The Paschal Mystery

The goodness of creation, Original Sin, and the promise of a messiah are the starting points for this course, which explores our salvation through the Paschal Mystery. The students encounter the mystery and glory of the suffering, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. The course also explores how the Paschal Mystery informs our daily lives, our prayer, and our participation in the life of the Church. The second edition of our popular Living In Christ series offers updated navigation, organizing and synchronizing curriculum across both teacher guides and student books. The student books have shifted from a section-part-article structure to a unit-chapter-article structure where sections become units and a part is now a chapter.

Christ in the Passover—Celebrate a Traditional Christian Passover Seder. The Passover is the Old Testament feast that celebrates and remembers God’s liberation of Israel from Egypt. It also foreshadows Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. In just 14 pages, you will learn the history of this special day and the symbolism in the Passover that points to Jesus Christ. Christ in the Passover also includes a Christian Passover Seder script that can be used by Christians year-round. This pamphlet: Shows the parallels between the Passover in the Old Testament and the work of Jesus Christ as the perfect Passover lamb in the New Testament. This is a good way of explaining the Jewish roots of Christianity. Includes a Christian Passover Seder script, with everything you will need, including the recipes. Our staff held a seder and it was very meaningful. It takes only 30 minutes and is good for all ages. Children have fun participating finding the hidden matzah bread that symbolizes Jesus. The Seder can be used at home, in a small group, a Bible study, or a class. Gives insights into the symbolism in the Lord’s Supper and the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples. Christ in the Passover is an excellent Bible study topic at any time, but especially near Easter. The Christian Passover Seder script is a touching worship experience for Sunday school classes and lessons on Moses and the Exodus. This pamphlet even includes the Passover Seder recipes. 14 panels, fits inside most Bibles, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, unfolds to 38 inches long This [Passover] is a day to remember. Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the LORD. This is a law for all time. —Exodus 12:14, The Holy Bible This Christ in the Passover Pamphlet is Packed with Fascinating Facts Christians celebrate the Passover as a holiday that commemorates God’s miraculous rescue of Israel from Egyptian captivity. The Lord instituted the Passover feast nearly 3,500 years ago to remind his people of how much he loved them. The Passover is meaningful to Christians today because it is packed with symbolism that points to Jesus Christ. The messianic symbolism in the Passover is a powerful message of salvation in Christ. Christ in the Passover gives hundreds of facts at a glance, including: The Passover story from the Bible—celebrating the Exodus from Egypt The parallels between the Passover in the Old Testament and the work of Jesus Christ as the perfect Passover lamb in the New Testament. This is a good way of explaining the Jewish roots of Christianity. The symbolism of the perfect lamb The similarities between Passover and the Lord’s Supper A Christian Passover Seder script, with everything you will need, including the recipes. Our staff held a seder and it was very meaningful to everyone. It takes only 30 minutes and is good for all ages. Children have fun finding the hidden matzah bread that symbolizes Jesus. The Christian Seder can be used at home, in a small group, a classroom or a Bible study. Christ in the Passover shows six ways that the Passover in the Old Testament points to Jesus, who was called the “Lamb of God.” Why is the Passover story important for Christians today? At some point, you will face hard times, tough problems, and unfair circumstances. It’s good to know that when times are tough, God loves you and watches out for you. Passover is a reminder of God’s control over earthly events and ultimate victory over sin and death. Christ in the Passover will increase your faith in God as you learn that Jesus was sent to earth to become the Passover Lamb for all humanity.

The Paschal Mystery, Jesus' life, death, and Resurrection, is a living reality. It is the promise of life that we receive at Baptism and it continues to draw us into union with God. We experience this union in the most profound way when we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. The collection of readings in The Paschal Mystery: A Primary Source Reader aims to help you come to know Jesus and build a relationship with him that grows ever more loving and ever more life-giving. Within this reader you will find writings from the following sources: John Donne Saint Irenaeus Saint Bernard of Clairvaux Saint John Baptist de La Salle Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Joyce Rupp, OSM C. S. Lewis Joseph Cardinal Bernardin M. Basil Pennington The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults Second Vatican Council Blessed John Paul II This text is the perfect complement to courses on the Paschal Mystery, especially those that correspond to the U.S. bishops' Curriculum Framework course titled "The Mission of Jesus Christ (The Paschal Mystery)."

As a text for college or graduate student courses, as a scholarship reference, and as a guide for interested educated laity, "The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery" is an exhilarating and invigorating journey into the most central of the Christian mysteries, the triune God. The book is a valuable and thought-provoking resource that complements and enriches current theologies of the Trinity.

Death and dying are inseparably linked with life. They are self-evident and at the same time cannot be grasped by reason alone - they are ordinary, and yet so incredible. In these meditations, the acclaimed theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar investigates this great mystery. He asks about the contradiction, inherent in all men, of wishing to achieve something "imperishable in transitoriness" and gives an answer culled from the Scriptures and from the Church Fathers. In looking at this contradiction that appears to be irreconcilable from a purely human perspective, Balthasar tries to find something in the human existence that the Christian solution can take up, for if there was nothing, one would not see how Christianity could connect to our existence at all. This starting-point becomes fully visible and effective only when the Christian interpretation itself becomes evident, otherwise it remains open to dangerous misinterpretations. The emphasis lies in the word "mystery." The reader must meditate on these profound ideas which are demanding both in language and contents - then the reading will inspire him with insights and prospects that will, while not resolving the paradox "that everything earthly is inscribed on the sand of transitoriness," will anchor it in the Christian faith, which claims that man is eternal and that God himself became man in the person of Jesus Christ to help us attain to that eternal life.

If changes in the church's liturgical practice were the most obvious development of Vatican II to be noticed by the faithful in the pew, then inevitably, shifts in eucharistic theology were not far behind. The previous focus on Christ's presence in the sacrament itself under the species of bread and wine and the attendant forms of worship that this spawned have gradually yielded to deepening insights into the manifold ways in which Christ is present among the faithful. Drawing upon the best of recent biblical, historical, and theological sources, Bruce Morrill unfolds how the divine Spirit of Jesus works through ways Christ is present in the celebration of the Eucharist--in the assembly, presiding minister, biblical word, and ritual sacrament. Mindful of challenges inherent in eucharistic theologies within and among church traditions and communities, Morrill orients his theology on two key principles from Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: the celebration of the liturgy as participation in the paschal mystery, and the multiple bodily, symbolic ways Christ is present in the ritual celebration. In the process, he sheds new light on such topics as sacrifice, covenant, divine presence and absence, and the tradition's relationship to Judaism. There are some challenging implications here, not least to the modern tendency to think of liturgy in terms of a personal transaction--"what I got out of it"--and to those who hear God's word only according to their own preconceived ideas: "God's is not a reign limited to our personal histories," Morrill points out, "but, rather, is one that calls us to hear our story as part of one much larger, at times comforting, at others confronting us." Morrill eloquently invokes these human modes of Christ's presence to draw participants into the mystery of the cross and resurrection, into communion with the God whose love for humanity has been revealed unto death, making the Eucharist the source and summit for lives shaped in the pattern of Christ's justice and mercy for the life of the world. +

Using vignettes set in or near his monastery in downtown Newark, New Jersey, Benedictine monk Albert Holtz helps us to see that the Easter mystery, which can often seem abstract and distant, is in fact present all around us. As we accompany him through the fifty days of the Easter season, we listen in on his intriguing interactions with local street people and his inner-city high school students—an insider’s look at what goes on in a monk’s heart as he chants Vespers to the sound of police sirens. Anyone wishing to deepen his or her experience of the Easter mystery will find this a valuable and engaging book.