By: Bishop James R. Golka
Bishop of Colorado Springs & Member of TEC Conference Bishops' Committee
Every year Catholics celebrate Easter, but we do not just celebrate Easter Sunday by itself. We celebrate all of Holy Week, which begins with Palm Sunday, continues through Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and then the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. These days celebrate what we call the “Paschal Mystery.” This unusual term is how we refer to Jesus’s Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. The Paschal Mystery encapsulates the work of our redemption accomplished by Jesus.
The word “paschal” comes from the Hebrew word for Passover. In the Old Testament, when God delivered the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, he had them sacrifice an unblemished lamb, eat its roasted flesh, and sprinkle its blood on their door posts so that the angel of death would pass over their homes as he went around striking down the first-born children of the Egyptians. This Passover is still celebrated by our Jewish brothers and sisters every year as a celebration of deliverance from slavery and death.
On the night before Jesus willingly accomplished the work of our deliverance from slavery to sin and death, he established a new Passover meal in the Eucharist. He is the unblemished lamb who would be sacrificed the next day on the cross for our salvation. Not only that, he then rose from the dead in triumph and returned back to the Father in heaven. All of the work of the New Passover is contained in the sacrificial meal of the Eucharist that Jesus gave to his Church on that first Holy Thursday. The whole Paschal Mystery is encapsulated in the Eucharist. When we participate in the Mass, we are participants with Jesus in his work of redemption.
