The Paschal Mystery of the Christian faith is the mystery of the passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven of Jesus Christ. This is the core belief of the Christian faithful. Without the Paschal event, witnessed and proclaimed by the disciples of Jesus, there would be no faith based on the teachings and life of Christ. There would be no membership ever increasing, and currently over a billion in number. Jesus Christ would be relegated to a small byline of history and who knows what that history would have been.
Much of our culture and experience in these 2000 years since the time of Jesus bears marks of the phenomena of the faith in the Incarnation of the Word becoming man, taking on our sins, and conquering death for the redemption of the people of God. So, much of our history and experience has been affected by the appearance and life of an itinerate preacher from 1st century Nazareth.
At the first mention of the empty tomb, the fuse of the Christian Gospel ignited from the hollowness of the defeat of the crucifixion drama into a spirit-driven fireball through history. Mary of Magdala approached the tomb early in the morning and found it empty. She rushed to Peter and John to alert them that Jesus’ body was taken. Upon the disciples’ arrival at the tomb, the human understanding of the gospel message changed. “and he saw and believed.” John 20:8 “There is a definable beginning to this process of resurrection encounter, and it is the discovery of the absence of Jesus’ corpse.”1 From there the message of Jesus began to spread, although not fully comprehended. Through the weeks following the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to many people throughout the region. Stories and testimonials must have grown, not dependent on the Apostles themselves. These resurrection appearances are important to the life of the early community, though it does not appear that the details of each appearance are what is most important.2 What is important in these...