Transcript

St. Thomas' discussion of the life of Christ culminates in a soaring exposition of the Paschal Mystery: Christ's Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and reigning in glory at the right hand of the Father.

We should recall that for Aquinas, all of the deeds and sufferings of Christ's life are saving, but in these final events, we see salvation offered in potent and concentrated form.

Christ's ministry crescendos in this pinnacle.

Aquinas argues that in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, we can see a two-fold mediation, what we can term ascending and descending mediation.

Ascending mediation is that activity by which Christ, as man, intercedes before the Father or impetrates on our behalf.

For example, Christ prays for us, beseeching the Father as one of us.

Think here of Christ's prayer from the cross: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

In descending mediation, Christ acts as the God-man through the instrumentality of his human nature to bestow divine things upon the human race.

For example, Christ, as God, gives the world grace through the medium of his human actions, even in the midst of his suffering.

Think here of his assurance to the good thief: Today you will be with me in Paradise.

We have to account for both of these aspects in our depiction of redemption.

When he turns to consider the Passion, Aquinas first argues that it was not necessary for Christ to suffer to save us from our sins, but that it was fitting that he did so.

God could have saved the world by other means, yet he chose to redeem us through the suffering of Jesus for a reason.

Most essentially, Christ's suffering is instructive; we learn from it, for example, both the gravity of human sin and the intensity of divine love.

The gravity of sin is illustrated by the fact that God chooses to live a human life among us and suffer a human death for us at our hands to manifest the seriousness of human evil.

The intensity of divine love is illustrated from the very gratuity of this decision.

God did not have to suffer with this intensity in order to redeem us, but he fittingly did so to manifest to us the depths of the love he has for the world.

Christ's sufferings were especially acute, as Aquinas notes.

He suffered a form of execution preceded by torture and public ridicule, and a form of death that impacted his bodily members in the most sensitive places, exposing him to prolonged physical agony.

He witnessed abandonment by his friends, rejection by his people, condemnation by the civic government, and cruel treatment by his enemies, and experienced all of this both in body and in soul.

Most especially, he experienced inward knowledge of the depths of human sin and confronted this reality with the deepest charity and therefore the deepest mournfulness or contrition of heart that any human being has ever known.

At the same time, Christ is consoled on the cross in his human soul by the knowledge he has of the Father, of the victory of divine life that is occurring through his Passion, and by the confident hope he has in the eventual resurrection of his flesh.

How does this human suffering of God act to save the world?

Jesus does not will the evil of his torture or his execution.

The fact that he is subject to these events illustrates the moral failure of the human race and, in a sense, exposes the sinfulness of humanity once and for all.

However, Christ does undergo the Passion willingly, allowing himself to be subject to the collective evils of the human race so as to manifest his love for the world.

In doing so, he acts meritoriously to effectuate our salvation.

Aquinas argues that it is the charity of Christ that is at the heart of his meritorious activity.

When he accepts the cross out of obedience to the Father and for our sake, he does so out of love, and he obeys by love even in the Passion and crucifixion unto death.

In doing so, he offers to God a human love of righteousness that is of untold worth or of infinite value.

Christ's self-offering is distinct from that of all others because he is not only human but is also God, so his human actions are of infinite dignity.

To atone is to reconcile or make one, literally to put God and man through at-one-ment.

Christ can do this in virtue of his merits as a sinless man and his infinite dignity as God, in and through the suffering of the Passion out of love.

What are the effects of the Passion?

In virtue of Christ's merits, we are freed from sin, delivered from the power of evil and the devil, freed from the debt of punishment for our own sins, reconciled with God, and offered the possibility of eternal life.

Of course, none of this happens automatically; without us, we have to cooperate with the grace of Christ to receive these benefits.

However, Christ, in his glory, can communicate these graces to us effectively, not only as God but also as man through the descending mediation we have mentioned above.

How should we understand the Resurrection of Christ?

St. Thomas gives us a few reasons why it was necessary that Christ should rise.

First, to commend divine justice, that his love and obedience be exalted and his innocence vindicated.

Second, to instruct us in faith by confirming belief in his Godhead; the Resurrection manifests that he is the eternal Son of God.

Third, in order to encourage our hope by looking to him as the first fruits of the Resurrection and the cause of our own.

Finally, the Resurrection helps us to order our lives by orienting us toward a new life, advancing us effectively toward beatitude.

The glorification of Christ's humanity in the Resurrection pertains to both his body and soul.

In his soul, the beatitude of his human mind and heart extends to all his sensate powers and vegetative powers, and through these powers to all his body.

We might say that the complete human subjectivity of Christ is glorified or radiated by the grace of the Resurrection.

In his body, Christ's flesh is changed from within, preserved but also elevated to a higher state, spiritualized.

In the Resurrection, Christ is impassible.

Meaning he cannot suffer anymore and that his body is preserved in incorruptibility forever by the power of God.

His body is subtle and agile, Aquinas says, indicating that it becomes proportioned more perfectly to the ends of spiritual life.

For example, his body is now perfectly subject to his soul.

Also, Christ in his glorified state can appear to human beings when he wishes, as he did in the apparitions to the apostles.

His body also enjoys splendor or clarity, by which he can enlighten others to his glory through his flesh, as in his apparition to Saul of Tarsus.

In all these ways, Christ's human nature is exalted perennially as he reigns over the course of history and is the first principle of a new creation.

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