Fourth Sunday of Lent
30 March 2003
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
The English noun Pasch (pronounced pask) and its adjectival form Paschal come from the Hebrew word for Passover, pesach. It is essential that we understand this connection because the words Pasch and Paschal appear over and over in the sacred liturgy, and in most languages other than English the Solemnity of the Resurrection (which we call Easter) is known as the Passover, the Pasch, Pasqua, Pascua, etc.
Passover, of course, refers in the first place to the deliverance from slavery and the salvation from death of the children of Israel in Egypt, and this salvation was accomplished by the blood of a lamb which marked the Hebrew homes. From this act of redemption in the Old Covenant, Christians take the meaning of our use of the word Passover. The Pasch of Christ was accomplished by the shedding of His blood to deliver us from slavery to sin and death, and this event is also called the Paschal Mystery (which we may render Passover Sacrament) of the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the true Lamb of God.
The seven sacraments (or sacred mysteries) of the New Covenant are the instruments used by God to unite us to the Passover of Christ, and the first of these sacraments is the Passover Sacrament par excellence: Baptism. On Easter Sunday all of the baptized are asked each year to renew the promises of their Baptism and surrender themselves once again in the obedience of faith to the Lord Jesus. In preparation for that solemn moment, I ask everyone in the parish to do two things: 1. Find out when, where, and by whom you were baptized, and 2. Read the text for the Renewal of Baptismal Promises in the missalette, beginning at the bottom of page 249. Let those promises serve as a preparation for a good Confession during Lent or Eastertide.
The invitation to the Renewal of our Baptismal Promises aptly summarizes all of these themes: "Dear friends, through the paschal mystery, we have been buried with Christ in baptism, so that we may rise with him to a new life. Now that we have completed our Lenten observance, let us renew the promises we made in baptism when we rejected Satan and his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his holy catholic Church."
Father Newman
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us