As we go through Lent, we are preparing for the Easter Triduum which, as Pope Francis reminded us, "is the apex of the whole liturgical year and also the apex of our Christian life. For this reason, "the center and essence of the Gospel proclamation is always the same: the God who manifested his immense love in Christ who died and rose from the dead" (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 11). However, the content of the Paschal Mystery, the mystery of the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, and its relationship with our liturgical celebrations is often far removed from the Christian of today. Why is this so?
The core of the problem was pointed out by the then Cardinal Ratzinger in his book A New Song for the Lord. There he recalled that the situation of faith and theology in Europe today is characterized, above all, by an ecclesial demoralization. The antithesis "Jesus yes, Church no" seems typical of the thinking of a generation. Behind this widespread opposition between Jesus and the Church lies a Christological problem. The true antithesis is expressed in the formula: "Jesus yes, Christ no", or "Jesus yes, Son of God no". We are therefore faced with an essential Christological question.
For many people Jesus appears as one of the decisive men who existed in humanity. They approach Jesus, so to speak, from the outside. Great scholars recognize his spiritual and moral stature and his influence on human history, comparing him to Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and other sages and "great" figures of history. But they fail to recognize him in his uniqueness. In reality, as Benedict XVI forcefully affirmed, "if people forget God, it is also because the person of Jesus is often reduced to a wise man and his divinity is weakened, if not denied. This way of thinking prevents us from grasping the radical novelty of Christianity, for if Jesus is not the only Son of the Father, then neither has God come to visit the history of man, we have only human ideas of God. On the contrary, the incarnation is part of the very heart of the Gospel!".
Forgetfulness of God
We can then ask ourselves: to what is this forgetfulness of God due? Logically, there are various causes: the reduction of the world to the empirically demonstrable, the reduction of human life to the existential, and so on. We will now focus on one that seems fundamental to us: the loss of the image of God, of the living and true God, which has been advancing unceasingly since the Enlightenment.
Deism has practically imposed itself on the general consciousness. It is no longer possible to conceive of a God who cares for individuals and who acts in the world. God may have originated the initial outburst of the universe, if there was one, but in an enlightened world there is nothing left for him to do. It is not accepted that God comes so alive within my life. God may be a spiritual idea, an uplifting complement to my life, but he is something rather undefined in the subjective sphere. It seems almost ridiculous to imagine that our good or bad actions are of interest to him; so small are we before the greatness of the universe. It seems mythological to attribute some actions in the world to it. There may be unclarified phenomena, but other causes must be sought. Superstition seems more founded than faith; the gods - that is to say the unexplained powers in the course of our life, and with which it is necessary to put an end - are more credible than God.
Why the Cross?
Now, if God has nothing to do with us, he also prescribes the idea of sin. Thus, that a human act can offend God is already unimaginable for many. There is no room left for redemption in the classical sense of Catholic doctrine, because it hardly occurs to anyone to seek the cause of the evils of the world and of one's own existence in sin.
In this regard, the words of the Pope Emeritus are illuminating: "If we ask ourselves: Why the cross? the answer, in radical terms, is this: because there is evil, indeed, sin, which, according to Scripture, is the deepest cause of all evil. But this statement is not something that can be taken for granted, and many reject the very word 'sin', for it presupposes a religious vision of the world and of man. And it is true: if God is removed from the horizon of the world, one cannot speak of sin. Just as when the sun is hidden the shadows disappear - the shadow only appears when there is sun - in the same way the eclipse of God necessarily entails the eclipse of sin. Therefore, the sense of sin - which is not the same as the 'sense of guilt', as psychology understands it - is reached by rediscovering the sense of God. This is expressed in the Psalm Miserere, attributed to King David on the occasion of his double sin of adultery and murder: 'Against you,' says David, addressing God, 'I have sinned against you alone' (Ps 51:6)".
In a way of thinking in which the concept of sin and redemption finds no place, there can be no room either for a Son of God who comes into the world to redeem us from sin and who dies on the cross for this cause. This explains the radical change in the idea of worship and liturgy, which after a long gestation is taking hold: its primary subject is not God or Christ, but the "we" of the celebrants. Nor can it have worship as its primary meaning, for which there is no reason in a deistic scheme. Nor is it possible to think of atonement, sacrifice, forgiveness of sins. What is important is that the celebrants of the community recognize and confirm each other and come out of the isolation in which modern existence plunges the individual. It is a matter of expressing the experiences of liberation, joy, reconciliation, denouncing the negative and encouraging action. For this reason, the community has to make its own liturgy and not receive it from unintelligible traditions; it represents and celebrates itself" (J. Ratzinger).
Liturgy: rediscovering the Paschal Mystery
A careful reading of this diagnosis can be a good stimulus for a fruitful examination of conscience about liturgical celebrations, about our liturgical feeling. At the same time, it is probably now a little better understood why, on many occasions, the Paschal Mystery and its celebration-actualization do not constitute the center either of the liturgical celebration or of the life of the community and of each Christian.
The answer to this deistic approach is to rediscover the Paschal Mystery. It is understandable, in all its force, that St. John Paul II affirmed in the Apostolic Letter Vicesimus Quintus Annus: "Since the death of Christ on the Cross and his Resurrection constitute the center of the Church's daily life and the pledge of her eternal Easter, the Liturgy has as its primary function to lead us constantly along the paschal path inaugurated by Christ, in which we accept to die in order to enter into life". Sunday after Sunday, the community, called together by the Lord, grows, or at least tries to do so, in the awareness of this reality that fills us with wonder.
And when we are about to begin the holiest days of the year that lead us to celebrate the Lord's resurrection, let us not travel the road too quickly. "Let us not forget something very simple, which perhaps sometimes escapes us: we cannot participate in our Lord's Resurrection if we do not unite ourselves to his Passion and death" (St. Josemaría). Let us therefore follow the advice of Pope Francis: "In these days of the Holy Triduum, let us not limit ourselves to commemorating our Lord's Passion, but let us enter into the mystery, let us make our own his sentiments, his attitudes, as the Apostle Paul invites us to do: 'Have among yourselves the sentiments proper to Christ Jesus' (Phil 2:5). Then our Easter will be a 'happy Easter'".
