“Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Lk 24:26).
In order to save us from sin and death, Christ did not have to undergo His Passion and Death, but could have offered only a drop of sweat or one drop of blood to His Father to save us. It was only for love that He suffered everything He did. Yet, insofar as He is God, as He is Love Itself, it was necessary that He suffer the things He did, so that He would enter into the “glory as of the only Son from the Father” (Jn 1:14). No one has or will ever suffer on this earth more than did Christ; nor will anyone ever love more than Christ did. While some may argue that others suffered more physically than Christ did, or even more mentally than He, He undoubtedly suffered more existentially than anyone else can.
He, God incarnate, became forsaken by God: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). The Father in a sense truly forsook Him, for the Son had taken on all the sin of the world – all sin that ever had been or ever would be committed. He became accursed, as St. Paul says, quoting Deuteronomy 21:23: “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal 3:13). Christ become “a curse for us,” redeeming “us from the curse of the law” of sin and death (Gal 3:13). Apart from Him, we have no life, but He gives us life to the full.
The Paschal Mystery is the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, largely quoting St. Augustine, sums it up beautifully: “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.’ For this reason, the Church celebrates in the liturgy above all the Paschal mystery by which Christ accomplished the work of our salvation” (CCC 1067).
Throughout the Old Testament, we see parallels to Christ, such as in words attributed to Christ, as in Psalm 55: “It is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to hold sweet converse together; within God’s house we walked in fellowship” (Ps 55:12-14). This verse reflects Judas’ betrayal of Christ – his trusted friend who turned against Him. In other places, we see types of Christ in His Pasch. For example, when serpents bit the Israelites, causing many of them to die, the Lord commanded Moses to put a bronze serpent on a pole and lift it up. Anyone who saw the serpent on the pole would live (Numbers 21:5-9). This occurrence has long been understood as a type of the suffering Christ, who in a sense became sin for us, was lifted up on the Cross, and anyone who turned to Him with love would be forgiven their sins, their spiritual sickness. Christ’s Passion was truly the fulfillment of all prophecy.
Christ humbled Himself beyond all comprehension because He loved us beyond all comprehension. He has made known the Father’s Name of “Mercy” to us and continues to make it known at every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so “that the love with which [the Father] hast loved [the Son] may be in [us], and [the Son] in [us]” (Jn 17:26). His Agony in the Garden, His scourging, His crowning with thorns, His carrying the cross, and His crucifixion, His entire Passion, manifests His Infinite Love, which He has poured out upon mankind.
Christ foretold His Passion many times in scripture: “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Lk 9:22). When Judas betrayed Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ’s disciples fled, as the scriptures foretold: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Mk 14:27; cf. Zech 13:7). We cannot say everything about the Passion here, for “the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” about it (Jn 21:25). Rather, feel free to read the Gospel accounts of the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ on your own to delve more deeply into the Mystery of our Redemption.