the Paschal Mystery as Center of Salvation

From the earliest days of the Church, Christians have confessed that the saving work of Jesus Christ reaches its summit in His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. These events, inseparably united, form what Catholic tradition calls the Paschal Mystery. It is not merely one theme among many in Christian doctrine, nor a poetic way of describing the end of Christ's earthly life. Rather, it is the very heart of the Gospel, the axis around which the entire economy of salvation turns, the decisive act by which God reconciles the world to Himself and ushers humanity into the life of grace. To contemplate the Paschal Mystery is to stand before the central drama of divine love, the moment in which the eternal plan of God reaches its fulfillment in the self-offering of His Son.