From this loving knowledge of Christ springs the desire to proclaim him, to "evangelize", and to lead others to the "yes" of faith in Jesus Christ. But at the same time the need to know this faith better makes itself felt. To this end, following the order of the Creed, Jesus' principal titles - "Christ", "Son of God", and "Lord" (article 2) - will be presented. the Creed next confesses the chief mysteries of his life - those of his Incarnation (article 3), Paschal Mystery (articles 4 and 5) and glorification (articles 6 and 7).

The altar of the New Covenant is the Lord's Cross, 59 from which the sacraments of the Paschal Mystery flow. On the altar, which is the center of the Church, the Sacrifice of the Cross is made present under sacramental signs. the altar is also the table of the Lord, to which the People of God are invited. 60 In certain Eastern liturgies, the altar is also the symbol of the tomb (Christ truly died and is truly risen).

From the first community of Jerusalem until the parousia, it is the same Paschal Mystery that the Churches of God, Faithful to the apostolic faith, celebrate in every place. the mystery celebrated in the liturgy is one, but the forms of its celebration are diverse.

The essential rite of the sacrament follows: Baptism properly speaking. It signifies and actually brings about death to Sin and entry into the life of the Most Holy Trinity through configuration to the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Baptism is performed in the most expressive way by triple immersion in the baptismal water. However, from ancient times it has also been able to be conferred by pouring the water three times over the candidate's head.

"Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal Mystery." 62 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

"At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his Body and Blood. This he did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until he should come again, and so to entrust to his beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of his death and Resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'" 133

Thus from celebration to celebration, as they proclaim the Paschal Mystery of Jesus "until he comes," the pilgrim People of God advances, "following the narrow way of the Cross," 168 toward the heavenly banquet, when all the elect will be seated at the table of the kingdom.

Is this not the same movement as the Paschal meal of the risen Jesus with his disciples? Walking with them he explained the Scriptures to them; sitting with them at table "he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them." 172

In the Latin Rite the celebration of marriage between two Catholic Faithful normally takes place during Holy Mass, because of the connection of all the sacraments with the Paschal Mystery of Christ. 120 In the Eucharist the memorial of the New Covenant is realized, the New Covenant in which Christ has united himself for ever to the Church, his beloved bride for whom he gave himself up. 121 It is therefore fitting that the spouses should seal their consent to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives by uniting it to the offering of Christ for his Church made present in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and by receiving the Eucharist so that, communicating in the same Body and the same Blood of Christ, they may form but "one body" in Christ. 122

Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it. "For well-disposed members of the Faithful, the liturgy of the sacraments and sacramentals sanctifies almost every event of their lives with the divine grace which flows from the Paschal Mystery of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. From this source all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power. There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot be thus directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God." 174

The Christian meaning of death is revealed in the light of the Paschal Mystery of the death and Resurrection of Christ in whom resides our only hope. the Christian who dies in Christ Jesus is "away from the body and at home with the Lord." 183

The different funeral rites express the Paschal character of Christian death and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as to the color of the liturgical vestments worn. 186

The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in Church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death. 189 In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and Resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his Sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table of the Kingdom. 190 It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of the Faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion with the one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by communicating in the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then, by praying for him and with him.

The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life. "Sunday is the day on which the Paschal Mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church." 110

We learn to pray at certain moments by hearing the Word of the Lord and sharing in his Paschal Mystery, but his Spirit is offered us at all times, in the events of each day, to make prayer spring up from us. Jesus' teaching about praying to our Father is in the same vein as his teaching about providence: 12 time is in the Father's hands; it is in the present that we encounter him, not yesterday nor tomorrow, but today: "O that today you would hearken to his voice! Harden not your hearts." 13

Contemplative prayer is a communion of love bearing Life for the multitude, to the extent that it consents to abide in the night of faith. the Paschal night of the Resurrection passes through the night of the agony and the tomb - the three intense moments of the Hour of Jesus which his Spirit (and not "the flesh [which] is weak") brings to life in prayer. We must be willing to "keep watch with (him) one hour." 14

When the Church keeps the memorials of martyrs and other saints during the annual cycle, she proclaims the Paschal Mystery in those "who have suffered and have been glorified with Christ. She proposes them to the Faithful as examples who draw all men to the Father through Christ, and through their merits she begs for God's favors." 45

In the liturgical year the various aspects of the one Paschal Mystery unfold. This is also the case with the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany). They commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery.

"By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very day of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal Mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord's Day or Sunday." 36 The day of Christ's Resurrection is both the first day of the week, the memorial of the first day of creation, and the "eighth day," on which Christ after his "rest" on the great sabbath inaugurates the "day that the Lord has made," the "day that knows no evening." 37 The Lord's Supper is its center, for there the whole community of the Faithful encounters the risen Lord who invites them to his banquet: 38

The Gospels report that at two solemn moments, the Baptism and the Transfiguration of Christ, the voice of the Father designates Jesus his "beloved Son". 53 Jesus calls himself the "only Son of God", and by this title affirms his eternal pre-existence. 54 He asks for faith in "the name of the only Son of God". 55 In the centurion's exclamation before the crucified Christ, "Truly this man was the Son of God", 56 that Christian confession is already heard. Only in the Paschal Mystery can the believer give the title "Son of God" its full meaning.

Concerning Christ's life the Creed speaks only about the mysteries of the Incarnation (conception and birth) and Paschal Mystery (passion, crucifixion, death, burial, descent into hell, Resurrection and ascension). It says nothing explicitly about the mysteries of Jesus' hidden or public life, but the articles of faith concerning his Incarnation and Passover do shed light on the whole of his earthly life. "All that Jesus did and taught, from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven", 171 is to be seen in the light of the mysteries of Christmas and Easter.

Christ stands at the heart of this gathering of men into the "family of God". By his word, through signs that manifest the reign of God, and by sending out his disciples, Jesus calls all people to come together around him. But above all in the great Paschal Mystery - his death on the Cross and his Resurrection - he would accomplish the coming of his kingdom. "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself." Into this union with Christ all men are called. 250

The Paschal Mystery of Christ's Cross and Resurrection stands at the centre of the Good News that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the world. God's saving plan was accomplished "once for all" 313 by the redemptive death of his Son Jesus Christ.

After agreeing to baptize him along with the Sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world". 422 By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover. 423 Christ's whole life expresses his mission: "to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." 424

Christ's death is both the Paschal Sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through "the Lamb of God, who takes away the Sin of the world", 439 and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the "blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins". 440

The Cross is the unique Sacrifice of Christ, the "one mediator between God and men". 452 But because in his incarnate divine person he has in some way united himself to every man, "the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the Paschal Mystery" is offered to all men. 453 He calls his disciples to "take up [their] cross and follow (him)", 454 for "Christ also suffered for (us), leaving (us) an example so that (we) should follow in his steps." 455 In fact Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. 456 This is achieved supremely in the case of his mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person in the mystery of his redemptive suffering. 457 Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven. 458

"We bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this day he has fulfilled to us their children by raiSing Jesus." 488 The Resurrection of Jesus is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal Mystery along with the Cross:

Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles - and Peter in particular - in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. the faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary "witnesses to his Resurrection", but they are not the only ones - Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a Single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles. 501

The Paschal Mystery has two aspects: by his death, Christ liberates us from Sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life. This new life is above all justification that reinstates us in God's grace, "so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." Justification consists in both victory over the death caused by sin and a new participation in grace. 526 It brings about filial adoption so that men become Christ's brethren, as Jesus himself called his disciples after his Resurrection: "Go and tell my brethren." 527 We are brethren not by nature, but by the gift of grace, because that adoptive filiation gains us a real share in the life of the only Son, which was fully revealed in his Resurrection.

"The wonderful works of God among the people of the Old Testament were but a prelude to the work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God. He accomplished this work principally by the Paschal Mystery of his blessed Passion, Resurrection from the dead, and glorious Ascension, whereby 'dying he destroyed our death, riSing he restored our life.' For it was from the side of Christ as he slept the sleep of death upon the Cross that there came forth 'the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church."' 3

In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal Mystery that Christ signifies and makes present. During his earthly life Jesus announced his Paschal mystery by his teaching and anticipated it by his actions. When his Hour comes, he lives out the unique event of history which does not pass away: Jesus dies, is buried, rises from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of the Father "once for all." 8 His Paschal mystery is a real event that occurred in our history, but it is unique: all other historical events happen once, and then they pass away, swallowed up in the past. the Paschal mystery of Christ, by contrast, cannot remain only in the past, because by his death he destroyed death, and all that Christ is - all that he did and suffered for all men - participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all. the event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.

It is on this harmony of the two Testaments that the Paschal catechesis of the Lord is built, 15 and then, that of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church. This catechesis unveils what lay hidden under the letter of the Old Testament: the Mystery of Christ. It is called "typological" because it reveals the newness of Christ on the basis of the "figures" (types) which announce him in the deeds, words, and symbols of the first covenant. By this re-reading in the Spirit of Truth, starting from Christ, the figures are unveiled. 16 Thus the flood and Noah's ark prefigured salvation by Baptism, 17 as did the cloud and the Crossing of the Red Sea. Water from the rock was the figure of the spiritual gifts of Christ, and manna in the desert prefigured the Eucharist, "the true bread from heaven." 18

Christian liturgy not only recalls the events that saved us but actualizes them, makes them present. the Paschal Mystery of Christ is celebrated, not repeated. It is the celebrations that are repeated, and in each celebration there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that makes the unique mystery present.

Jesus' words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already salvific, for they anticipated the power of his Paschal Mystery. They announced and prepared what he was going to give the Church when all was accomplished. the mysteries of Christ's life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for "what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries." 32

In this Paschal and sacrificial prayer, everything is recapitulated in Christ: 45 God and the world; the Word and the flesh; eternal life and time; the love that hands itself over and the Sin that betrays it; the disciples present and those who will believe in him by their word; humiliation and glory. It is the prayer of unity.