Repentance - Thoughts During This Easter Season

His name was Dismas. For way too long he had to bear the insults and the jokes hurled at a man he didn’t think deserved it. These people’s emotions were out of control! But not the man to his right; he was in perfect control. Gestas was even insulting this man. What a fool! Other than the occasional grunt of discomfort from the enormous pain this man was enduring, the man to his right said nothing.  He almost looked upon them with pity. Not revengeful pity; but a deep loving remorse.

How could a man under such intense suffering seem to love these enemies of His? Finally, Dismas had had enough. “Have you no fear of God,” he asked Gestas, “for you are subject to the same condemnation? This man has done nothing criminal." Then, he said to the man to his right, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

"Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise," said Jesus to a perfect confession from a contrite penitent.

To repent is to “feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one's sin. But, one must first recognize sin. Recognizing sin means understanding that we don’t get to define right or wrong for ourselves. Right and wrong are defined for us by God. It has been handed to us through the Ten Commandments. Next, we must recognize the consequences of sin. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s pretty clear.

Lastly, we must recognize the Sacrament of Penance is a sacrament instituted by Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The very first command Jesus gives to the Apostles the first time He appears to them after his resurrection is “(Jesus) said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’“ That’s pretty clear too.

Resurrection - Thoughts During This Easter Season

“Inconceivable!” cried Vincent, the Sicilian, on many occasions in “The Princess Bride.” Certainly a term used by women who discovered Jesus missing from the tomb, by the Apostles upon being told about Jesus, and still by us today when trying to comprehend this event.

It becomes even less difficult for us to believe this when we deeply consider what was lost in the Garden of Eden. One of the best ways to understand how well Adam and Even really had it when they lived there is to examine the curses they were now under after their sin. The most compelling of these curses was this:

“For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return."

A crushing punishment indeed! You see, before this Adam and Eve were They lived in a permanent state of sanctifying grace.  God provided everything to them that they needed, including the capacity to take care of themselves effortlessly.

On Easter Sunday, Jesus restored our ability to live in sanctifying grace here on earth in this temporary living arrangement; then later, to live in sanctifying grace with the Father, under His care, in His constant presence, effortlessly and eternally.

Redemption - Thoughts During This Easter Season

A redeemer is one who pays a price to regain something lost. And what a price our Savior paid for saving the world from original sin and the actual sins of men since Eden and forever in the future. We are reminded of the chief sufferings of Christ in the Sorrowful Mystery of the Holy Rosary: the agony in the garden; the scourging at the pillar; the crowing with thorns; the carrying of the cross; the crucifixion and death.

In order for this redemption to be effective – for both the past and the future – it had to be “a sacrifice of infinite merit and infinite completion of which can only be done by an infinite being.” And with such humility was this sacrifice carried out.  Not once did Our Lord lose control of his emotions.

To fully understand this event, we must fully and completely open our hearts to understand the need for this redemption. The gates to Heaven had been closed because of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve bought the biggest lie of all: that God doesn’t love us completely and unconditionally.

We know what was lost in Eden by the curses that Adam and Eve were not going to forebear:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

"I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain shall you bring forth children.”

“Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master."

"Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat...”

“For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return."

Each of these curses tell us what it was that Adam and Eve did NOT have to worry about before this all happened: no enmity between Satan and them; no childbearing pains; no hardship with labor to feed themselves; no exploitation of women by men; no immortality. This was what was lost in Eden. This is what Jesus came to restore.