The Paschal Mystery
IT’S PERSONAL.
It maybe the onset of maturity, (finally) or the first stages of dementia, but I think I am beginning to understand the Paschal Mystery and its role in my life, (or is that my role in it? Read on). For those of you who have lived your lives to date with being overly concerned about this doctrine, Answers.com describes it thus:
The Paschal Mystery refers to the suffering, death, Resurrection, and Glorification of Jesus Christ. People of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian faiths celebrate this mystery in the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist represents Christ’s body and makes present the Paschal Mystery. It is shown to be the climax of Mark’s Gospel. Christians believe this mystery to show God’s love to his people, representing Jesus’ suffering resulting in eternal life.
An added dimension is that we are invited to be incorporated into the Mystery, making His sacrifice our own, and in time making His resurrection/glorification our own also. Baptism/Confirmation are key moments in this process of identification, but I am beginning to appreciate that for these moments to be bring about what they signify, one must live a Life of identifying with the Paschal Mystery and that is where the fun starts.
Much of our Catholic Spirituality, in the popular consciousness, is measured out in rule, and it is easy to simply focus on this or that Church Law, and miss the relationship that the law is meant to highlight. In a family perhaps, it may take some constant nagging about dinner time to make it sacrosanct, but if there is genuine love behind it, shared meals will still build up a family, even if it does not guarantee that every dinner is going to be an experience of family joy unbounded! Similarly with the Mass, it can be part of a process by which we wholly identify with the Paschal Mystery, so that we are in fact one with Christ. I stress can be. Coming from three generations of lawyers, I have long assumed that fidelity to the law was enough, rather on the principle, “Keep the law and the law will keep you”. Increasingly I find that that does not work anymore. Without something deeper, it becomes a kind of Catholic Pharisee-ism. One can be a pillar as regards observance, but the real challenge is the inward growth towards true holiness, where Christ is not just worn like “Sunday best” but is in me and I in Him. Such a faith can be supported by a check list of outward observance, but when the check list becomes an end in itself….
In recent years, but especially this Easter, I have come to reflect on the Paschal Mystery more personally, and find wanting my own association with it. Doctrinally, no problem, and even if I say so myself, I can preach eloquently on the subject, but there remains the voice whispering in my ear, which invites more and I tend to reply, “More? But check my scorecard, how could there be MORE?” I am not talking here about the ordinary, constant need for conversion which even “score card Catholics” will admit to and bring to the confession, but a more profound willing to be with Christ on the Cross daily, so that one can more fully associate with his Resurrection. This is an invitation to give “more” and unless one looks beyond the scorecard one will always wonder what more there could possibly be to give.
Teaspoons of love…. just teaspoons, daily poured into the ocean of His Love.
Teaspoons of love, I have come to accept that this is what is asked of me, not buckets, just teaspoons, daily poured into the ocean of His Love. As one with a taste for the dramatic, it seems too inconsequential, too simple. In accepting that this is what the Whisperer is asking for, I am grouping towards this Paschal Mystery in a way not imagined before. A smile here, a sarcastic remark left unsaid there, a “bottle half full” comment wrenched from my “bottle half empty’ soul. These are the teaspoons of self giving by which Christ is inviting me to live the Paschal Mystery, no grand (standing) sacrifices, no display, just an indiscernible rise in Love’s level, by the addition of one more teaspoon of his love. As my personal hanging on the Cross with Christ, this is hardly the Passion revisited, but these tiny measures of love are surprisingly demanding at the same time.
We are ending our Lent this week, and Easter is the day when the baptized renew our commitment. In doing so, we are not only playing with rituals, we are entering an ever deeper engagement with Jesus Christ died, risen and glorified. You may not be doing so with teaspoons, each life is different, but you are being asked to enter the process in your own way. As I said, the Paschal Mystery, it’s personal!