved His task principally by the paschal mystery of His blessed passion, resurrection from the dead, and the glorious ascension, whereby "dying, he destroyed our death and, rising, he restored our life".[15] For it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth "the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church."[16]
— ConstitutionSacrosanctum Concilium 5; cf. n. 10, 47, 61
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After Second Vatican Council the termPaschal mystery has been used by Catholic ChurchMagisterium as one of basic concepts ofChristian faith and life.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "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. God's saving plan was accomplished 'once for all' by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ." (CCC 571)
In describing the sacramental system of the church or the sacramental economy, the Catechism dedicates one chapter on the Paschal mystery in the Age of the Church. It teaches that "In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father 'once for all.'
"His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. The Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is - all that he did and suffered for all men - participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life." (CCC 1085)
It also said that "The Paschal mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's grace, 'so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.'Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ's brethren." (CCC 654)
In 1992 letterCommunionis notio of theCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to thebishops about the Church understood as communion,paschal mystery is described as the means by which God's initiative was carried out to bring to disciples of Christ and, indeed, to the whole of mankind the gift ofcommunion.[17]
John Paul II in his letter on keeping the Lord's day holy wrote that to celebrate Sunday is to make present the graces of the Paschal mystery, which is the climax of thesalvation history:
The Paschal Mystery of Christ is the full revelation of the mystery of the world's origin, the climax of the history of salvation and the anticipation of the eschatological fulfilment of the world. What God accomplished in Creation and wrought for his People in the Exodus has found its fullest expression in Christ's Death and Resurrection, though its definitive fulfilment will not come until theParousia, when Christ returns in glory. In him, the "spiritual" meaning of the Sabbath is fully realized, asSaint Gregory the Great declares: "For us, the true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ."[18]
— Dies Domini, 18
The document calledInstrumentum Laboris, issued before the Synod on the Eucharist (2005), spoke about perception of theEucharistic mystery among the faithful. In many developed countries Christians fail to see the Eucharist as a celebration of the paschal mystery. They tend to perceive it as simply the fulfilment of a Sunday obligation and a meal of fellowship. The paschal mystery,celebrated in an unbloody manner on the altar, is much more a source of spiritual strength to those Christians who live in the situation of suffering, wars, and natural disasters etc.[19]
During the 2005 Synod, PopeBenedict XVI and bishops emphasised the need forthe faithful to enter more deeply into the mystery being celebrated. They called for a process of mystagogy, i.e. initiation into the mystery of Salvation. According to the Pope's exhortation published after the Synod, initiation into the mystery of theliturgy should respect three elements:
Pope called for new communities and movements to assist in the practical realisation of that programme inparishes:
Each Christian community is called to be a place where people can be taught about the mysteries celebrated in faith. In this regard, the Synod Fathers called for greater involvement bycommunities of consecrated life, movements and groups which, by their specific charisms, can give new impetus to Christian formation. In our time, too, the Holy Spirit freely bestows his gifts to sustain the apostolic mission of the Church, which is charged with spreading the faith and bringing it to maturity.
— ExhortationSacramentum Caritatis, 64
Among the new communities of consecrated life which contribute to the Christian formation there are e.g.Community of St. John,Community of the Lamb,Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem and others. The Pope spoke also about new movements and groups working in the field of Christian formation. Among internationally active there are e.g.Charismatic Renewal,Communion and Liberation,Community of the Beatitudes,Community of the Chemin Neuf,Community of Sant'Egidio,Emmanuel Community,Focolare Movement,Neocatechumenal Way,Opus Dei, etc. These communities, movements and groups have emerged in the 20th century on the grounds ofSecond Vatican Council's renewal of the Church.
The concept of the paschal mystery is criticised by the traditionalists. According to the address of the Superior of theSociety of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay (2001),the theology of the "paschal mystery" minimizes the mystery of the Redemption, because it considers the sacrament only in its relation with the "mystery", and because the conception that it makes of the "memorial" alters the sacrificial dimension of the Mass and as a consequence itrenders the post-Conciliar Liturgy dangerously distant from Catholic doctrine.[21]Card. Joseph Ratzinger and Fr. Jonathan RobinsonCO of theToronto Oratory assert that the traditionalists put themselves in a false position, overlooking the fact that theVatican II's teaching about this issue restored a profoundly traditional doctrine, central to Christian thought and experience.[22][23]
The Protestant view of grace and salvation was strongly influenced by thenominalism ofWilliam Ockham's razor. InMartin Luther's opinion Ockham was the onlyscholastic whose teaching was worth studying.[24] Rejection of traditionalMetaphysics, and especially theuniversals, paved the way to modernempiricism.[25] In this nominalistic Protestant view of relationship between God and creation, the mystery of God becomes utterly unattainable for human reason, even if it is illumined byfaith. While traditional understanding of the mystery of faith is that the Divinerevelation can use human word, somehow assimilating the Word of God, to initiate man into the mystery of the divine life, according toLouis Bouyer, the Protestant view excludes such approach. Revelation of the mystery of salvation to man is compatible with traditional philosophy, likeThomism, and incompatible with the Protestant view of grace influenced by nominalism.[26]
