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The Passion & The Cross - A Covenant Sealed in Blood
The Passion & The Cross - A Covenant Sealed in Blood
To the Leader: There are several ways you can go about this session depending on the emphasis and arrangement of the content you choose. Our theme is The Passion & the Cross as the fulfillment of God’s covenant and the means of our salvation. Everything should point toward: Jesus as mediator of the New Covenant, His obedience, suffering, and death as redemptive, and Our participation through faith and the Church. Here is our recommendation for options after reading the synopsis above to contrast the:
Read the Passion Narrative together (ideally) and then continue down the page in order: a dramatic/somber entrance followed by teaching about its significance from Scripture and tradition, then connect those ideas to prior sessions.
Have the Bible Study skim the Passion Narrative (for the sake of time), and then continue down the page in order
Use the Scripture and verses from the Catechism to introduce the passion, read or skim the Passion, and then discuss its context which would help connect what was just read with prior sessions and that connection forms the concluding thought(s)
Go through the context of Christ as a review from the previous session(s), the Scripture and Catechism content, and then read or skim the Passion as a somber ending to encourage further meditation, may be helpful during Lent.
Go through the context of Christ as a review from the previous session(s), read or skim the Passion, and carry those thoughts and ideas into a discussion of the Scripture and Catechism to help them see the connections directly and allow the Magisterium to seem more justified.
Above all invite them to contemplate the questions: “What does this tell us about our participation in salvation?” “How does Jesus’ obedience fulfill God’s covenant?”
Here are the parts of this session:
Review
Review
Share Passion Narrative with Bible Study
Share Passion Narrative with Bible Study
Have them scan the QR Code or send them this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EXyOJ7VU6GxIMe-3ldBiYYrcGBFVxpVz/view?usp=share_link
Notes of Conclusion or Introduction: Few symbols are as familiar to Christians as the cross, yet often, we forget its profound significance and the horror it represents. We can fail to grasp the true demands of the Christian life. Good Friday serves as a particular remembrance of the darkness of the Passion, when this instrument of torture became the means of salvation for all. In the midst of this, we must also ask: What does this have to do with me? Where do I fit into this time-transcending story? Here, indeed, is where we find our place.
The Passion Narrative (15-25 min)
The Passion Narrative (15-25 min)
Passion of the Lord according to John.pdf
The following would take about 10 minutes to read
From St. Ephrem
From St. Ephrem
Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.
Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure.
At length he came upon Eve, the mother of all the living. She was that vineyard whose enclosure her own hands had enabled death to violate, so that she could taste its fruit; thus the mother of all the living became the source of death for every living creature. But in her stead Mary grew up, a new vine in place of the old. Christ, the new life, dwelt within her. When death, with its customary impudence, came foraging for her mortal fruit, it encountered its own destruction in the hidden life that fruit contained. All unsuspecting, it swallowed him up, and in so doing released life itself and set free a multitude of men.
We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.
CCC 73: God has revealed himself fully by sending his own Son, in whom he has established his covenant for ever. The Son is his Father's definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him.
In Christ, God completed His work of drawing us back into relationship with Him as a people or rather allowing us personally a means to do so. He every continues this work in His Church and in/through each of us who are His "local"/corporeal Church
CCC 580: The perfect fulfillment of the Law could be the work of none but the divine legislator, born subject to the Law in the person of the Son. In Jesus, the Law no longer appears engraved on tables of stone but "upon the heart" of the Servant who becomes "a covenant to the people", because he will "faithfully bring forth justice". Jesus fulfills the Law to the point of taking upon himself "the curse of the Law" incurred by those who do not "abide by the things written in the book of the Law, and do them", for his death took place to redeem them "from the transgressions under the first covenant".
Jesus absorbed the curse or destruction condition of the covenants, taking on our part of the Covenant.
CCC 436: The word "Christ" comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means "anointed". It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that "Christ" signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for prophets. This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to inaugurate his kingdom definitively. It was necessary that the Messiah be anointed by the Spirit of the Lord at once as king and priest, and also as prophet. Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet and king.
Jesus Fulfilled the Prophets
Dei Verbum Chapter I - Revelation Itself, Articles 2-6
Brackets are cited references by the Council not necessary to share with the GroupDei Verbum Chapter I - Revelation Itself, Articles 2-6
In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will (see Eph. 1:9) by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature (see Eph. 2:18; 2 Peter 1:4). Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God (see Col. 1;15, 1 Tim. 1:17) out of the abundance of His love speaks to men as friends (see Ex. 33:11; John 15:14-15) and lives among them (see Bar. 3:38), so that He may invite and take them into fellowship with Himself. This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them. By this revelation then, the deepest truth about God and the salvation of man shines out for our sake in Christ, who is both the mediator and the fullness of all revelation. (cf. Matt. 11:27; John 1:14 and 17; 14:6; 17:1-3; 2 Cor 3:16 and 4, 6; Eph. 1, 3-14.)
God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20). Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents. Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2). Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.
Then, after speaking in many and varied ways through the prophets, "now at last in these days God has spoken to us in His Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). For He sent His Son, the eternal Word, who enlightens all men, so that He might dwell among men and tell them of the innermost being of God (see John 1:1-18). Jesus Christ, therefore, the Word made flesh, was sent as "a man to men."
[“Was it then, as one might suppose, to exercise tyranny, or to inspire fear and terror, that He sent Him? By no means; but in gentleness and meekness. As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so sent He Him; as God He sent Him, as to men He sent Him, as a Saviour He sent Him, and as one seeking to persuade, not to compel us; for violence has no place in the character of God.” Epistle to Diognetus, c. VII, 4: Funk, Apostolic Fathers, I, p. 403.]
He "speaks the words of God" (John 3;34), and completes the work of salvation which His Father gave Him to do (see John 5:36; John 17:4). To see Jesus is to see His Father (John 14:9). For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.
The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away, and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Tim. 6:14 and Tit. 2:13).
"The obedience of faith" (Rom. 16:26; see 1:5; 2 Cor 10:5-6) "is to be given to God who reveals, an obedience by which man commits his whole self freely to God, offering the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals," [Click here for Citation source; Chapter 3] and freely assenting to the truth revealed by Him. To make this act of faith, the grace of God and the interior help of the Holy Spirit must precede and assist, moving the heart and turning it to God, opening the eyes of the mind and giving "joy and ease to everyone in assenting to the truth and believing it."
[Can. 7. If anyone affirms that without the illumination and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,--who gives to all sweetness in consenting to and believing in the truth,--through the strength of nature he can think anything good which pertains to the salvation of eternal life, as he should, or choose, or consent to salvation, that is to the evangelical proclamation, he is deceived by the heretical spirit, not understanding the voice of God speaking in the Gospel: "Without me you can do nothing" [John 15:5]; and that of the Apostle: Not that we are fit to think everything by ourselves as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is, from God [2 Cor. 3:5; cf. St. Augustine].; [The definition of faith]. Since man is wholly dependent on God as his Creator and Lord, and since created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound by faith to give full obedience of intellect and will to God who reveals [can. 1]. But the Catholic Church professes that this faith, which "is the beginning of human salvation" [cf. n. 801], is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived [can. 2]. For, "faith is," as the Apostle testifies, "the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not" [Heb. 11:1].]
To bring about an ever deeper understanding of revelation, the same Holy Spirit constantly brings faith to completion by His gifts.
Through divine revelation, God chose to show forth and communicate Himself and the eternal decisions of His will regarding the salvation of men. That is to say, He chose to share with them those divine treasures which totally transcend the understanding of the human mind.
[[ The necessity of revelation].Indeed, it must be attributed to this divine revelation that those things, which in divine things are not impenetrable to human reason by itself, can, even in this present condition of the human race, be known readily by all with firm certitude and with no admixture of error.* Nevertheless, it is not for this reason that revelation is said to be absolutely necessary, but because God in His infinite goodness has ordained man for a supernatural end, to participation, namely, in the divine goods which altogether surpass the understanding of the human mind, since "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him" [ 1 Cor. 2:9 ; can. 2 and 3].]
As a sacred synod has affirmed, God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason (see Rom. 1:20); but teaches that it is through His revelation that those religious truths which are by their nature accessible to human reason can be known by all men with ease, with solid certitude and with no trace of error, even in this present state of the human race.
[[The fact of positive supernatural revelation] .The same Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certitude by the natural light of human reason from created things; "for the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" [ Rom 1:20]; nevertheless, it has pleased His wisdom and goodness to reveal Himself and the eternal decrees of His will to the human race in another and supernatural way, as the Apostle says: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son" [Heb.1:1 f; can. 1].]
Standard Handout
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The Essential Story of Scripture Study Handouts Data Only.pdfHandout With Referenced Scripture Passages
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The Essential Story of Scripture Study Handouts.pdfOptional Content
Optional Content
Music
Music
Listen to the song and consider the gift that the cross is in knowing how loved we are, and how suffering is a path to God.
Bishop Barron
Bishop Barron
Largely about the Pain and its Meaning. Undoing sin is enduring pain well
The profound theological significance of the crucifixion: how Jesus’ uniquely horrific death accomplishes the transformative work of humanity’s redemption, as explored in Fleming Rut’s reflections on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo and the theory of satisfaction.
“Responding to Jesus’ Passion: devotion, failure, and the call to affirm Him as Son of God.”
“Mark’s Passion invites us to respond to Christ with extravagant love, steadfast faith, and courageous discipleship.”
“The cross, once a symbol of cruelty, becomes the site of God’s redemptive descent into human sin.”
“The Messiah saves not by might, but by bearing the world’s suffering.”
Passion Narratives Comparison
For greater insight (Click code to see link)Passion Narratives Comparison
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