timeimmortal

So, I’m in Vancouver at present, celebrating Easter with Grace’s family there. Obviously, then, I’m not at my computer able to compose a suitable reflection on the idea of Easter and the meaning of the resurrection of Christ. Given a slightly less hectic week, I might have been able to compose just such a reflection, but as it is I will have to settle for re-iterating a point I made last year:

It is perhaps fitting to examine, then, how Easter completes the whole of the Christian year and unifies the faith. Christianity is not a series of beliefs, each atomically isolated from the others, but is rather one unified faith out of which flow many teachings that complement and enhance each other, and all of which are completed and joined by the pivotal historical event that is remembered this week: the death and resurrection of Christ. There is, within Holy Week, a smaller example of this same phenomenon, in our observance of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), His institution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist (Holy Thursday) and his re-statement of the need for the Sacraments of Baptism and Reconciliation (also Holy Thursday), to His death (Good Friday) and resurrection (Easter Sunday). Within the week now almost over, the whole of Christianity and the whole of the Catholic expression of that faith finds its core, its foundation.

And to their credit, most Catholic churches emphasize the Sacraments during this season, as they ought…indeed, it is not by accident that adult baptisms take place during the Vigil Mass.

The need for baptism is, as noted, re-iterated by Christ in poignant fashion on Holy Thursday, when He washed the feet of the disciples. “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet,” our Lord taught, and as with everything Christ said there is a deeper message being conveyed in that teaching than just the necessity of personal hygeine. Baptism is our first washing, the Sacramental sign of the way in which we are cleaned by the Lord, and water is the symbol of cleansing which we use. I’ve always been mystified by Protestants who declare confidently that water baptism is not necessary for salvation; while it is doubtless true that God, in His mercy, welcomes into His Kingdom those infants which die before being baptized (but then, to what extent are infants capable of sin?), it is equally true all the same that God desires, and that Christ taught, that baptism is necessary.

Likewise, many churches offer special penetential services during Holy Week, and again they do well to do so, because Christ likewise commanded that we return again and again to be cleansed, and commissioned His disciples to forgive sins in His name, and through His grace. Confession — the Sacrament of Reconciliation — is necessary as well in a fully-lived Christian life. “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me,” Christ cautions Peter, following it up with the teaching outlined previously, and again the Lord is not here talking about personal hygeine. We too must seek to be cleansed of our sinfulness in Christ, and must do so repeatedly, just as in Hebrew custom the feet were to be washed regularly. If we do not seek that repeated cleansing, we too will have no share in Christ.

And of course, Catholic churches offer the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Real Presence, the literal and truthful Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, which Christ Himself gave to us in His transformation of the Passover Meal into the Feast of the Lamb and the food by which all might know salvation.

All of those are elements, but they are all given their whole meaning not only in Good Friday, but in what we celebrate on Easter Sunday — the risen Christ, the resurrection, Christ (and, by extension, God’s) victory over death won for the sake of all mankind, that we too might be able one day to join the chorus of angels in glorifying God in the Kingdom that is to come. It is in Christ’s death and resurrection that the Eucharistic meal is given its meaning, its form, and its power, for as it marks Christ’s being broken and shedding blood for our sake, so Christ was actually broken, and did actually shed blood, for our salvation.

At the same time, it is in Christ’s death and resurrection that we are truly cleansed from our sinfulness, for in His death and resurrection Christ took upon Himself the full weight of all human sin — past, present, and future — and made it to die with him, that we too might be dead to sin and risen in Christ, just as he later arose in glory.

And just as water and blood poured from our Lord’s pierced side, so too do we baptise with water, that all who share in baptism might have a share in due time in the life that is to come, which Christ’s resurrection has secured for His faithful.

Everything ties together in this one week, and as I have said this is an atomic expression of the whole of Christian year, and the whole of the Christian faith, and the way it ties together as well.

Catholicism is a complete, whole, unified faith, the Christian faith among all Christian denominations out there, and the Church is the means by which God’s fullest revelation is given to humanity. It is my prayer, this and every Easter season, that more and more people will be called to conversion during this time and throughout the year. For the Church is the light, and in her is found freedom and salvation. All else is darkness.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

~ by Kenneth on March 23, 2008.