What is the Paschal Mystery?
Ah, Churchy words…gotta love em’. We Catholic Christians understand and respond to suffering in a very distinct way based on centuries of shared, collective wisdom around what we call the Paschal Mystery.
The Paschal Mystery simply refers to Jesus’ life, death & resurrection and what we have slowly come to understand about this mystery over the centuries. The Paschal mystery is kind of the lens through which we Catholics look at all of life. It is the process of dying and rising, death and new life that we can observe all around us and in our own personal lives and history.
We experience this mystery of dying and rising each year as we go through the different seasons; things die in fall/winter, spring & summer bring new life. We are a part of nature too. We also have our own dyings and risings. Sometimes these are obvious; someone dies, and a baby is born. But other dyings and risings are less obvious. An experience of dying might be when you have an argument with a friend that leaves you feeling upset, or you see a homeless family and don't know what to do to help. We die a little with each experience of conflict and sadness.
An experience of rising might be reconciling with that person who you hurt or who hurt you. Or after seeing the homeless family and some despairing over the complexities of poverty, new life can come from gathering some friends and volunteering together for an organization like the HOPE Warming Center that cares for people who are in need.
All of life has this rhythm of dying and rising. Thousands and thousands of years of reflection on this Paschal Mystery and human experience tell us: if we trust God in times of suffering and death and don’t cling too tightly to our sense of how things “should be,” our surrender, somehow, eventually brings us to a deeper fullness of life.
This is not to say that we should seek or endure suffering without a fight or let people abuse us. God never asks us to be doormats. Jesus was certainly not a doormat - quite the opposite. Jesus was always standing up for what he knew was right and healing people, easing the suffering and isolation of others. Sadly, the way that he loved often brought suffering with it. Though never “good,” if we do not give in to bitterness, our suffering CAN have value. It can actually draw us closer to God and one another. God does not inflict or will our suffering, but is with us in it.
When asked what brings eternal life, Jesus said love God and love your neighbor as yourself. When we love someone we are not indifferent to their struggle, right? It becomes our own; we carry their pain. We hurt too. Togetherness is our greatest remedy for suffering. By supporting each other in our suffering, we give each other hope. In the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, God is telling us to love with abandon and determination, that suffering is not the end, God is with us in our pain, and death does not have the final word.
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