9781644135945

The Easter Cycle
Men of the world judged Christ as an unholy and unjust man, and crucified Him on the cross
between two thieves. They cast Him aside and placed Him on a plane with a criminal, Barabbas;
indeed, they preferred Barabbas to Him, as though Christ were the greater evildoer. They brand
Him even today, no less than they did during His lifetime, as a liar and a tremendous impostor.
They reject and condemn His doctrine even as they rejected and condemned His person. He
still commands us to serve and love God, and our neighbor as ourself; the world preaches
self-love and practices it even to the exclusion of God, and it ridicules all those who seek to
serve God. Christ preaches submission to the will of God; the world urges independence and
self-sufficiency apart from God. Jesus preaches humility; but the world teaches man to assert
himself and recognize no power but his own will and no law but the fulfillment of his own
desires. Jesus preaches poverty of spirit, meekness, and separation from all that is worldly and
passing, and He demands the rejection of all the vanities and idle things of the world; He has
pronounced those “blessed” who are pure of heart, who suffer hunger and want for the sake
of justice, and who suffer persecution for His name. The world ridicules such principles and
such ideals, and sets up her maxims in opposition to the doctrines of Christ; she takes the same
attitude toward those things established by Christ: His Church, His priesthood, His moral code,
the liturgical worship and the authority of His Church. What is the long line of heresies and
schisms but a denial of the Church of Christ? Are they not degenerate deceivers who seek not
the will of Christ and the things of God, but are accompanied by a mad thirst for power and
honor, and an uncontrollable greed?
“He will convince the world . . . of justice, because I go to the Father.” How could Christ
go to the Father and be accepted into the presence of God if He were the wicked, unjust, and
sinful man the Pharisees of ancient times and the modern world would make Him out to be? “I
go to the Father”; but when the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, is come, He will testify that Christ,
who was crucified by men, cast off by the world, and branded as a deceiver, is actually with the
Father. Christ has been received by the Father, elevated and crowned with glory; God has placed
His seal of approval on Christ’s holiness, on His justice, on His teaching, and on His life. Christ
is acknowledged by God as His Son, as the way, the truth, and the life.
God will also fulfill the promises made by Christ. “Every one therefore that shall confess
Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven” (Mt 10:32). On
divine authority rests the prophecy: “Heaven and earth shall pass, but My words shall not pass”
(Mt 24:35). Divinely approved, too, is Christ’s teaching of voluntary poverty, humility, and
self-denial, Christ’s love for God and for souls, and finally, His complete self-effacement on
the cross. It follows, then, that God must approve the Church which Christ founded, that He
must endorse the dogmas it teaches and the moral standards it maintains; He must approve of
its spirit, the saints it produces, and the interior and exterior life that it leads.
“He will convince the world . . . of justice.” This justice is embodied in Christ, who “alone art
holy.” “Sing a new canticle to the Lord, alleluia, for the Lord hath done wonderful things, alleluia.
He hath revealed [by sending the Holy Ghost] His justice in the sight of the Gentiles, alleluia,
alleluia” (Introit).
The justice which the Holy Ghost brings is not the justice of the world. Christ has been
acknowledged by God to be the only truly just one. In Christ alone can true virtue and true
holiness be found; that is, true holiness is found only in Christ and in those who live in union
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