Angelus News | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

LETTER AND SPIRIT
SCOTT HAHN
Scott Hahn is founder of the
St. Paul Center for Biblical
Theology; stpaulcenter.com.
Unraveling the Paschal Mystery
A
single day could not contain the
joy of the Resurrection, so the
Church extended the celebration
to a season. We’re still in the midst
of it.
But we who speak English suffer a
fundamental disorientation when we
consider this season. In most languages,
the same word applies to the Jewish
Passover as to the Christian feast of
Jesus’ resurrection: “Pascua,” “Pascha,”
“Pasqua,” “Pesach.” The English name,
Easter, on the other hand, derives from
an ancient German festival, about
which we know very little.
Thus the term “Paschal Mystery”
doesn’t have the same associations for
us as it has for others. It is this mystery,
according to the Catechism, which
“stands at the center” of the Gospel
(CCC, n. 571). All other feasts, all
other mysteries point to it (CCC, n.
1171). Yet it is the same Paschal Mystery
that we celebrate every Sunday
and every Mass. We may think of these
memorials as widening concentric
circles, whose heart is the Lord’s saving
passion.
For Christians, the Paschal Mystery
should evoke the ancient Passover,
when all the firstborn children of Israel
were spared, when the chosen people
were liberated from slavery, and when
they embarked upon their journey to
the promised land. Their deliverance
began with the sacrifice of a lamb and
the smearing of the lamb’s blood on
the doorposts. In future generations,
Jews would recall those events, but also
consider them allegorically, as God’s
continued deliverance of his people,
out of vice and into virtue.
In the fullness of time, Jesus came as
the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29). For
his disciples, he was “Christ, our paschal
lamb,” who “has been sacrificed”
(1 Corinthians 5:7). For Christians, the
Passover has not been abolished, but
rather fulfilled. “Let us, therefore,” said
St. Paul, “celebrate the festival … with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8).
Raised up in the traditions of Judaism,
the first Christians could see both
continuity and discontinuity from the
Old Covenant to the New. They still
celebrated the festival with unleavened
bread, but now the sacrifice was Christ
himself, who had made an offering
of his body at the Last Supper. It was
that paschal meal that transformed his
execution into a once-for-all sacrifice.
The old Passover began with Israel’s
redemption and liberation, but
it culminated later with the people’s
entrance into “a land flowing with
milk and honey” (Joshua 5:6). Between
those events, the tribes wandered for
40 years. It was a time of purification
when God purged the Israelites of the
lingering effects of their contact with
Egyptian idolatry.
So, every year, as we prepare to celebrate
Easter, we undergo purification
through 40 days of Lent.
From ancient times, the Church saw
the Christian
pilgrimage
as a movement
from
purification to
illumination
and finally to
union with
God. These
“The Angel of Death and the
First Passover.” Illustrators
of the 1897 “Bible Pictures
and What They Teach Us,”
by Charles Foster | WIKIME-
DIA COMMONS
are the stages as we pass through the
sacraments of initiation. They trace
a pattern that plays itself out over the
course of a lifetime, a week or a year,
and even over the course of a Mass.
We “pass over” from sin through
penance to communion as we conform
ourselves to the Easter Mysteries.
32 • ANGELUS • April 21, 2023