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BY HIM and WITH HIM and IN HIM

It was the kind of event that could only happen once. But then it started to happen all the time. It might even happen to you.

It happened once. Once, on a hill outside Jerusalem, Jesus died. He died and was buried, a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And three days later, God the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, raised his Son Jesus, never to die again.

It is the kind of thing that just cannot be repeated-a unique event, the dying and rising of Christ. We affirm this in the Eucharistic prayer, saying that Jesus made, "by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." The deed was done! On the cross, death was conquered and a new kind of life sprung from the tomb on Easter day. And this one-time event transformed those who witnessed and experienced it, empowering them to take the message of the resurrection out into the world.

And that is why I say it happens all the time. For when a person encounters the message of Jesus' death and resurrection, when they hear it and accept it and believe it, something mysterious happens. The person is somehow taken into the event of Christ's death and resurrection in a transforming way. St. Paul writes, "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4) Somehow, the unrepeatable event of the cross and empty tomb is repeated in the life of the believer. St. Paul was so bold to say, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

If you find that perspective hard to believe-that in Jesus Christ you have died, died already, and that you live in him and he in you-then I have a prescription for you. (It is a prescription for myself as well, since I, too, need to be reminded of this spiritual reality.) The prescription is this: do Lent, and then do Easter.

You see, the seasons of Lent and Easter are at the very heart of the Church Year and get at the heart of what Christian spirituality is about: living one's life by Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ. Thus, in Lent we walk with him through his passion. We endure our own small sufferings and abstentions to remind ourselves of his great suffering for us. In liturgical gatherings like the Stations of the Cross on Wednesdays and the services of Holy Week, we are with Jesus as he is betrayed, abandoned, arrested, mocked, and crucified. And then, we turn the corner and journey in him, into his death and burial. We begin Saturday's Easter Vigil dramatically in death and darkness and we end in light and the triumph of life. We celebrate anew the resurrection on Easter morn with hymns of triumphant praise, since Christ's victory is ours: in him, we have passed over from death to life; in him, we too are risen.

Maybe it can happen to you. Taking your place in the devotions of Lent and Easter, both in your personal piety and the church's liturgies, is sure to strengthen your identity in Christ. You will deepen your understanding of what St. Paul means when he says, "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3) And what you'll find is that the one-time event of the cross and resurrection is more and more a living reality in your heart and life.