The Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ
by
Father Walter Farrell and Father Mattin Healy
Based on the writings of "The Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas"
His Passion and Death
The Glory of Christ in
His Body, and the Glory that is to come to
all Men at the end of the world are purchased with a Great Price. Before the
Body of Christ could be confirmed in the
Glory of His
Sanctified Soul, before Men could have any
chance to emulate His Glory,
Christ had to win Redemption
for Mankind by His
Passion and His
Death upon the Cross of Calvary.
Christ did not Suffer
and then Die upon the Cross
because God was under any compulsion to demand so Great a Recompense for the
Sins of Men.
God could have simply Condoned Men's
Sins and granted them Pardon
when they Repented of
their Sins. Nor was
Christ Himself under any Compulsion to
Suffer and Die for the Sins
of Men. He offered
Himself Freely and Voluntarily
as a Sacrifice for Men.
But Christ Suffered
for men because this was the Will of God.
God Willed that His Only-Begotten Son
should become Man to Suffer
and Die for the Salvation
of Men. This Divine
Decision manifests both the Justice and the Mercy
of God. It manifests His Justice, because it
shows that God has actually demanded Satisfaction
for the Sins of Men against
Him. It manifests His Mercy, because no one
but a God-Man could have offered a suitable
Satisfaction for the Sins of
Men. Because He was
God, Christ could offer
God an Infinite Satisfaction for the
Infinite Malice of Sin. Because
He was man,
Christ could offer a man's
Satisfaction for man's Sin.
The Wisdom of God's Plan in the
Passion and Death of
Christ is shown, too, by the other purposes which God accomplished in this
way. Christ Suffered and
Died to win God's Pardon for the Sins
of Men. But His
Suffering did more than this. In the First Place,
since He was both God and
man, His
Suffering was a Staggering Proof of God's Love for
Men. Could God do more for
Men than Suffer and
Die for them? Secondly, in
His Passion and
Death Christ gave to Men
an example of the Perfect Virtue which will lead
Men to Heaven:
Obedience to God's Will,
Humility,
Constancy in following God's Will,
Fortitude in the face of Death,
A Love of Justice even unto Death, and so on.
Thirdly, by His
Suffering Christ Merited Grace and
Glory for Men, and so made it possible for
Men to attain their real Happiness.
Fourthly, by Suffering
and Dying for all Men,
Christ gave to Men
a strong additional motive for avoiding Sin.
If a father sold all his possessions in order to pay the foolish debts of his son, would not the son have a strong reason for behaving
Prudently in the future? If the Son of God Suffered
and Died because of the Sins of
Men, to pay the Debt of
men's sins, should not all
Men have a Good Reason for avoiding
Sin in the future? Lastly,
the Passion and Death of
Christ are a Divine Tribute to the
Dignity of man.
Man had Destroyed himself
by Falling Victim to the Devil in the
Garden of Paradise. Through Christ, a
Man conquers the Devil and restores
Mankind to the Friendship of God.
Men can point to Christ with Honest Pride and say that
their Brother Man
has Saved them.
Passion Scenes - by DUCCIO di Buoninsegna, from Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena
In His Passion and
Death Christ endured extreme Suffering.
He Suffered at the hands of both
men and women. A
man Betrayed Him;
a woman Betrayed
His Apostle Peter; the Sanhedrin
Condemned Him;
His own People cried out for His Blood;
Herod and Pilate washed their hands of Him;
Pilate delivered Him over to Scourging
and the Crucifixion on the Cross; the soldiers
and servants mocked Him
and Spat upon Him and Beat Him;
He was abandoned by His Apostles
and Friends; His reputation was destroyed by the
Ignominy of His
Trial and Death
as a Criminal; His
Soul was Sad
and Weary at the prospect and the reality of
Suffering and Death;
His Sensitive
Nature flinched from Suffering
and Death; His
Hands and Feet
were Pierced by Nails; His
Brow was Crowned with Thorns;
His Whole Body was torn with the
Lashes of The Scourging. And because
He had a Perfect
Human Nature, He felt this
Suffering all the more keenly.
It is true that the Higher Part of His
Soul continued to enjoy the Vision of God. But the Lower
Part of His Soul,
His Power to feel Sensitive
Joy or Pain, was inundated with the
Anguish of His
Torments. Christ allowed His
Human Nature to experience the Length and the Breadth and the Depth of
Human Suffering. Because
He Suffered to atone for the Sins
of all Men, He allowed
Himself to endure the fullness of Human Pain.
In Him the words of the Prophet Isaiah were fulfilled:
"There is no beauty in Him, nor comeliness: and we have
seen Him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of Him; despised and
the most abject of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity: and His look was
as it were hidden and despised. Whereupon we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our
infirmities and carried our sorrows; and we have thought Him as it were a leper, and as
one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities; He was bruised for
our sins. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and by His bruises we are healed"
(Isaiah 54:2-5).
The Sublimity of Christ's Love
for Men is shown by the fact that He did
not have to Suffer and Die.
Because He was God,
He could have prevented His Enemies
from doing Him any Injury.
Because His Soul
had Perfect Control of His
Body, He could have prevented the
Wounds from achieving their normal effect.
But, in Obedience to the Will
of His Father, He
submitted Himself to the Violent Hands of
His Enemies. God
and Christ Himself, out of Love for
Men, delivered Christ to the hands of
His Torturers and
Executioners. But it was these Latter who
Scourged Christ, Crowned
Him with Thorns,
nailed Him to the
Cross and so Killed Him.
His Own People handed Him
over to the Romans to be put to Death,
and the Romans Crucified Him.
In this way Christ Suffered
both from the Jews and from the Pagans of the world. Since
He came to Save not only the Jews
but also the Rest of Men, it was natural that He
should Suffer at the hands of both.
The Guilt of those who brought about the Death
of Christ varies with their Knowledge of what they were doing.
Least Guilty of all were the
Pagan Soldiers Who Tortured and
Crucified Christ.
They had no Knowledge of the fact that Christ was the
Savior of Mankind, nor the fact that
Christ was God, the
Son of God. More Guilty than
They was Pilate who, though he also was ignorant of the True Identity of
Christ, nevertheless, out of Cowardice,
Condemned an Innocent
Man to Death.
Next in the mounting scale of Guilt comes the multitude of simple people
at Jerusalem who were misled by their Leaders. They had seen the Wonderful Works of
Christ and so might have believed in Him. But their Leaders deceived them
and made them Doubt Christ. Most
Guilty of all were the Arch Conspirators
among the Leaders of the people. They knew that Christ
had fulfilled in His Person and Life the Signs foretold by the Prophets.
But They were unwilling to accept Christ as
Their Savior.
They deliberately blinded Their eyes to the Evident Signs of
His Divinity. God was ready to give them
Faith in Christ, but, in the
Hardness of Their
Hearts, They refused to accept It.
Because Their ignorance of His True Identity
was Deliberate, it does not excuse Their Sin.
They committed the Most Grievous of Sins.
They delivered Their
Savior and Their God to
Death at the Hands of Pagans.
Christ Suffered and
Died on the Cross of Calvary. As He
hung there, suspended between Earth and Sky, with His Life's Blood draining away in
Agony, His
Enemies mocked Him. "If Thou be the Son of
God", They said, "come down from the
Cross". As Saint Paul has said, the Crucified
Christ is "unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto
the Gentiles foolishness" (1Corinthians 1:23). Did God
fail on the Cross? Was His Life among
Men a magnificent but futile gesture? Saint Paul gives us the answer:
"But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, the crucified Christ is the Power of God, and the
Wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men". (1Corinthians 1:24-25). On the
Cross, Christ seems most helpless. But it is
on the Cross that He accomplished
His purpose, the Salvation of
Men.
As Christ hung on the Cross,
He Willingly offered His
Human Life and the Sufferings
and Death of His Body for the
Salvation of Men. In the
Plan of God, Christ was the
New Adam, the New Head of the
Human Race. Because He offered His Life
Willingly out of Charity and Obedience
to His Father, His
Human Will Merited from
God the Salvation of Mankind.
Because He Suffered and
Died out of Love and Obedience,
Christ gave God more
than was required to compensate for the Sins of the whole
Human Race. He Satisfied or
Atoned for Men's Sins.
He offered His Life to
God to Honor God and to appease Him
for the Sins of Men.
His Passion, therefore, was a Sacrifice
most pleasing to God. The Life which He so
Willingly laid down for Men was the price
paid to God for the Sins of
Men and the Punishment due to those
Sins. By Paying the Price of Men's
Sins Christ Redeemed all
Men. Christ did all this ---
He Merited Salvation, He Atoned for Sin,
He Sacrificed
Himself to God for Sin,
He Redeemed Men --- in
Obedience to the Will of God. His
Human Nature was the Instrument of
His Godhead, the Instrument which the Son of God
used to Save Men. Because
It was the Instrument of His Godhead,
Christ accomplished what He had come into
this world to do.
Because Christ is God as well as
man, His
Passion delivered Men from Sin
and from the Power of the Devil.
It Freed
Men from the Penalty of Sin,
Death and the Loss of the
Vision of God. His
Passion Reconciled Men to
God and reopened the Gates of Heaven
to all Mankind. His
Passion Merited for Himself
the Exaltation of His Own
Human Nature. Because He was put to
Death Unjustly,
God raised Him from the Dead.
Because His Body had
Suffered the Humiliation of Burial, He
ascended into Heaven. Because He had endured
the Mockery of Men,
He now sits at the Right Hand of the Father in
Heaven. Because He had been delivered over to the
power of men, He has been made the
Judge of all Men in the world to come. In the
Passion of Christ the weakness of God
is stronger than men. Through the Human
Death of Christ the
Divine Life is Restored to Men.
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Descent of Christ to Limbo
by ANDREA DA FIRENZE
from Cappella Spagnuolo, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
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Christ really Died on the
Cross. His
Human Soul was separated from
His Body. But His Divine Personality
remained united to both His Body
and His Soul. For this reason the
Dead Body of
Christ was still Infinitely Precious. Because
It was still united to the Person of the
Son of God, any Indignity inflicted upon
It by the soldiers who lowered It from the
Cross, any gesture of Reverence paid to
It by His Mother or the Holy Men and
Women who Reverently buried It, was of Infinite Value
for the Salvation of Men.
As soon as He Died, the
Soul of Christ descended into Hell.
The Hell of which we speak here is Limbo, the place
in which the Souls of the Just were awaiting deliverance.
He hastened to Limbo to announce to the Just
the reopening of the Gates of Heaven. Through His
Passion, He had made it possible for
Them to find Glory in the
Vision of God. He did not descend into
the Hell of the Devils and the Lost
Human Souls. There was nothing
He could do for Them. By
Their own free decision, They had cut Themselves
off from God forever. Only Those united to
Himself in Faith and
Charity could obtain the Benefits of His
Passion.
His Resurrection
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Polyptych of the Resurrection
by TIZIANO Vecellio,
from Santi Nazaro e Celso, Brescia
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On the Third Day after His
Death Christ rose again.
His Soul was reunited with
His Body and
He rose from the Tomb Glorious and
Immortal. He waited Three Days
to convince everyone that He had really Died.
He rose from the grave to confirm our Faith
in His Divinity. Because He has risen, we can
also Hope to rise again at the end of the world. Because
He has risen from the Grave, the New Life of
Grace is given to our Souls. Because
He was God, He gave to
His Body and
Soul the Power to unite with one another again. By the
Power of God Christ, Who had
Died on Calvary, rose again on the
First Easter Sunday.
Christ rose again in His Own
Human Body. His
Body still bore the Scars of His
Passion. He could have removed these
Scars, if He had wished. But
He chose to retain them. In this way
He could prove to Men that it was really
Himself Who had risen. Besides, He was to
ascend into Heaven to plead with His Father
for the Salvation of Men. In
Heaven His Scars would be a Perpetual Reminder
to the Father of His
Suffering for Men. In Heaven,
too, the marks of His Wounds would be an
Everlasting Trophy of His Triumph over the World, the
Devil and Sin. But though He
still bore the marks of His Wounds,
His Risen Body was
Glorified. It was Immortal.
He could never Die again. The
Glory of His
Soul, united to God in the
Beatific Vision, flowed over
into His Body and made
It shine with a Divine Light. His
Body was completely under the control of His Soul.
After His Resurrection He appeared to His
Mother, His Apostles and to
His Disciples. He walked
with them, talked with them, ate and drank with them. In this way He gave them convincing
signs of the reality of His Resurrection. Through their testimony the
Truth of His Resurrection has been given to
the world. Those who believe in Him and in His
Resurrection can Hope to rise again also.
The Resurrection of Christ is the cause of the
Resurrection of all Men. Only God
has the Power to make Men rise again. But
Christ is God. And
God intends to make the Resurrection of Christ the efficient cause
of the Resurrection of all Men. At the end
of time it will be the Risen Christ Who will make all Men
rise again. His Risen Human Nature will be
the Instrument by which His Divine power will reunite the
Souls of all Men to
Their Bodies.
The Resurrection of Christ is also the Model or Pattern according to
which the Souls of the Just shall rise on the Last Day.
Christ will make Sinners rise, but to
Their Condemnation. Because They have no
Faith in Him nor Love
for Him, They can have no part in
His Glory. But the Just will rise in the
likeness of Christ. His
Body is now Glorious and
Immortal. The Bodies of those who had
Faith in Him, who
Loved Him and kept His Commandments, will be
Glorious and Immortal, too. The
Resurrection of Christ is both the pledge of the future
Resurrection of Men, and the Model of the
Resurrection of the Just Who Die
in the Grace of Christ.
Forty Days after His Resurrection Christ
ascended into Heaven. He went to
Heaven to receive the Glory which was due to
Him. There He pleads with
His Father always for the Souls of Men.
In Heaven He sits at the Right Hand of God.
As God He is equal to the Father and to the
Holy Spirit. As Man, as the
Perfect Man, possessing the Absolute Fullness of
God's Grace, and as the Glorious Head of the
whole Human Race and of the Angels,
He sits at the Right Hand of His Father,
that is, He has been given the Power to
Judge all Men and Angels. At the
General Judgment it will be Christ
Who makes the final Truth known --- the
True character and the True meaning of the
actions of Men and Angels. At this Judgment
it is Christ Who will give the Final Decision. At His Word
the Damned will go into Hell forever to
satisfy the Justice of God, and the Good
will enter forever into the Bliss of Heaven to manifest the
Mercy of God.
The Human Race today needs a Savior.
Men are seeking Salvation in Ideas,
in Fascism, in Nazism, in
Communism. Men are seeking
Salvation in Science, in Electronics, in Atomic Fission,
in Dreams of flights to the Moon or Mars. Men look for the promise of
strength in Dictators or Military Geniuses or Financial Wizards. But there is
no Salvation for man
except in Christ the Savior. It is
Christ Who has re-established order in the world.
Man introduced Chaos into the world by
Disobedience to God. Christ
has reintroduced the principle of Obedience to God.
By His Obedience He has opened the floodgates of Heaven
to the world of Men. Because He
Died on the Cross out of
Love and Obedience, the
Living Waters of God's Grace are ready to quicken the Parched
Souls of Men. Because
He was Humble, even unto Death,
Men can be raised up to the Dignity of Sons of
God. Because He Loved both
God and man, it is possible for
men to Love God and one another.
But Christ Saves no one against his Will.
He can give Salvation only to those who
Believe in Him,
Hope in Him and Love Him.
He has Merited
Grace for all Men. But Men
must Freely accept this Grace and use It
for their Salvation. We are all
Saved in Christ, our
Head and our Savior. But only on condition that we freely unite our
Minds and Hearts with
His. Christ is not a
Dictator. He does not
bend Men to His Will with
Guns and Secret Police and
Concentration Camps and Slave Labor.
He is a loving Savior.
He compels no one to march with Him or for
Him.
The Crucifixion - by GRÜNEWALD, Matthias - from Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar
He hangs on a Cross between Earth and Sky,
between Men and God.
He has nothing to recommend Him but
Humility and a great Love. Yet
His outstretched arms are big enough to hold the world. The road to
Happiness lies through His Cross. If any
man will Save
his life, he must first lose it. He
must deny himself and follow Christ.
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