Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: April 01, 2018
Since The Carpenter this week had to be printed earlier than usual, to make certain we receive it before the postal holiday on Good Friday, I’m writing this even before the beginning of Holy Week. I’m still doing penance, united in my prayer to the sufferings of Christ in His sufferings! Nonetheless, confident that the days of our Sacred Triduum will be celebrated well, let me already wish you and yours a Happy Easter! May the grace of the Risen Lord overwhelm you now and always!
Yet in one sense, my having to write these Easter wishes now, whilst still in the midst of Christ’s Passiontide, makes an important spiritual point. In fact it is perhaps the most important spiritual reality of all for us human beings, known as the Paschal Mystery.
This is its definition found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The work of Christ the Lord in redeeming humankind and giving perfect glory to God [was] accomplished principally by the Paschal Mystery of His blessed Passion, Resurrection from death, and glorious Ascension, whereby “dying He destroyed our death, rising He restored our life” (art. 1067). The Catechism stresses that “The Paschal Mystery has two aspects: by His death, Christ liberates us from sin; by His Resurrection, He opens for us the way to a new life” (art. 654)
But the point I wish to make here is that the Paschal Mystery always inseparably includes both of these aspects. First, there is no resurrection to a grace-filled new life without a preceding death, whether this is literally the end of our earthly life or a symbolic “dying to self” by penance or other suffering. And second, only if death is approached in faith – that is, with absolute trust that God will reward our “little deaths” and especially our final one with His merciful blessings – will it truly result in our salvation. One can’t have the good without the bad, and the bad only produces the good if it’s done in faith.
Understood this way, then, Easter doesn’t only happen in the springtime. It happens whenever we transform the challenges and struggles of life into positive avenues of blessing. Lent too is not just a 40-day season. It happens whenever we make difficult but holy choices, for these ultimately lead to our improvement in God’s sight. Salvation only comes through death, and even pain is “worth it” when it ultimately leads to eternal life.
So, again, I wish you and your loved ones a Happy Easter! But I also continue to wish you fruitful lives of sometimes difficult faith! In other words, I hope you have many, many opportunities to live out the Paschal Mystery in a personal way!
Yours in the Risen Lord,
Fr. Paul
