Lesson 8: On Our Lord's Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension

A. By Our Lord's Passion we mean His dreadful sufferings from His agony in the garden till the moment of His death.

A. Jesus Christ suffered a bloody sweat, a cruel scourging, was crowned with thorns, and was crucified.

A. Our Lord suffered the "bloody sweat" while drops of blood came forth from every pore of His body, during His agony in the Garden of Olives, near Jerusalem, where He went to pray on the night His Passion began.

A. The Apostles Peter, James and John, the same who had witnessed His transfiguration on the mount, accompanied Our Lord to the Garden of Olives, to watch and pray with Him on the night of His agony.

A. By the transfiguration of Our Lord we mean the supernatural change in His appearance when He showed Himself to His Apostles in great glory and brilliancy in which "His face did shine as the sun and His garments became white as snow."

A. There were present at the transfiguration -- besides the Apostles Peter, James and John, who witnessed it -- the two great and holy men of the Old Law, Moses and Elias, talking with Our Lord.

A It is believed Our Lord's agony in the garden was caused:

1.(1) By his clear knowledge of all He was soon to endure;

2.(2) By the sight of the many offenses committed against His Father by the sins of the whole world;

3.(3) By His knowledge of men's ingratitude for the blessings of redemption.

A. Christ was cruelly scourged by Pilate's orders, that the sight of His bleeding body might move His enemies to spare His life.

A. Christ was crowned with thorns in mockery because He had said He was a King.

A. Christ could, if He pleased, have escaped the tortures of His Passion, because He foresaw them and had it in His power to overcome His enemies.

A. It was not necessary for Christ to suffer so much in order to redeem us, for the least of His sufferings was more than sufficient to atone for all the sins of mankind. By suffering so much He showed His great love for us.

A. Judas, one of His Apostles, betrayed Our Lord, and from His sin we may learn that even the good may become very wicked by the abuse of their free will.

A. Through the influence of those who hated Him, Christ was condemned to death, after an unjust trial, at which false witnesses were induced to testify against Him.

A. Christ died on Good Friday.

A. We call that day good on which Christ died because by His death He showed His great love for man, and purchased for him every blessing.

A. Our Lord was hanging on the Cross about three hours before He died. While thus suffering, His enemies stood around blaspheming and mocking Him. By His death He proved Himself a real mortal man, for He could not die in His divine nature.

A. We call the words Christ spoke while hanging on the Cross "the seven last words of Jesus on the Cross." They teach us the dispositions we should have at the hour of death.

A. The seven last words or sayings of Jesus on the Cross are:

1.(1) "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," in which He forgives and prays for His enemies.

2.(2) "Amen, I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise," in which He pardons the penitent sinner.

3.(3) "Woman, behold thy Son" -- "Behold thy Mother," in which He gave up what was dearest to Him on earth, and gave us Mary for our Mother.

4.(4) "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" from which we learn the suffering of His mind.

5.(5) "I thirst," from which we learn the suffering of His body.

6.(6) "All is consummated," by which He showed the fulfillment of all the prophecies concerning Him and the completion of the work of our redemption.

7.(7) "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," by which He showed His perfect resignation to the Will of His Eternal Father.

A. At the death of Our Lord there were darkness and earthquake; many holy dead came forth from their graves, and the veil concealing the Holy of Holies, in the Temple of Jerusalem, was torn asunder.

A. The Holy of Holies was the sacred part of the Temple, in which the Ark of the Covenant was kept, and where the high priest consulted the Will of God.

A. The Ark of the Covenant was a precious box in which were kept the tablets of stone bearing the written Commandments of God, the rod which Aaron changed into a serpent before King Pharao, and a portion of the manna with which the Israelites were miraculously fed in the desert. The Ark of the Covenant was a figure of the Tabernacle in which we keep the Holy Eucharist.

A. The veil of the Temple was torn asunder at the death of Christ because at His death the Jewish religion ceased to be the true religion, and God no longer manifested His presence in the Temple.

A. The Jewish religion, which, up to the death of Christ, had been the true religion, ceased at that time to be the true religion, because it was only a promise of the redemption and figure of the Christian religion, and when the redemption was accomplished and the Christian religion established by the death of Christ, the promise and the figure were no longer necessary.

A. The moral laws of the Jewish religion were not abolished by the establishment of Christianity, for Christ came not to destroy these laws, but to make them more perfect. Its ceremonial laws were abolished when the Temple of Jerusalem ceased to be the House of God.

A. By "moral" laws we mean laws regarding good and evil. By "ceremonial" laws we mean laws regulating the manner of worshipping God in Temple or Church.

A. Christ died on Mount Calvary.

A. Mount Calvary was the place of execution, not far from Jerusalem; and the name signifies the "place of skulls."

A. Christ was nailed to the Cross, and died on it between two thieves.

A. Our Lord was crucified between thieves that His enemies might thus add to His disgrace by making Him equal to the worst criminals.

A. Christ suffered and died for our sins.

A. Our Lord's body was wrapped in a clean linen cloth and laid in a new sepulchre or tomb cut in a rock, by Joseph of Arimathea and other pious persons who believed in Our Divine Lord.

A. From the sufferings and death of Christ we learn the great evil of sin, the hatred God bears to it, and the necessity of satisfying for it.

A. After Christ's death His soul descended into hell.

A. The hell into which Christ's soul descended was not the hell of the dammed, but a place or state of rest called Limbo, where the souls of the just were waiting for Him.

A. Christ descended into Limbo to preach to the souls who were in prison -- that is, to announce to them the joyful tidings of their redemption.

A. While Christ's soul was in Limbo His body was in the holy sepulchre.

A. Christ rose from the dead, glorious and immortal, on Easter Sunday, the third day after His death.

A. The Resurrection is the greatest of Christ's miracles because all He taught and did is confirmed by it and depends upon it. He promised to rise from the dead and without the fulfillment of that promise we could not believe in Him.

A. Unbelievers in Christ have tried to disprove the miracle of the resurrection as they have tried to disprove all His other miracles; but the explanations they give to prove Christ's miracles false are far more unlikely and harder to believe than the miracles themselves.

A. When we say Christ rose "glorious" from the dead we mean that His body was in a glorified state; that is, gifted with the qualities of a glorified body.

A. The qualities of a glorified body are:

1.(1) Brilliancy, by which it gives forth light;

2.(2) Agility, by which it moves from place to place as rapidly as an angel;

3.(3) Subtility, by which material things cannot shut it out;

4.(4) Impassibility, by which it is made incapable of suffering.

A. Christ was not three full days, but only parts of three days in the tomb.

A. Christ stayed on earth forty days after His resurrection, to show that He was truly risen from the dead, and to instruct His apostles.

A. Christ was not visible to all nor at all times during the forty days He remained on earth after His resurrection. We know that He appeared to His apostles and others at least nine times, though He may have appeared oftener.

A. Christ showed that He was truly risen from the dead by eating and conversing with His Apostles and others to whom He appeared. He showed the wounds in His hands, feet and side, and it was after His resurrection that He gave to His Apostles the power to forgive sins.

A. After forty days Christ ascended into heaven, and the day on which be ascended into heaven is calledAscension Day.

A. Christ ascended into heaven from Mount Olivet, the place made sacred by His agony on the night before His death.

A. From various parts of Scripture we may conclude there were about 125 persons -- though traditions tell us there was a greater number -- present at the Ascension. They were the Apostles, the Disciples, the pious women and others who had followed Our Blessed Lord. The souls of the just who were waiting in Limbo for the redemption ascended with Christ.

A. The paschal candle which is lighted on Easter morning signifies Christ's visible presence on earth, and it is extinguished on Ascension Day to show that He, having fulfilled all the prophecies concerning Himself and having accomplished the work of redemption, has transferred the visible care of His Church to His Apostles and returned in His body to heaven.

A. In heaven Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

A. When I say that Christ sits at the right hand of God I mean that Christ as God is equal to His Father in all things, and that as man He is in the highest place in heaven next to God.