CCC 557-560

Christ’s entry into Jerusalem

Jesus’ ascent to Jerusalem

✅ 557 “When the days drew near for him to be taken up [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.”³⁰⁴ By this decision he indicated that he was going up to Jerusalem prepared to die there. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; now, heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus says: “It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.”³⁰⁵

✅ 558 Jesus recalls the martyrdom of the prophets who had been put to death in Jerusalem. Nevertheless he persists in calling Jerusalem to gather around him: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”³⁰⁶ When Jerusalem comes into view he weeps over her and expresses once again his heart’s desire: “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.”³⁰⁷

Jesus’ messianic entrance into Jerusalem

✅ 559 How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of “his father David”.³⁰⁸ Acclaimed as son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means “Save!” or “Give salvation!”), the “King of glory” enters his City “riding on an ass”.³⁰⁹ Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth.³¹⁰ And so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God’s poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds.³¹¹ Their acclamation, “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”,³¹² is taken up by the Church in the “Sanctus” of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord’s Passover.

✅ 560 Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem manifested the coming of the kingdom that the King-Messiah was going to accomplish by the Passover of his Death and Resurrection. It is with the celebration of that entry on Palm Sunday that the Church’s liturgy solemnly opens Holy Week.

CCC 602-618

The Passion of Christ

“Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God”

599 Jesus’ violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God’s plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”³⁹³ This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.³⁹⁴

600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: “In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”³⁹⁵ For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.³⁹⁶

“He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”

601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.³⁹⁷ Citing a confession of faith that he himself had “received”, St. Paul professes that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”³⁹⁸ In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant.³⁹⁹ Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God’s suffering Servant.⁴⁰⁰ After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.⁴⁰¹

“For our sake God made him to be sin”

✅ 602 Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.”⁴⁰² Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death.⁴⁰³ By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”⁴⁰⁴

✅ 603 Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.⁴⁰⁵ But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”⁴⁰⁶ Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.⁴⁰⁷

God takes the initiative of universal redeeming love

✅ 604 By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love, prior to any merit on our part: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.”⁴⁰⁸ God “shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”⁴⁰⁹

✅ 605 At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: “So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”⁴¹⁰ He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us.⁴¹¹ The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.”⁴¹²

Christ’s whole life is an offering to the Father

✅ 606 The Son of God, who came down “from heaven, not to do [his] own will, but the will of him who sent [him]”,⁴¹³ said on coming into the world, “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.” “And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”⁴¹⁴ From the first moment of his Incarnation the Son embraces the Father’s plan of divine salvation in his redemptive mission: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.”⁴¹⁵ The sacrifice of Jesus “for the sins of the whole world”⁴¹⁶ expresses his loving communion with the Father. “The Father loves me, because I lay down my life”, said the Lord, “[for] I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.”⁴¹⁷

✅ 607 The desire to embrace his Father’s plan of redeeming love inspired Jesus’ whole life,⁴¹⁸ for his redemptive passion was the very reason for his Incarnation. And so he asked, “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour.”⁴¹⁹ And again, “Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?”⁴²⁰ From the cross, just before “It is finished”, he said, “I thirst.”⁴²¹

“The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world”

✅ 608 After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”.⁴²² By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel’s redemption at the first Passover.⁴²³ Christ’s whole life expresses his mission: “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”⁴²⁴

Jesus freely embraced the Father’s redeeming love

✅ 609 By embracing in his human heart the Father’s love for men, Jesus “loved them to the end”, for “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”⁴²⁵ In suffering and death his humanity became the free and perfect instrument of his divine love which desires the salvation of men.⁴²⁶ Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death: “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”⁴²⁷ Hence the sovereign freedom of God’s Son as he went out to his death.⁴²⁸

At the Last Supper Jesus anticipated the free offering of his life

✅ 610 Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles “on the night he was betrayed”.⁴²⁹ On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “This is my body which is given for you.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”⁴³⁰

✅ 611 The Eucharist that Christ institutes at that moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice.⁴³¹ Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and bids them perpetuate it.⁴³² By doing so, the Lord institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant: “For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”⁴³³

The agony at Gethsemani

✅ 612 The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father’s hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani,⁴³⁴ making himself “obedient unto death”. Jesus prays: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. . .”⁴³⁵ Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death.⁴³⁶ Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the divine person of the “Author of life”, the “Living One”.⁴³⁷ By accepting in his human will that the Father’s will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”⁴³⁸

Christ’s death is the unique and definitive sacrifice

✅ 613 Christ’s death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”,⁴³⁹ and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.⁴⁴⁰

✅ 614 This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices.⁴⁴¹ First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience.⁴⁴²

Jesus substitutes his obedience for our disobedience

✅ 615 “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”⁴⁴³ By his obedience unto death, Jesus accomplished the substitution of the suffering Servant, who “makes himself an offering for sin“, when “he bore the sin of many”, and who “shall make many to be accounted righteous”, for “he shall bear their iniquities”.⁴⁴⁴ Jesus atoned for our faults and made satisfaction for our sins to the Father.⁴⁴⁵

Jesus consummates his sacrifice on the cross

✅ 616 It is love “to the end”⁴⁴⁶ that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life.⁴⁴⁷ Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.”⁴⁴⁸ No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all. The existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.

✅ 617 The Council of Trent emphasizes the unique character of Christ’s sacrifice as “the source of eternal salvation”⁴⁴⁹ and teaches that “his most holy Passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us.”⁴⁵⁰ And the Church venerates his cross as she sings: “Hail, O Cross, our only hope.”⁴⁵¹

Our participation in Christ’s sacrifice

✅ 618 The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ, the “one mediator between God and men”.⁴⁵² But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, “the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” is offered to all men.⁴⁵³ He calls his disciples to “take up [their] cross and follow [him]”,⁴⁵⁴ for “Christ also suffered for [us], leaving [us] an example so that [we] should follow in his steps.”⁴⁵⁵ In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries.⁴⁵⁶ This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering.⁴⁵⁷

Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.⁴⁵⁸

CCC 2816

Christ’s kingship gained through his death and Resurrection

“THY KINGDOM COME”

✅ 2816 In the New Testament, the word basileia can be translated by “kingship” (abstract noun), “kingdom” (concrete noun) or “reign” (action noun). The Kingdom of God lies ahead of us. It is brought near in the Word incarnate, it is proclaimed throughout the whole Gospel, and it has come in Christ’s death and Resurrection. The Kingdom of God has been coming since the Last Supper and, in the Eucharist, it is in our midst. The kingdom will come in glory when Christ hands it over to his Father:

It may even be . . . that the Kingdom of God means Christ himself, whom we daily desire to come, and whose coming we wish to be manifested quickly to us. For as he is our resurrection, since in him we rise, so he can also be understood as the Kingdom of God, for in him we shall reign.⁸⁶

2817 This petition is “Marana tha,” the cry of the Spirit and the Bride: “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Even if it had not been prescribed to pray for the coming of the kingdom, we would willingly have brought forth this speech, eager to embrace our hope. In indignation the souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out to the Lord: “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” For their retribution is ordained for the end of the world. Indeed as soon as possible, Lord, may your kingdom come!⁸⁷

2818 In the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come” refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of God through Christ’s return.⁸⁸ But, far from distracting the Church from her mission in this present world, this desire commits her to it all the more strongly. Since Pentecost, the coming of that Reign is the work of the Spirit of the Lord who “complete[s] his work on earth and brings us the fullness of grace.”⁸⁹

2819 “The kingdom of God [is] righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”⁹⁰ The end-time in which we live is the age of the outpouring of the Spirit. Ever since Pentecost, a decisive battle has been joined between “the flesh” and the Spirit.⁹¹

Only a pure soul can boldly say: “Thy kingdom come.” One who has heard Paul say, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies,” and has purified himself in action, thought and word will say to God: “Thy kingdom come!”⁹²

2820 By a discernment according to the Spirit, Christians have to distinguish between the growth of the Reign of God and the progress of the culture and society in which they are involved. This distinction is not a separation. Man’s vocation to eternal life does not suppress, but actually reinforces, his duty to put into action in this world the energies and means received from the Creator to serve justice and peace.⁹³

2821 This petition is taken up and granted in the prayer of Jesus which is present and effective in the Eucharist; it bears its fruit in new life in keeping with the Beatitudes.⁹⁴

654, 1067-1068, 1085, 1362

The Paschal Mystery and the liturgy

THE MEANING AND SAVING SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION

651 “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”⁵²¹ The Resurrection above all constitutes the confirmation of all Christ’s works and teachings. All truths, even those most inaccessible to human reason, find their justification if Christ by his Resurrection has given the definitive proof of his divine authority, which he had promised.

652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life.⁵²² The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures”⁵²³ indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.

653 The truth of Jesus’ divinity is confirmed by his Resurrection. He had said: “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he.”⁵²⁴ The Resurrection of the crucified one shows that he was truly “I AM”, the Son of God and God himself. So St. Paul could declare to the Jews: “What God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.'”⁵²⁵ Christ’s Resurrection is closely linked to the Incarnation of God’s Son, and is its fulfillment in accordance with God’s eternal plan.

✅ 654 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. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God’s grace, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”⁵²⁶ Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace.⁵²⁷ It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ’s brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: “Go and tell my brethren.”⁵²⁸ We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection.

655 Finally, Christ’s Resurrection – and the risen Christ himself is the principle and source of our future resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. . . For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”⁵²⁹ The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfillment . In Christ, Christians “have tasted. . . the powers of the age to come”⁵³⁰ and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”⁵³¹